There was a restaurant in Liverpool (may still be…) where the actual toilets (cubicles/urinals) were separated by gender but the hand-washing area was unisex, which seemed to work quite well. Personally I don’t see why toilets shouldn’t be unisex everywhere, and if that were the case that harassment would be no more likely than it is now (and it can happen even in single-sex toilets). I have been on the receiving end of a tirade from someone who responded to that notion with a vehement “The sexes should be kept separate” line, and I couldn’t get across the problems faced by the transgendered, who do face significant adverse reactions whichever toilet they use. I recall hearing one TS speaker some years ago saying that the advice she’d give to a transgendered individual using, say, a service station would be to use the toilet and then immediately leave the premises, if necessary using the toilets in one service station and taking refreshments in the next, because of the likelihood of the police being called if they were seen to use a toilet someone felt was not “appropriate”. I don’t know if things are still so bad, but I thought that was pretty damn shocking.

Well done Manchester U. SU, anyway.