An academic described her horror at being faced by a man using a urinal while trying to use a gender neutral so-called ‘inclusive’ bathroom at a museum.
Sarahjane Jones, a 35-year-old assistant professor, described her experience at Manchester’s publicly-funded Science and Industry Museum as “wholly terrible” on social media.
Ms Jones, an assistant professor of patient safety at Staffordshire University, was at a Health Research Authority conference yesterday when she encountered the obtrusive bathroom arrangement.
‘I just entered this ‘inclusive toilet’ to see a male using a urinal, which I would have had to go past to use the cubicle,’ she subsequently said on Twitter. This is not an inclusive example! ‘It’s also completely inappropriate.’
She tagged both the museum and the HRA in the post, which included a photo of the toilet door with outline silhouettes representing male, female, and a third, non-binary.
Thousands of people liked, shared, and commented on the post.
‘Madness,’ ‘traumatizing,’ ‘Urinals shouldn’t be in inclusive restrooms,’ and ‘A excellent reason to avoid places like this,’ were among the most common responses. Nobody should be forced to share a bathroom with someone of the opposite gender!’
‘So flashing your todger in a public inclusive toilet is alright but it’s an offence in public?’ remarked another. Surely, urinals should not be located in inclusive restrooms where women and children must pass by?’
‘Frankly, I have given up attempting to understand the world these days,’ wrote another.
Some, though, retaliated against Ms Jones. ‘I’m so perplexed???’ wrote one. You want equality and inclusion, but you don’t trust men enough to go past them while they’re p***ing? Maybe we don’t like it when a woman’s bosom is out breastfeeding, but that’s entirely natural, isn’t it?
Her story is the latest in a long line of similar controversies in which organizations have raced to be more ‘inclusive,’ but have enraged many women in the process.
Audiences spending hundreds of pounds to watch Oscar-nominated actor Eddie Redmayne in the hit West End musical Cabaret were up in arms earlier this year over similarly gender neutral restrooms.
It happened after the ‘ladies’ and ‘gents’ restrooms at London’s Playhouse Theatre, where Redmayne was starring with Jessie Buckley in Cabaret, for which tickets can cost up to £250, were merged.
‘For a play with ticket prices in the hundreds, the facilities at Cabaret are an absolute joke,’ one woman theatregoer complained. We wanted to witness gender fluidity on stage, not in the dreaded bathroom line. Sharing with males is obnoxious and intrusive.’
The Barbican and Old Vic theatres, among others, have faced similar anger over ‘inclusive’ toilets.
According to a recent poll, 40% of Britons oppose gender-neutral bathrooms.
The Science Museum and Ms Jones have both been approached for comment.
The museum is part of the Science Museum Group, a non-departmental public agency under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport, whose secretary of state, Nadine Dorries, has publicly criticized portions of the expansion of trans rights.