Inner West Council’s public toilet strategy seeks to make public toilets gender neutral
Image: AAP Image/Supplied by City of Sydney, Paul Patterson
A local council in Sydney is looking to make public toilets gender-neutral as a way of making the facilities more inclusive.
During a recent meeting, the Inner West Council (IWC) voted unanimously to adopt a strategy that will see the council “take a positive decision” to remove the male and female signs from public toilets.
Dubbed the Inner West Council Public Toilet Strategy (IWCPTS), it focuses on design guidelines to help make public facilities accessible, inclusive, and welcoming.
This strategy has been recommended to avoid communal urinals due to safety, maintenance, and possible vandalism. However “If urinals are deemed necessary, provide single urinals with modesty screens.”
“Council’s’ position is to move towards removing gender-based signage in favour of signage to identify ‘toilets’ along with information on what features are within the facility,” the strategy outlines.
It’s also stated within the strategy that cubicle configuration and the supply of gender-based toilets will be looked at on a case-by-case basis.
Deputy mayor of the Inner West Council, Philippa Scott said that the IWCPTS outlines a clear set of principles for consideration when a public toilet block is refurbished or built.
“What the block ultimately looks like is determined by consultation with community and space users, including sporting groups, families in playgrounds, and nearby residents,” she said, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.
An amendment was made by Scott to add period-product dispensing machines to the design guidelines.
“Not every block will include every element of the design guidelines, but they are a set of considerations to factor in when refurbishing or building a public toilet block,” Cr Scott said.
The Toilet Issue
Toilets are no stranger to the culture wars raised over transgender rights.
A study back in 2022 looked at school toilets in Perth and it was identified by the sexual and gender-diverse students as the “least safe spaces in educational institutions.”
The study states that they are “sites of verbal, physical and sexual victimisation,” and that by providing gender-neutral bathrooms in primary and high schools “may reduce the bullying and victimisation of SGD students, particularly those who are transgender or gender-diverse.”
However, in the City of Sydney’s public toilet strategy published back in 2014, it was found that most women (75%) had a preference for single-sex toilets over uni-sex ones.
The main reasons being the enhanced privacy (32%), hygiene (29%), and security (19%).
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