Following theatre incident, JOAN SMITH asks why anyone thinks gender-neutral toilets are sensible

The interval was almost over at my local theatre, the Lyric in London’s Hammersmith, and yet I was nervous at the bathroom door. A sign on it, in a flowing script, was what had caused my hesitation: ‘Bathrooms, all genders welcome.’

I had never used an ‘all gender’ toilet before, one that, unlike trains or planes, both men and women can use at the same time.

The thought made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. And when I opened the door, I froze.

To my left were five urinals. At the far end, the door just a couple of feet from the row of urinals, was a lone stall.

The space was empty, but it was clear that in order to use the cubicle, women were expected to walk past a line of urinating men.

And God forbid if, as in most theaters and other entertainment venues without proper facilities for women, there is a queue.

Did the theater bosses really think this was acceptable for women? Or men, for that matter?

With time running out, he had no choice. But before I could leave, a man entered to use the facilities. We look at each other with the same horror. He clearly felt just as uncomfortable as I did.

Shocked, I snapped an all-gender bathroom photo and posted it on Twitter to see if anyone felt the same way.

‘Awful ‘public’ toilets at the Lyric Hammersmith,’ I wrote. Five urinals and a women’s cubicle? Who really wants this?

By the time the final curtain fell, the photo had been viewed thousands of times and the messages were pouring in.

‘The Lyric has already had complaints about this, but here we are still,’ a woman told me.

‘I won’t go there anymore,’ said another. “They have ignored my questions about their setup and are clearly not interested.” A week later, my tweet has been viewed 867,000 times and liked by 4,500 people. Most who have been in contact don’t want ‘gender-neutral’ bathrooms in theaters or anywhere else, but they seem to be popping up everywhere.

Of course, the Lyric also has what it calls “genre-specific” bathrooms for those willing to seek them out. But other theatres, including the Barbican Center and the Old Vic, have introduced similar facilities for all.

How, as a society, did anyone ever think this was a good idea?

In the 19th century, women could not leave the house without calculating how long they would be outdoors and where they could find almost non-existent public facilities. Activists for women’s restrooms called it the ‘urinary strap’.

It was a huge step forward when women’s baths finally became part of the architecture of everyday life. But the days when these were known as ‘utilities’ seem to be over.

There’s nothing remotely convenient about being forced to share bathrooms with the opposite sex. Most of the women I know don’t want that: men’s bathrooms are notoriously unsanitary, by their own admission.

But men also don’t want us to queue up behind them while they pee. However, today, women’s toilets are being sacrificed for gender ideology.

The idea is that the small number of transgender or non-binary people, who do not identify as male or female, feel more comfortable in shared facilities, or at least not distinguish between the biological sexes.

Before anyone knew what was happening, women’s baths began to disappear, and with them a woman’s right to challenge any man who entered one.

Personally, I don’t believe in the idea of ​​an innate ‘gender identity’ that can be different from your biological sex. It’s unscientific nonsense, and the modern equivalent of claiming the Earth is flat. Altering the world to accommodate the minority of people who believe this seems silly.

According to the 2021 census, just 0.5 per cent of people in England and Wales said their gender identity was different from their registered sex at birth.

It is ironic that organizations that boast of being ‘inclusive’ seem happy to ignore anyone who disagrees with them, especially if the objections come from middle-aged or older women, who make up a much larger proportion of the population.

The argument thrown back at us is that not all men, or all trans women, are a danger to women. That is, of course, true. But the problem is that some are, and we can’t tell the difference.

The only solution is to keep them all out of our bathrooms.

The government agrees, announcing last summer that all new public buildings should have separate toilets for men and women.

Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch has also said that schools should not have gender-neutral toilets for “privacy”.

What Lyric believes is unclear. He hasn’t responded to my tweets, nor to a polite email I sent them.

As a resident of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, who currently funds the Lyric to the tune of £230,000 a year, I asked how he consulted the public before making the change, and how many complaints he’s had.

His current production is the farce Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Italian playwright Dario Fo.

But the real charade is just outside the auditorium, behind a door marked “gender-neutral restrooms.”