Can you actually get in trouble for using an empty women’s single-cubicle toilet at work?

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poptimist185@reddit

Just make sure when you have you HR meetup that you use the word “crowning”

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FlakeyBeano@reddit

Turtles head was getting curious. But seriously, if the rooms are all self contained they should all be unisex. In fact turn it around and complain it's not so.

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DefinatelyAlwaysLost@reddit

Or say ibs....and now they cant say anything! You can have undiagnosed ibs issues

I have never been in a ladies loo that stinks the way men’s toilets do.

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D-1-S-C-0@reddit

There was a "stink" at work over this. Women wanted their own toilets because they kept finding the cubicles and toilet bowls filthy and messy.

The issue continued after the gendered toilets came into force, so they assumed men were still using them instead of facing the truth.

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JoeyJoJoeJr_Shabadoo@reddit

I'm not sure if poo stench is gendered

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glitterswirl@reddit

Yeah. There was an Ask A Manager topic once where the men at a company used the women’s restroom exclusively to poop, because they didn’t want to stink up the men’s room.

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Not_Good_HappyQuinn@reddit

Regardless of sign on the door they are both no different than unisex toilets since they are single stalls and fully enclosed. I’d be asking HR what they’d prefer you to do in this situation, soil yourself?

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Bksudbjdua@reddit

Go to the HR meeting, tell them you were about to shit yourself, you felt you had two options, use the ladies or shit on the work floor.

Personally I'd also go to the doctor and get on record that you can't hold in shits for a long time.

Surface_Detail@reddit

The good thing about OP's example is that it's not a space that would be shared. There's no culture war back and forth about a single unisex facility. Literally the only difference would be the presence of a sanitary bin and sanitary products, both of which are very common in men's bathrooms anyway these days.

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Party_Advantage_3733@reddit

Yes they are being overly dramatic (you may have noticed people are very weird about bathrooms at the moment), yes you can get in trouble for it, no it shouldn't be grounds for any formal discipline but I wouldn't do it again if I was you.

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AllThatIHaveDone@reddit

but I wouldn't do it again if I was you.

If they were occupied for that long

Aside from raising a complaint, in the immediate term, should op shit on the floor or just the unoccupied, single-occupancy toilet?

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Party_Advantage_3733@reddit

My advice would be for OP to not get themselves in this entirely preventable situation again. If, through their own incompetence, they find themselves embarrasingly caught short at work then yes they should use the ladies because shitting on the floor will definitely get you fired whereas repeatedly using the wrong bathroom only could get you fired (as in it is absolutely legal grounds for dismissal after the 1st HR meeting warned him about it, but it would seem harsh). Still laughing at the idea that you don't seem to have any control over your own body like a literal baby. Honestly thinking about it, if this is a real issue then OP should wear adult nappies to be safe.

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AllThatIHaveDone@reddit

What's laughable is that you can't imagine a scenario where someone can be caught short until you're dragged to it by the nose. Your lack of empathy for others in genuinely astounding. Op didn't say that this was a regular occurrence.

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draenog_@reddit

As far as I'm concerned as a woman, if there's a "ladies" sign on an individual cubicle bathroom that's advertising the presence of a bin for menstrual products. Nothing more, nothing less.

^ All the men’s cubicles at our office have extra bins for just this reason

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apokrif1@reddit

As far as I'm concerned as a woman, if there's a "ladies" sign on an individual cubicle bathroom, then that's advertising the presence of a bin for menstrual products.

Pedantichrist@reddit

The problem was not segregation, it was a strike who wanted segregation.

Stop letting the arseholes win.

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chuckiestealady@reddit

WTH?!

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Unearthingthepast@reddit

You realise you could banned from Reddit for replies like this?

testtubepenis@reddit

And when their doctors won't lie about a medical condition? How's the discrimination case going then?

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Yeah anyone can get caught short, I'm usually very regular but you can't plan for an upset stomach or a period coming on etc. Etc.

If you need the bathroom, you need the bathroom.

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Logan_No_Fingers@reddit

Just bring a shoe box to the meeting & say "in future I will do it in this, at my desk"

Don't bring a lid for the shoe box.

Explain sometimes you don't have time for lids

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Not_A_Clever_Man_@reddit

If its relevant, there is legislation that requires a certain number based on the number of people in the workplace. Feel free to reference Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. Regulation 20, Sanitary conveniences if it helps.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/toilets.htm

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AsleepEbb7578@reddit

Cartman style

Use terms like ‘most urgent personal matter’ and ‘avoid soiling of undergarments’.

Your company’s handbook might include something about ‘in an emergency employees may use either toilet as necessary.’ Seems reasonable.

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Jamie_Tomo@reddit

Telll then you identify as a woman

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ukbot-nicolabot@reddit

A top level comment (one that is not a reply) should be a good faith and genuine attempt to answer the question

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ambergriswoldo@reddit

Just say you had an upset stomach and didn’t have a choice.

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CulturedClub@reddit

I dont like men using the ladies toilets cos quite a lot of you piss on the seat.

For some women a man using the ladies toilet feels like an invasion of thwir safe space.

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underwater-sunlight@reddit

As someone who has had to deal with public toilets, women are just as bad, if not worse than men

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In my first job, at a nursery so also female dominated, I once went to the only staff toilet to it having blood on the toilet seat…

That was something..

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Ed-Hunter-2@reddit

That’s all well and good.

But I used to work in a Hospice which is, on the care side, female dominated and I was the only member of the team who was male.

We had changing rooms to change into our scrubs and I can’t tell you how many times I either went to get changed and had a female exit the toilet (small room off the small changing room, with its own lock) or couldn’t get in my changing room as women were in there getting changed with the door locked.

I don’t believe there’s a law about it but the double standard at my old place was frustrating.

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seklas1@reddit

You mean, for you, men using ladies toilet feels like an invasion of your safe space?

zephyrthewonderdog@reddit

Just reminded me of an incident when a woman colleague complained a man had put his jacket on top of her jacket on the coat hooks. She considered this some sort of covert male domination thing.

The woman from HR who dealt with her, told me privately they all knew she was ‘a fucking mad cow’ but still had to go through the process.

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jamesyjam@reddit

If only one person saw and reported you, Just deny it. They must have been mistaken.

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ScreamingDizzBuster@reddit

crowning

isntitobviousnow@reddit

Ah yes my igorance

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isntitobviousnow@reddit

Oh look more ignorance

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isntitobviousnow@reddit

Jeez, so much ignorance

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Or when ladies fail to dispose of sanitary products properly which apparently is more common than I thought after listening to complaints from some of my female co-workers and the facilities management guys tasked with unblocking the loo's ..

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yearsofpractice@reddit

Context matters and yours is perfectly valid. Perfectly valid.

HR got involved, and started with "policy this" and "policy that" but once I explained that the situation was a massive explosion of painful diarrhea that held me in a cramped up state on the toilet while what felt like molten metal was shooting out my arse, and followed up with "Can you tell me what I should have done in this situation?" things changed. Policies was forgotten, and instead they looked horrified at my over sharing and said that we should just forget the incident.

I used to work in a pub and clear the bathrooms at end of the night

Women can't shit straight either

Honestly on the mens it was just piss on the floor 99% of the time

But the ladies had shit every night and sometimes blood on the floors, walls sinks , everywhere but the bowl

Humans in general are just gross

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Taiko89@reddit

It’s even more hilarious when you realise a lot of places are currently getting rid of differentiation between male and female toilets and making them unisex - and a lot of the installations are being held up because they didn’t realise cubicles need to be designed to span floor to ceiling…which begs the question if it would not have been easier just to stick to separate toilets in the first place, but such is the world we currently live in. But to answer your question - probably. Not that you should but that’s the way we’re going these days, would be different if you’d stumbled into the ladies with a bunch of your colleagues in there and dropped your trousers before you made the cubicle but context doesn’t seem to matter too much at the moment, there just needs to be the ‘implication’ of a ‘violation’ to hang you.

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EnjoysAGoodRead@reddit

I dunno. But someone dropped a turd in the middle of the changing room at my old company. They didn't get in trouble for it, but an email was sent around asking us to not take a shit in the changing rooms which was quite amusing. I can only assume it's because they couldn't find the culprit. I'd say: better the ladies loo than the corridor.

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PadmaRose108@reddit

Are there enough toilets for the number of staff where you work? This is a legal question.

Ref: https://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/toilets.htm

Play the gender identity card and watch HR quake in their boots and back down so quick because of all the extra work involved in that.

Womens bathroom can be same with mess. Ive defo used bathrooms where women squat left pee everywhere or sometimes get menstrual blood on seat and don’t clean.

Some music venues i used mens as women’s was crowded. It’s same in some places on how clean it is. Depends on if last person has no manners and thats not gendered

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PsychologicalDrone@reddit

Depending on the size of the company and the number of employees in the building, you could potentially argue that there are insufficient facilities available so you had no choice.

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TheClnl@reddit

How many people in the office at any one time, how many toilets and what's the male female split?

HSE 'prefers' for there to be gendered toilets but if they're single rooms there's a chance they were designed to be mixed use with an amount of toilets appropriate to the occupation of the building. If toilets designed to be mixed use are gendered then there's a good chance the minimum requirement of people per toilet isn't being met.

For example, for 25 people mixed use you can have 2 bogs but if you gender them you need 2 blokes toilets for more than 16 men. You also need 2 ladies for any more than 5 women so for the same 25 people you need 4 toilets, twice the amount.

If it's a big office with multiple floors it's gets complicated but it might help you.

So next time, in your honest opinion, OP should just shit themselves at work?

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wekeymux@reddit

disabled bathrooms are allowed to be used by anyone, they're simply disabled priority and also include disabled features - so a disabled person doesnt use a regular bathroom by accident and get stuck.

This is something I have never understood about the whole bathroom debate. I'm female, i use the womens toilets and they have been, as long as I've been alive, separate cubicles. I have never accidently seen anyone's private parts in a womens bathroom. I work in hospitality - had to fix the guys bathroom sink once and I saw atleast 3 men in a state I hope to god i never see again. (The men were aware i was coming in, they just didn't care)

And yet we seem to have more of a problem with men using the womens bathroom than the other way about? Confusing. I don't have an issue with you using the womens bathroom under these circumstances at all. It shouldn't even be gendered if both the womens and mens are separate cubicles its just stupid.

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quite_acceptable_man@reddit

If it was an emergency it would be fine... but there's been many instances of the women's being the only loo occupied for 20+ mins by a man.

When there's 10 of us in the office 4 loos should be enough.

In our office we are fed up with wee on the seat and the floor, not to mention skids in the pan...

Tell HR that you identify as touching cloth and that they're violating your pooman rights.

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Away_Shirt_5888@reddit

We had a similar layout at one of my workplaces in the past, but just one women’s and one men’s. Self contained cubicles. Either gender would use the other if they had to, some joke would be cracked along the lines of ‘you poor soul having to go in there’ and it was no drama 😅

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SeeyouonTotherside@reddit

With the rise of transphobia, was likely some terf reporting you. All single cubicles on their own should be unisex. Bloody ridiculous. You get in trouble for a sign. It's a single lockable cubicle FFS. People need to get a life

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

[removed]

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AskUK-ModTeam@reddit

Don't be a dick to each other, or other subreddits, places, or people.

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ukbot-nicolabot@reddit

A top level comment (one that is not a reply) should be a good faith and genuine attempt to answer the question

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Undrcovrcloakndaggr@reddit

I don't think toxicity, venom or wider debates really need to come into it here.

Tell them that whilst you appreciate entering a multi-cubicle facility would be seen as inappropriate conduct, your decision was:

A: based upon the fact it was a single cublicle.

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Sudden_Standard_748@reddit

Lol. Do let us know the outcome of this OP.

But on the serious side, it's a human rights issue. Under human rights laws they're required to provide toilets I would guess. If there were not adequate facilities then they are in the wrong, not you.

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SpaceTimeCapsule89@reddit

Let them know you either used the unoccupied single toilet or shat your pants and would have to go home.

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Bellatrixforqueen@reddit

Tell them you have IBS

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Dalhoos@reddit

You can if there’s two of you, and you get caught…

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Trash_Panda_Leaves@reddit

I would just try and remain professional and say you were close to an accident and as it was a single room you didn't think you would make anyone uncomfortable.

r/legaladviceUK

Workplaces have a legal duty to provide single sex spaces. I don't know how that works out in this situation.

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AsleepEbb7578@reddit

Yeah it's a big nothing burger. I assume if you were to receive disciplinary action from this you may have grounds for tribunal as what was the company expecting you to do? Shit yourself in the middle of work?

It didn't impact anyone and for all the company knows you have IBS or some other condition.

If you are part of a union, make sure to bring them in for this as they likely won't be too happy and will know more about laws and regulations.

>what exactly is the issue

It's a designated space for women, and HR (and whoever reported you) don't know why you were there, so they'll likely ask you.

I've seen woman use the mean this way without an issue so can't be one rule for one and not the other.

Just explain as the man's and disabled was full you had no choice in the matter otherwise it would have ended up being on the workplace floor.

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No_Ring_3348@reddit

A fully enclosed single-occupancy room with a lock does not require a sex designation according to health & safety regulation and I would make this the basis of your response. However if your work has designated the toilet that you used for women only, and you used it despite not being a woman, how is this anything other than refusing a reasonable instruction?

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Pupating-Antenna-36@reddit

Ask them if a woman were to use the stalls (not the urinals) in the men's bathroom, if they'd face similar penalties. If they are hesitant, note that. And at the end of the discussion, advocate for extending the men's room capacity

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stella585@reddit

There was an askamanager post about an office where the men were frequently using the ladies’ specifically to poop - to avoid stinking out the men’s, with a side order of “Oh the women won’t mind cleaning up our messes, ladies love cleaning right?” sexism.

Not saying this was what you were doing, but perhaps whoever reported you had seen this article, jumped to conclusions, and wanted to nip it in the bud.

Still a ridiculous overreaction for a one-off incident. She could’ve easily resolved this misunderstanding with a quiet word instead of running straight to HR.

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wonky-hex@reddit

I think you can probably get a warning or something because it's a women's toilet, even though technically it can be designated unisex as it's a single room.

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