Crip Café: How to survive public toilets as a disabled person

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Olivia: Kia ora and welcome to Crip Café, your fortnightly live podcast where we figure out how to be disabled together in Aotearoa. I'm Olivia.

Soph: And I'm Soph and we're your hosts. Welcome back to Crip Café. As you might remember from last week, this season of Crip Café is proudly powered by our friends at Permobil. You might also see the lovely mini wheelchairs in front of us, we've got two mini wheelchair figurines which are from Permobil just to remind us of our friends there.

Olivia: The theme for this week's episode is one of our favourite topics to talk about, is public toilets and how to survive them as a disabled person.

Soph: We've been excited to talk about this topic because we all have many opinions, horror stories, tips, and it's about time, it's about time we talked about public toilets, because I don't think as disabled people we talk about them enough.

Olivia: I feel like it's a universal topic whether you're disabled or non disabled, but there's a particular unique experience that comes with being disabled and using the loo.

Soph: Yes. Before we start talking about toilets which is our theme of the day we thought we would have a bit of time to talk about something that is on everyone's minds at the moment, which is the DSS bill. So we talked about it a bit on some of our social channels last week, but Minister Louise Upston announced some changes to the proposed DSS bill, there's been a lot of community reaction and discussion to those changes, so we wanted to dedicate our 10 minutes of our news section today to having a bit of a chat about those developments.

Olivia: Yeah, and I think overall there's improvements, but they are probably not as strong, or exactly how disabled people and their whānau would have liked to see.

Soph: Yeah, there's definitely there's a lot of strong opinions understandably in the community about the changes and them really not being good enough. So we actually have a guest to join us for this chat today. Liv, do you want to introduce them?

Olivia: Áine Kelly Costello, how do I describe Áine? I feel like I've known you for a long time. I'm just going to put my headphones on so we can start this link. Yeah, we'll bring up Áine on screen now. And I feel like you've been a friend of the D*List for a while and we've both done a bit of advocacy, journalism, I feel like you've just always been around. But how do you want to introduce yourself to D*List fans?

Áine: Kia ora koutou, thank you for having me on, Olivia and Soph and team. Always been around. I don't know if that sounds a bit ominous. But yeah, so I have known Olivia and Red since before the D*List existed. So, yeah, a privilege to be here. In terms of, I don't know, relevance to this kaupapa, I'm a disabled person and I think someone who cares about the bill, as many in our community do. I've also done some mahi in more political spaces and, yeah, a bit of journalism, a bit of research and always, yeah, just trying to be grounded in the breadth of our community and, yeah, really grateful to know so many other wonderful disabled people. But of course any perspectives I share are just my perspectives, and there will be many more within the community, so just wanted to put that out there. Kia ora.

Olivia: Cool. There was a day of action over the weekend. Were you involved in that, or attended any of those rallies?

Áine: I didn't help organise it, but it was really cool to see the momentum behind it and, yes, I did attend the Tāmaki Makaurau one at Britomart. My friend Frankie made me a sign, which hopefully you might be able to see, which says "Disabled people and whānau said kill the bill. Upston didn't listen". So that was kind of the message I wanted to convey at that day of action, and we can get into that some more. But, yeah, in general I think it was good to see a space where community could be together in solidarity and, yeah, in a coordinated way to say we're still going to be on your backs, this isn't the end, yeah.

Olivia: I guess last week some of the amendments to the original bill were announced. What did you think about those amendments?

Áine: So I think I'm always very interested in strategy and I think, you know, the minister put out a press release and it was in accessible formats, and not just the select committee report. What that tells me is that we've intimidated her into feeling like she needs to communicate better with us, which is an achievement. Obviously the consultation process through the select committee was shoddy at best. I think there is a recognition that disabled people and whānau were really unhappy with the bill.

In terms of the amendments, my opinion is that they're quite surface level. And the reason I say that is, like, if you look at the actual the reason that the bill originally was brought about wasn't actually the government being, like, okay, we must make sure we pass a purpose and principles of DSS into law before the election, they hadn't actually been saying that for this last three year period. It was after the court ruling that saw family carers who care full time saying okay, we're going to fight for employment rights to be employees of the Crown to be able to have proper financial recognition and be more valued in terms of being able to take breaks and things like that, so that they could care more sustainably and live.

And then winning, two of them winning those cases that the government went oh no, oh no, it will be very expensive if more people win those cases. And then in the regulatory impact statement they even made it out like oh, and if that happens, that funding is going to come out of, like, the funding that's already going to disabled people, so disabled people won't like it if we don't do something about this. Which was a particularly horrible line of reasoning that was really pitting disabled people against whānau.

But anyway, so that was the reasoning behind the bill and then it was, well, okay, but there isn't a purpose and a principles and any legislative framework for DSS, so it would perhaps be a little bit odd to do that without making such a framework. So the bill does both those things. And in terms of what it continues to do, so one of the changes so basically it continues to do all of those things, so to kind of fiscally protect the Crown above all and in terms of the purpose and principles for DSS, one of the ones that people were most unhappy with, and I fully agree, was this one saying okay, family are basically responsible in the first instance for disabled people's care and then define family and whānau as broadly as you possibly can is what that did.

The wording has been toned down a little bit to remove the "in the first instance" bit, but otherwise it's still there. And of course there are many situations where that might not be the best course of action, it might not uphold disabled people's autonomy and things.

So in terms of the changes that were good, they did put choice, dignity and safety into the principles that must be considered. They also put in principles around, like, taking into account the existing resources people already have and what supports already provided from the community and these kinds of wordings that basically say we want to provide as little funding out of this budget as we possibly can get away with. If we can find any excuse that you have, any other form of support, well you'll have to use it.

They also said putting this choice, dignity safety stuff was basically making the bill kind of more in line with the Enabling Good Lives principles and the disability rights Convention, the UNCRPD. I think that's a real stretch. If you wanted to do that properly you would do it in the I think you would do it much more explicitly by saying we're going to uphold the UNCRPD, particularly article 19 which is about adequate standard of living, independent living.

Te Tiriti is still missing. So yes, there have been improvements, but I would say they are surface level and I would say that the overriding message, which actually came through clearly in the submissions, the majority of submissions opposed the bill, was to get rid of this bill and start again. They haven't done that. It's really good to see that Greens and Labour have continued to oppose the bill.

So I think that, yeah, is a good outcome that we have at least two political parties on record as continuing to oppose it, which has been sort of the overarching, I think, demand from the community, is that this process was bad, we're not completely opposed to there being a legislative framework for DSS, but not this one.

And finally, the last thing I haven't addressed is the ministerial programme side of the bill. So this is basically the bit that says a minister can do a lot of kind of regulatory settings in secondary legislation, they can do just about whatever they want, there's quite a lot of scope within that section. The minister's argument is, well, okay, we do that now, we have no legislation and we do it now, so there's the status quo.

It doesn't mean that it's a good status quo. One of the changes was that representatives of disabled persons, which can be of the Minister's choosing, need to be consulted. Then there's a clause underneath that one that ways if that doesn't happen, then the programmes will be valid anyway, which is very strange. So, yeah, that's kind of where we've landed and I think

Olivia: Sounds like there's still a lot of kind of issues and things that could cause some upset in our communities. I guess if you were to name one action that the government could take to prove they had listened, what would that one action be?

Áine: To not progress the bill any further, yeah, to kill the bill.

Soph: It's interesting

Áine: Which they could still do, by the way, because it's gone through second reading, but there's still another stage, yeah.

Soph: Yeah, I think obviously there's been some changes made, but CCS wrote an interesting post about some of the sort of insidious wording in the new version of the bill and how there's still definitely room for some of the concerns that the community have to be kind of like actioned or snuck through because of those things. So I think, yeah, understandably a lot of the community is still saying kill the bill.

Áine: I think it's not like this government have, like, this great track record and they just did this one thing that was a bit off, right? I mean we need to see it in context. And there's an election coming up. It's politically convenient to make it look like oh okay, we messed up, but now we're listen, we're listening, you know? So I think that's also part of my cynicism. But I think it is important to recognise how many people work their butts off in the consultation process that there was, as inadequate as it was, and that that scared them, yeah.

Olivia: Yeah, it's definitely brought disabled people, our communities together, whānau, carers. If anything there's a positive. Hey, we mentioned earlier about our topic for this episode also being public toilets. You mentioned beforehand you had a public toilet horror story. Did you want to share it as we kind of transition into this next part of the episode?

Áine: Yeah, yeah, sure. So I was saying it wasn't even the toilet's fault, it was my fault, and I can't remember where I was going, but I was at SkyCity, which is Auckland's big bus interchange. I must have been with someone, this was, in my defence, like a real long time ago, I don't know, I was a teenager, as if that excuses. But anyway, I must have been with someone and I went to the bathroom, I came out and I got on the bus and then, like, just as the bus was leaving, or sometime around about then, I realised like, oh crap, where's my cane? And I'm pretty sure my cane was in the toilet cubicle in the corner just, like, hanging out there. And I did call and they did try to get it back, but I did not get it back.

Luckily I have, like I always have at least one and usually more than one spare cane, so I was okay. But yes, that was a little bit awkward, it could have been a lot worse.

Soph: Oh my gosh. So someone out there is potentially getting about with your cane that you left behind.

Áine: I mean if it reached an actual Blind person I'd be very happy.

Soph: Thank you so much, Áine, for joining us for this, for sharing your toilet horror story and some of your insights into the DSS bill and the progress of that. For anyone who wants to add your thoughts or experiences relating to the DSS bill, we have got a couple of Facebook posts that you can share your thoughts on and you can always DM us, or just message in the chat now, we'd love to hear more thoughts from the community. Thanks so much, Áine. We will say goodbye now and we'll move into the topic of the day, which is toilets.

Olivia: I'm going to take my headphones off, then I can hear properly.

Soph: Okay, great.

Olivia: This will be a fun episode. I feel like, yeah, this is the episode that we've been wanting to do for a while. I feel like it's we've touched on toilets and bathrooms in previous episodes.

Soph: We needed to do a couple of tasteful themes before we really dug into this one. To get started, to open things up, we have got a lovely game. We've got "would you rather" toilet edition. I've hand selected some interesting and unique toilets from around the world, Olivia, for you to tell me if you were faced with picking one of these toilets to use in a public place, which one are you going to pick?

Olivia: I'm actually quite scared because I feel like I have had some horror experiences, so I'm just picturing worst case, but let's give this a go.

Soph: Okay. I'm excited for this, personally. First of all, we've got let me just check I'm showing you the right ones. Oh my gosh, hold on.

Olivia: Soph is flicking through a bunch of paper. This is, like, yeah, the suspense is growing.

Soph: Okay, first of all we've got two toilets which I'm going to call make do toilets. Okay, we have a hacked bathroom in Frankfurt. This is, I found this online, a picture of a bathroom in a hotel that a disabled person has hacked by putting a bench in front of the toilet to make it possible for them to use the toilet. So this is this one.

Olivia: Okay, I have a different interpretation of that photo, but...

Soph: This is how the person described it, they said

Olivia: Okay, I thought maybe they can't reach the shower, so they're using the bench to reach the shower.

Soph: Oh okay. Hold on, let me share once again this toilet with the camera. So that's that one. And the second make do toilet is, it is described as an accessible toilet on a bullet train in China, but it is quite narrow, and some of the feedback I saw about this toilet is that it is quite a narrow toilet for a wheelchair user.

So Olivia, are you going to choose to use the hacked bathroom, or are you going to use the narrow train toilet?

Olivia: It's hard to tell, because I think for the narrow toilet in the bullet train it's hard to know if the door is going to be able to shut behind you.

Soph: Okay, yeah, that's a good point.

Olivia: If the door can shut behind you, I think I prefer that one because it's got hand rails. For me personally, my chair's quite small so I could fit in this one. I think I'm still confused why there's this wooden bench in the middle of a bathroom. If I moved the bench over there would probably be more space. But for now, probably the bullet train.

Soph: Okay, awesome. Right, next we have got hold on, I'm trying to figure out how I paired up these toilets because I promise there was logic to this. Okay, next we've got two visually stunning toilets, but how functional are they? We don't know. First of all is the big dog toilets in Tirau. If you've been through Tirau you may have seen the big corrugated iron dog, it features a toilet. Unfortunately there are no photos online of the toilet, which is problem number one.

Olivia: It's open 24 hours, which is good to know.

Soph: Problem number one is you can't see the toilet in advance. It does say that it's accessible. So that is the big dog toilet. And the second toilet is an accessible bathroom in Bangkok Airport, but highly overstimulating for being in an airport.

Olivia: There's a lot of colourful stripes.

Soph: Extremely colourful stripey walls. I think if you were there jetlagged, tired, you might become quite overwhelmed in this bathroom. So stripey toilet, big dog toilet; these are your choices.

Olivia: I'm going to go with the big dog toilet. Even looking at that photo is, yeah, is quite intense.

Soph: Have you been to the big dog toilets?

Olivia: No, I don't think so, but I feel like I have been to similar grade public toilets and been able to use them.

Soph: Okay. I've got probably the most disturbing pairing of the game. First of all, we've got you might have seen this before the one way glass toilet in Tokyo. So people cannot see you, but you can see out of the toilet. And it absolutely would feel like people are watching you on the toilet while you're in there, so there's that. How much you care about privacy, I'm not sure.

And the second toilet is, what's called the volcano toilet in Iceland, and it is supposed to emulate a volcano, but as you can probably see, the floor is just sort of the floor surrounding the toilet is just sort of a pile of mud that's supposed to look like a volcanic eruption. And I don't know how you feel about transferring on to that toilet.

Olivia: Yeah, also the ground near the toilet looks very uneven and, to be honest, not accessible because of that. So I probably would go through the one way glass toilet. I actually have used a toilet with one way glass before at the Cromwell motor sport museum, I think that's what it's called, and they've got these amazing toilets which are actually not accessible, but I was carried down the stairs just so I can go through all these toilets because it's quite a tourist attraction. But yeah, they've got these big glass windows looking out over the speedway course and you can go for a toilet with a view.

Soph: I think as long as you've got a trustworthy friend with you, the one way glass toilet would be okay. If you could have someone stand outside and say "I promise you no one can see you" and you trust that person.

Olivia: Yeah.

Soph: It looks very clean.

Olivia: We have a comment.

Soph: Oh, okay, fun fact about the Tīrau toilets; they were put there in order to increase economic activity in the township because people would just drive through the town. Well, and people do go there just to see the big corrugated sheep and dog?

Olivia: Yeah.

Soph: I know that I always make a stop there if I'm going through, because I feel like you have to they're New Zealand icons. Okay, our last toilets, the most glamorous toilets actually, so we're ending on a high. First of all you've got the, and I actually don't know how to pronounce this name because it's Austrian, Hundertwasser toilets in Kawakawa. Very beautiful, mosaic, creative, artistic bathroom, or I mean I think I know what one's going to win it's the Changing Places bathroom at Hamilton Gardens.

Olivia: Lovely. I have used these toilets in Kawakawa before, I have used those ones. You should read the Google reviews on them, they're pretty great.

Soph: Okay. Two iconic

Olivia: Yeah, I have used them. But the Hamilton Gardens ones, the Changing Places ones, I probably would use them. I have used the Changing Places once at Auckland Zoo but you have to call a guy. It's one of those ones where you have to press a buzzer to call a guy. So if I'm really busting I probably would use the option where I don't have to call a guy to let me in.

Soph: It is certainly gold standard accessible toilet.

Olivia: Yeah, it's beautiful, yeah.

Soph: Because we've mentioned them I'll quickly say Changing Places are an organisation that build super accessible toilets in the UK, in Australia and now in New Zealand. They have adult sized changing tables, they have a whole bunch of things, they have I did write down what they have, hold on. Height adjustable hand basin, ceiling track hoist system, wall mounted handrails, privacy screen around the toilet. They're beautiful and also beautiful, colourful, creative bathrooms. So at least thank goodness there are some stunning accessible bathrooms out there in New Zealand.

Okay, thank you for going with me on that one, I hope you enjoyed.

Olivia: They weren't as bad as I thought. I feel like I've used worse, I've been in worse situations.

Soph: I would love to hear from the chat if anyone has got any public toilet horror stories that you want to share, or any great toilet not toilet experiences, I was going to say toilet experiences, I mean great toilets you have visited, particularly in Aotearoa.

Before we talk more about toilets, we did accidentally skip our non disabled nonsense of the week. And I feel like, Olivia, you have a whole handful of

Olivia: I feel like I have a backlog of non disabled nonsense, and I need to start writing them down, because I'm saving them for this moment. I think the one I want to share today is it's another this happened in a supermarket carpark, which I feel like is quite common as a category of stories when you're disabled. And I was parking my car in the mobility carpark outside my local Woollies and, as I was wheeling out, I could see some people looking from a distance from the entrance to the supermarket. And so it was quite obvious staring, but I feel like I'm just kind of used to that now.

Do my groceries, come back to my car, load them in. Then I can hear them from a distance basically narrating every step of me getting into my car to each other. So you could hear them being like "Oh look, she's got a remote, and the door's opening. Can you see the ramp?" Da da da. And I could hear them narrating every single step. And I was, like, looking over and smiled at them. But then they just kept narrating to each other, being like "Oh yeah, can you see the hydraulics? Oh yeah, it's going up now. Oh yeah, and the door's closing by itself, look, she's transferring in".

It was just very, like, yeah, I just felt quite uncomfortable they were, like, observing me. Then one of them came up to me in the car, and I thought they were going to talk to me, but they were just literally staring at me through the windows of my car. And I just didn't I was so, like, maybe surprised by the quite intensity of their interest, I think I just, yeah, then drove away.

Soph: It's giving David Attenborough, they were observing you like you were wildlife in the carpark. Producer Red wants to add something.

Red: I couldn't help but go to sports commentary when you were talking about that, so I was kind of like if it had been me in that situation and I heard someone commentating my exit from the car, I might have joined in and been like, "And he scores", like just really lean in, I just, yeah, it was great, a little commentary moment.

Soph: Yeah, how interesting. Did you talk to them?

Olivia: No, as I was going by and they were staring, I think I did look over and be like "hello" and then continued on my way. But it was just, yeah, quite uncomfortable, yeah.

Soph: How interesting.

Olivia: Do you have a non disabled nonsense moment to share?

Soph: I do, I do. My non disabled nonsense of the week is from when I went to collect my meds at the pharmacy the other day. I have quite a lot of medications, I have quite a few. So they have to give them to me in what is often just like a ratty little cardboard box because there's a lot of things to hand over. So they always seem to have dug some cardboard box out of their recycling to put my meds in.

And last time I was there they give me my ratty little box and the pharmacist was like "Are you sure that you should be on this many are you sure you should be on this many things?" Like, questioning I guess the dosage or the frequency of my medication or something, and I was like "Well, yeah, my doctor things so and I think so too, so I'm going to keep taking them." But, yeah, I think they're always a little bit interested in my large box of medications that I have to pick up from the pharmacy.

Olivia: We have a comment.

Soph: I would love to see the comment.

Olivia: We have a comment from Garreth Whittington, "Commentate them back. The strange group of on lookers weirdly narrated someone else's life".

Soph: Do you think you'd be brave enough to do that Liv?

Olivia: No.

Soph: Get Garreth to do it for you. Garreth next time.

Olivia: Garreth probably would.

Soph: Beautiful as always. If you have a non disabled nonsense you should also share it with us in the chat. Let's deep dive back into toilets. How do you, Liv, handle a bad toilet, or a lack of a toilet when you're out and about in public? What do you do if the situation is bad?

Olivia: You plan ahead by not drinking a lot of water. I have survived long haul flights without using the toilet, because I just don't drink anything 12 hours beforehand.

Soph: And that sounds really positive for your well being.

Olivia: Yeah, really healthy for my body. Trying to think, what have I done when the situation is an absolute actually, I have a good disabled toilet horror story. In Russia, of all places, but I feel like this has happened a few situations, this is when I was doing my exchange over that part of the world, and we did a trip to Russia, we were in St Petersburg in quite a touristy area, busting to go to the toilet.

So we went to McDonald's because they've always, you know, around the world it's like a rule that McDonald's has a public toilet. My friend bought a burger so we could use the toilet. Go in and there's no accessible toilet, just, like, the skinny cubicles. So again, really need to go toilet. So what my friend did is got, like, a regular dining chair from the restaurant part of McDonald's and then put it into the cubicle so I could transfer from my wheelchair to the dining chair on to the toilet, move the chair out, close the toilet door so they could, you know, close the door, did my business and then do the process again but in reverse.

Soph: So you had a friend waiting outside.

Olivia: Yeah.

Soph: Okay. And that was in a McDonald's?

Olivia: Yeah, in St Petersburg in Russia.

Soph: Okay. I mean very impressed you made that situation work for you.

Olivia: Other situations is if I'm with someone and the cubicle is too narrow for my wheelchair, we will take off one wheel of my wheelchair and then wobble me into the cubicle so I can fit and transfer.

Soph: How frequently do you think this is happening to you? I presume you're most of the time planning ahead so this isn't

Olivia: I would say 95% of the time it's fine. Or if you're on a fifth date with someone you ask them to carry you into the loo.

Soph: That's always a good option. I less frequently face the problem of not being able to use a toilet in public, but I so in the UK you're able to access disabled toilets by getting a hold of something called a RADAR key. If you are someone that has a disability, that means that you might need to urgently access a toilet, you can get a RADAR key. So I had a RADAR key for that reason. And one of the worst situations I would find myself in is if I was on a train that had no toilets, which you would think trains would always have toilets, but some trains in the UK did not. So I would have to jump off at the next stop, wherever that was, and use a train station bathroom and then just hope that I could get on to another train and still make it to my destination in time.

So yeah, one of the worst times that happened to me was when I was on my way to a work conference and I needed to be there at a particular time, but because there were no toilets on the train, I had to get off the train, use the train station bathroom, and then wait half an hour for the next train. So yeah, luckily public toilets in general, largely available nowadays, accessible public toilets. Certainly less so.

Olivia: Yeah, I think there's an also interesting I mean our experience of public toilets is also different, because I use a wheelchair. As we kind of, like, talked about prior when we were preparing for this episode, I've got the privilege of literally the symbol of me is on the door. Whereas people with invisible disabilities don't have that same privilege that there may be particular assumptions made about why people are or aren't using disabled toilets, and navigating that is pretty stink sometimes.

Soph: Yeah, and I guess it's just over the years the understanding of, like, who might need different types of toilets has evolved very slowly. Like, it's only in the last, what, 60 years that accessible toilets even started to be available in public spaces, and so like the general public's understanding of what people's toilet needs are is pretty limited still, I think.

I do actually have some brief toilet history facts that I can share before we talk some more about toilet related etiquette, seeing as we're talking about the history. I did share some of this in a previous episode because I got really excited about disabled toilet history. But in the UK, accessible public toilets came about because of a disabled man called Selwyn Goldsmith who had become disabled through polio and then he wanted to dedicate his life to overcoming what he called architectural disability, which was the way that public spaces and buildings made it difficult for disabled people to negotiate around in public.

So he was largely responsible for making public accessible toilets available in the UK and then, you know, slowly eventually New Zealand followed suit as a result. But public toilets for people in general have been, like, something that have had to be fought for over the decades, and disabled people just have been the last on the list to get access to the kinds of toilets that we need.

Olivia: Did you have a comment to share, producer Red?

Red: I just wanted to share my flavour of accessible bathroom horror stories, which are the ones where the lights automatically go out after 5 minutes of perceived inactivity. You know, some of us take a long time to use a bathroom, let alone, like, a public one where it's all new.

So my worst moments have been where the toilet decided that I'm not there any more, even though I absolutely am there. So I'm in the middle of my business and all of a sudden I'm plunged into darkness, and I'm like shrieking and flapping my arms around desperately in the middle of a dark room trying to let the bloody sensor know that I'm there and actually in quite a delicate situation, can you please turn the lights on. And even despite my you'll be shocked to hear, that despite my best flapping efforts, sometimes the sensor still refuses to acknowledge that I exist, and as a man, deeply distressing.

Olivia: I feel like doing that action on a toilet as well, which is, like it's quite unsafe. I think my scary automatic mode, or whatever you want to call it, in a public toilet is the fact that some of them are, like, "This door will automatically open after 10 minutes".

Red: You better be quick.

Olivia: Yeah, but like, I don't know, maybe I'm not close to taking that amount of time, but just like stress level of getting your business done and going in and out in the allocated time is not pleasant.

Soph: Okay, so what are some of the other horrors that we may encounter in public toilets? Definitely one of them being the time limit. Also people just people leaving them in a mess, like, particularly when they are a shower space as well and people are using them for all sorts of different things.

Red: I think also the ones with the automatic flush sensor. So the idea being that for, like, a non disabled person, there's something obviously that happens where you pass over the sensor and it goes they're standing up. Unfortunately Cerebral Palsy clearly reads as lots of different behaviour, because often when I'm still sitting on the toilet the flush will start going and it really gives me a fright, because it comes out of nowhere, Cerebral Palsy notoriously not good at sudden noises. So I'm sitting there barely hanging on to the toilet as it is, I'm in pitch black and all of a sudden this thing starts flushing underneath me. It can be a real sensory nightmare.

Olivia: Turns from a toilet to a bidet.

Red: Yeah, and crossed with some soft of half baked Rainbows End theme, right? It's not a great time.

Soph: Well, I think we should talk about some of the etiquette involved in using an accessible bathroom. And for one thing, what do you think you would do, or what have you done in the past if you think someone is using the accessible bathroom and you don't think they should be? Do you do anything?

Olivia: Well, I'm trying to think what my strategy is. If someone's in the toilet and they're taking a long time, I will politely just knock. I think that is fair etiquette. And I will wheel my if there's a gap under the door, I will wheel my wheelchair right up to the door so that they can clearly see there's someone in a wheelchair. And look, if that person is also genuinely in a wheelchair, they'll be cool, I'm just doing my business, fine.

But if it's someone who does not require the accessible facilities, it might be a way of just hurrying them up. Again, I don't know if that's the right thing to do, but in my head I think it's fine. But, yeah, like, I will knock on the door if I feel like the person's taking a long amount of time. If I'm in the toilet and someone's knocking, I'll be like "Just a minute", like I don't mind people knocking on me because I think that's a reasonable thing to do.

Soph: I know that I would be stressed if someone was knocking on the toilet door and I'm in there, I'm like please don't perceive that I'm in here. I guess the difficult thing, like, I am invisibly disabled but at times use accessible bathroom, and my fear is that there will be a wheelchair user knocking on the door and then I'll walk out and they'll be like "What the hell are you doing in here?" And I'm like please, please, I'm not committing a crime, I need to use this toilet.

Olivia: "I'm innocent".

Soph: I'm innocent. Yeah, and it's just Olivia.

Olivia: I think for me I'm definitely guilty of giving someone a shady look if they don't look like they need it. I think that's, like, unfortunately if you're busting to go to the toilet and you're not maybe thinking fairly, I don't think I've ever verbally said anything, or tried to be explicitly rude, but I definitely am trying to just, like, you know, I think over the time I've definitely just been, like, just tried to smile and be polite and just move on and do my business.

Soph: I mean I've always been guilty myself of giving someone the weird eye when I think they don't appear to be disabled. Who am I to do that? We've got a comment from Josh that says "Is there a disability hierarchy for the accessible toilets?" See, that's interesting, because personally most of the time I could use any toilet. Really the main reason I might use an accessible toilet is urgency reasons, without going into depth about my disabilities. So I feel like if I can avoid using it, I will, knowing that there are people who can't use a different toilet. I don't know if that means that's the right thing, but I feel like it is. I feel like I'll avoid it.

Olivia: I kind of compare it to a bit like with mobility carparks. If there's a standard carpark nearby that I can use, I actually get out of my vehicle through the back, while getting commentary at the same time no. So I don't need the side, the extra wide carpark. So often if there is a convenient carpark nearby, I will probably use that just to leave the bigger carparks for people that need them over me. But I guess there's some similarities with, like, accessible toilets. I don't know, I feel like if we put out any hierarchy we will get cancelled because whoever we rank at the bottom will send an angry email to us.

Soph: I guess a lot of it relies on trust, doesn't it. Where, like, you have to trust that people with using the toilet when they need to. You have to trust that people are being thoughtful about which toilet to use and making sure that there is space for people to use that toilet as well.

We have a comment from Elise that says "As a caregiver and someone who's so aware of the judgment taking my brother in and out of the accessible toilet is just sometimes too overwhelming, so we both have to go into the ladies". Yeah, I mean there's probably in general a need for people to just be, like, understanding and forgiving of the different ways we might all be using different toilets in a public place. Because I've definitely seen people taking children or family members into a gendered bathroom that they might not belong in just because that's the best way they can make their situation work.

I think another interesting thing about the use of public accessible bathrooms is that they are often combined with other things. So the accessible bathroom might also be a shower, or a baby change room, or it might be the gender neutral toilet, the one and only gender neutral toilet in a public space. So then you have a bunch of non binary people, like myself, using that toilet when they may have been able to use a non accessible toilet. And it's just that whoever's built that toilet for convenience's sake was like let's chuck all of the people with strange needs into one bathroom basically, like, that's what they're thinking.

Olivia: But them in the too hard basket literally.

Soph: Yeah, it's the too hard toilet. So that frustrates me because I'm like you could have a bunch of gender neutral toilets that are accessible and that would be fine, but when there's one and you're expecting a bunch of different communities to use it, like come on.

Olivia: The thought has come into my head, like, when I have a kid one day and I want to use, like, the nappy changing table, I'll be like, I've got two reasons to use the bathroom, you've only got one.

Soph: And that puts you at the top of the hierarchy.

Red: Top of the hierarchy.

Olivia: You've got a...

Red: I've got a solution to Josh's hierarchy. This is that thing that someone does when they travel overseas one time and they see a thing and they're, like, that's the solution. So luckily earlier this year I was lucky enough to go to Japan. In some of the accessible bathrooms in Japan they have these massive A1 posters. And on this A1 poster is seven different illustrations of different people who need accessible bathrooms for different reasons.

So there's a little illustration of a person, they might have a support worker or a plus one with them, and then little speech bubble out of their mouth and it will say "I need this bathroom because of my colostomy bag", or "I need this bathroom because I need someone to support me when I use the toilet", or whatever. So it kind of explains, in quite plain language but in lots of different ways, why different people might need the accessible bathroom.

Honestly I think it was such a great it was eye opening even for me. I was like huh, never thought about that particular situation. So I think New Zealand could do a better job with our accessible bathroom related communication material to kind of like help us all grow our understanding, that it's not one size fits all, and just because Olivia's got a kid she doesn't get to go to the top of the hierarchy, it's as simple as that.

Soph: That's true, because in New Zealand they just kind of shyly put an image of a wheelchair user and maybe a man and woman rather than any kind of real explanation of what that means and maybe expanding people's mindsets. Also encouraging people to be kind towards each other in that space could make a big difference. Even though it is sometimes fun to do the judgey eye at someone you think is mis using the accessible toilet.

So last of all, what would you like to see? What would you like to see in an ideal accessible bathroom situation?

Olivia: None of those photos that you sent me, apart from the Changing Places one. I guess more of those, more options. We recently went to the city rail link to see all their stations, which was amazing. They've got multiple disabled toilets, like, in one group of, like, toilet cubicles, if that makes sense. It was kind of funny because we were with the Disability Advisory Panel so we all had disabilities, but it's not like we're queuing up for the one disabled people, there were multiple, so that was good.

Just, like, more options and maybe better communications about why people need to use the accessible toilet. And, yeah, I guess part of it is just like trust in the wider community of non disabled people to not use them for the wrong reasons.

Soph: Yeah. Also, like, make everyone's toilets nicer so that they stop wanting to use the accessible toilet.

Olivia: That's true.

Soph: I'm going to fire off quickly some of the things I would like to see in public bathrooms. Free sanitary products, dimmable lighting, somewhere to lie down if you need it.

Olivia: Full length mirrors, I feel like I've been to some where you only see the top of my eyes.

Soph: Yes, full length floor to ceiling mirrors. Making it a more comfortable and usable experience for all of us.

Olivia: No time limits.

Soph: No time limits, or one hour time limit on the toilet.

Olivia: Even a sign just, like, please be courteous with your time in this toilet, there may be someone outside waiting for you.

Soph: Yes, and new signage that encourages people to think about all the different many ways that people might be using bathrooms. I guess if people weren't so stressed and urgently needing to use the toilet, maybe they would be in a better mood when they encountered toilet situations.

Olivia: Yes, if there were more toilets we wouldn't be busting all the time.

Soph: Well, I think we're out of time for today. Thanks for joining us everyone. Thanks for all the great toilet chat Liv.

Olivia: Thank you to Áine for joining us to share more insights about the DSS bill.

Soph: And the harrowing toilet story. And thank you again to our sponsor. The rest of this season of Crip Café is proudly powered by Permobil. Bye.

Olivia: See you.