I see your point about privacy, I guess I meant private in the sense of private Vs public. In that sense a private space is one that is shared by oneself and known others, and a public space is open to anyone. What do you feel privacy means in this context then?

But in countries like the USA, UK and Australia, public spaces like restrooms, clothes-changing rooms, fitting rooms, traditionally have not been "open to anyone." They have been segregated by sex.

This is to provide members of both sexes with privacy, dignity, personal comfort and convenience; and to provide female users with freedom from the male gaze, refuge from unwanted male sexual attention, prying and sexual harassment and advances from males; safety from male sexual assault and "plain" assault and battery by males; and escape from male stalkers and guys who might like to follow around girls and women.

But toilet provisions outside the home are also sex segregated to make these spaces more space- and resource-efficient, more hygienic for reasons of public health, and easier to clean. For example, urinals take up far less space than toilets and cubicles do, they use far less water less water, and can be kept clean with far less effort and less use of cleaning solutions and chemicals than flush toilets and cubles. When males pee standing up in toilets, they have very, very bad aim even in their own homes - and when males use toilets outside the home, they tend to pee all over the place - the seats, the floors, the backsplash, the side walls. Plus, the urine of adult and adolescent males usually has a stronger and worse smell than female urine does. In addition, tucking into the john for a wank is something a lot of teenage boys and men do when at work or at school or in other places outside the home - but this is not behavior females of any age customarily engage in. Finally, when using toilet facilities, the vast majority of males do not wash their hands, which means the door pulls and latches, toilet paper dispensers, paper towel dispensers, sink faucets, soap dispensers and surfaces in general in male communal loos are much more likely to be full of pathogens than female loos are. It's bad enough that men's restrooms are unsanitary; why should women's loos be made just as unsanitary by giving males access to them?

On the other hand, males do not customarily bleed from their genitals the way females do as a matter of course. But what could possibly be the reason for not keeping blood-soaked used menstrual products and the kinds of bloody discharge and blood clots that issue from female bodies contained to only one kind of restroom? Given what teenage boys and men with menstrual fetishes do with sanitary napkins and tampons, mixed-sex restrooms inevitably become hugely unhygienic messes, and they do so quickly. These spaces become so inhospitable for female users that girls and women don't want to or simply cannot use them. It never fails to happen that making restrooms "gender neutral" in the name of inclusivity ends up causing female users to self-exclude.

Another reason that multi-user toilet facilities outside the home are sex segregated is that it's against the religious beliefs and practices of Muslims and orthodox Jews of both sexes to share close, confined quarters - especially close confined spaces where intimate bodily matters like urination, defecation, menstruation and pregnancy are dealt with - and where ritual ablutions as before prayer are conducted too. Girls and women of these faiths in particular cannot use restrooms and other intimate facilities in the presence of men and boys. Forcing Muslim girls and women around the world into situations where unrelated and strange men could see their hair, get glimpses of their exposed skin as they change, or be privy to the fact that they are menstruating would cause them terrible distress and put them in real danger. Girls and women from many Muslim homes would be regarded as bringing shame on themselves and their families for "allowing" themselves to be in close proximity and viewed by males like that - and they'd be at risk of being beaten, confined to their homes or murdered in so-called "honor killings" as a result.

So it's about behaviour? Would you be ok with it then if you could be sufficiently sure that anyone behaving inappropriately would be able to be dealt with?

Why do you seem so keen on making members of the two sexes use toilet facilities and change rooms together? How exactly does this benefit girls and women? How does this benefit boys and men?

I have many male friends and relatives whom I am sure would never behave in a way that is sexually inappropriate, threatening or creepy to me. But for their dignity and privacy and mine I still don't want to have to use the same toilets and change rooms as them when we are out together. Nice as the guys I know are, I still don't think it's appropriate for my adult son, my adult brother, my ex FIL, the teenage boys who live next to me, or any of the men I am friends and colleagues with to change their clothes, shower or get their dicks out to urinate in the same spaces where they will be able to gaze at, listen to and discomfit girls and and women as we bare our bottoms to pee; dress and undress; change pads and products used for female bodily processes like menstruation, menopausal flooding, fibroid bleeding and clotting and bleeding after childbirth, termination or miscarriage; change breast pads and clean up leaks from our breasts; vomit due to pregnancy; or have miscarriages - something a lot of women go through, and usually go through when we are not in our own homes.

Please stop pretending human beings' desire and need for bodily privacy from members of the opposite sex in situations like communal toilets and change rooms is bizarre and beyond understanding. There's nothing peculiar or unreasonable about the fact that I do not want to have to get undressed in the company of my adult son, and I do not feel it's appropriate for me to accompany him into the men's facilities so I can see him use a urinal or take a shower. Even amongst close relatives like mother and son, bodily boundaries are healthy especially at certain ages/stages of life. It's one thing for a woman to breastfeed and be naked with her son when he's a baby or toddler, but it's a totally different situation once he is older.

Why do want to make it seem like anyone ever having any bodily boundaries is always a bad thing?