Parents rejecting gender neutral (unisex) toilets

This misogynistic behaviour by schools is unbelievable. Think back to when you started your first period, would you have wanted to walk past a row of boys clutching your san pro? Would you have wanted them to see your clothing that may have been blood-stained?

It’s utterly abhorrent that girls are being put through what amounts to torture. Have none of these ‘woke’ individuals heard of toxic shock syndrome? I know I’d have done anything rather than used toilets/changed san pro with boys in the next cubicle/ hand-washing area.

Wake the eff up you ‘woke’ idiots!

She and her friends refuse to go all day now. She's using a night time pad for her period so she doesn't have to go. Luckily she has light periods

So effectively only the boys have access to toilets at school now - and this is progress? My experience was at primary before they got single sex (before age of 8) many, many girls used to do this - but this is before they have to deal with periods and period shaming etc.

It is a known fact that in developing countries part of the way you ensure access to education for girls is by providing single sex toilets. How the actual fuck has that lesson not been acknowledged here?

I would absolutely allow my daughter to stay off school during her period if they only have mixed sex as I know she would be extremely distressed by the idea of having to deal with menstruation in front of XY children - this is denying girls the human right to access an education. Also, surely some religions require single sex so very religious parents may not allow their children to go to school if only mixed sex provided?

THIS IS AGAINST THE LAW apart from anything else.

I AM SO ANGRY

It's huge safeguarding risk, and actually illegal afaik. That's what needs to be hammered home.

I just can’t see how making all loos neutral at school will benefit any girl. My daughter attends an all girls secondary and tells me how often she encounters other girls who are extremely upset in the loos with period issues (caught out on timing with no supplies or with heavier than expected flow and bad cramps). I could not imagine what these girls would do in this situation with boys thrown into the mix.

She also now won’t go to the loo after first break because some of the girls have started to leave the loos for her year in such a mess (apparently there are some girls fascinated by smearing blood in protest to get loos renovated). So now she doesn’t drink water at school and holds on til she gets home.

Surely this reality is not unusual and has to be known by these head teachers and decision makers. Why add more opportunities to make girls feel shame about menstruating to the pile? Why make more girls feel resentful for being female? .... Why indeed?

You have to wonder who's idea it was to lock them. Was it the schools or the "trainers"

If they prove to be popular
By locking the doors to other toilets this is not exactly going to be a fair comparison is it?

Good for her and her friends. I think a coordinated effort between parents and students is in order!

Terrible that they are put in this position.

Ok I got more information.
There are single sex toilets in other blocks at the school, most however are locked and theres one where it's occupied by students who are intimidating so no one else goes in.
She going to check doors as she goes through the school today and see how many are open.
I have been messaging the school and asked about toilets, last message I sent was a request that they single sex toilets all be ulocked during the school day so they can be accessed. I see what happens after school.
She also added, they students were told that a lot of money was spent on converting the toilets to GN, and if they proove to be popular, they will convert them all. She says this is why she and her friends refuse to go in them. They want to preserve some toilets as single sex.

Later than that - www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/History-of-Womens-Public-Toilets-in-Britain/

It was the 1850s, women marched in the streets to fight for their own toilets. I'll dig up an article but the first ones were in Camden.

^ Absolutely on no circumstances were public loos mixed sex until then.

Whoops sorry rephrase
Absolutely on no circumstances were public loos available to women, they were for men only until the late Victorian era

TRAs are arguing that bathrooms always used to be mixed 'until the ‘separate spheres’ sexism of the late 1800s'. I'm not a toilet historian but isn't this a red herring?

No this is completely inaccurate.
The ancient Romans had public. "toilets" (obviously very different from the ones we have now) that were indeed hazardous, and women were strictly forbidden from using them.
Public toilets specifically for women were not introduced until the Victorian era in the UK.
(Assume same in America am prepared to be corrected)

Here's an interesting article
www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/womens-right-work-toilet-bathroom-victorian-london-wwi-factory-protest

The Victorian era in the UK saw some of the first public toilets for women only, but many were burned down by men.

Women were expected to stay close to home or refrain from drinking/eating if outside of the home.

During the suffragette movement, women found it very hard to stay outside protesting all day with no access to public loos, so the few public places such as Selfridges on Oxford Street provided a safe refuge for women during the early feminist revolution.

Absolutely on no circumstances were public loos mixed sex until then.
Even after women's loos were introduced, a "proper lady" would be assumed to be too embarrassed to walk into one.

@Troels

I was a hands off parent in my day, but I regret it now. Our children need us to fight their corner

Sexism in the 'Bathroom Debates': How Bathrooms Really Became Separated By Sex

W. Burlette Carter in Yale Law & Policy Review, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2018

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3311184

Once You have had the full info from your dd,I would be tempted to write to the school and complain about it as a safeguarding issue, asking about the safeguarding review they did beforehand, particularly with regard to female students (because obviously when making a change like this that has so many obviously negative effects they did a safeguarding assessment right?!?) and pointing out that they are now in breach of the law for not providing separate sex loos, not to mention pointing out that the UN sees lack of separate sex loos as a bad thing.

I would also point out that if they dangle stonewall as any sort of reason for doing this, that they are a homophobic mysoginistic lobby group who have a vested interest in giving incorrect legal advice as that’s the result they are hoping for not to mention they include paedophiles as a legitimate trans group on their umbrella diagram (I’m sure I’ve seen that here, maybe somebody could verify that?).

I’d finish off with stats on articles about the problems adults have had with the introduction of mixed sex loos (Home Office, ministry of defence, rate of offences in mixed sex changing rooms in pools etc) to show how if adults struggle then kids will do too...

If your dd doesn’t want to be seen as making a fuss then I would say it is coming from you and you don’t expect her to suffer any repercussions as a result of you making a safeguarding complaint.

If you have a parents Facebook page, maybe ask on there for views on this without giving away your concerns to start with. Hopefully most normal parents will be outraged and you can suggest that everybody submits a safeguarding complaint so that you can’t all be fobbed off as being ‘the only person complaining’. And if there are known trans children at school (assuming it’s not a majority of kids!) then they get sympathy and understanding for their dysphoria but get to use the staff toilets to keep them and the rest of the children safe* and comfortable - and watch staff hackles complain they don’t want to be in that position - another string to argue so why should the rest of the students have to?

• • not trying to say that there’s anything unsafe about the trans students, it works about keeping them safe too, but trying - badly - to encapsulate why to keep the loos single sex rather than mixed sex and safety is always a big issue.

I've seen it called the urinary leash, but same idea!

Wasn't that referred to as the 'toilet leash'?
Public toilets weren't unisex exactly as we know them now and no 'respectable' women would have used them. Hence, women generally were restricted in their movements to places where they could safely toilet.
Long skirts, walks in the shrubbery...

I also think it's important for them to stand up for injustice themselves, in person instead of just moaning online to each other

That's a big ask in a school where children want to please the teachers and don't want to cause trouble. These things take advantage of years of female socialisation it's not going to change over night.

And theres a good chance they have seen anyone who asked or complained called bigots or told they should be the ones removing themselves from the area

I really think you need to sit her down and get the full story. Your the parent. Dont let her wander off. Every day you dont know what's going on is a day shes at risk and a day she gets through knowing her place in the school and wider world comes second to mens feelings.

I also think it's important for them to stand up for injustice themselves, in person instead of just moaning online to each other.

I want to make my own complaint, but am waiting for Dd to give me more info, she tends to drop parts and wander off to do her own thing. It's like pulling teeth. So once I know more I will be complaining.

But most people striking from school against climate change are on the liberal left, and this particular persuasion seem to be more in favour of mixed-sex/GN toilets than any other.

I must say school strikes bother me too. The leader (chief?) of XR called for students to skip their GCSE exams! They honestly have their heads in the clouds, missing school solves nothing

Children mobilised for school strikes against climate change. I wonder if we'll see more in revolt against mixed sex (can we insist on calling them what they are?) toilets.

I had to NC for that btw as I’ve posted here before and don’t want to be outed 😆 still though I’d be more than willing to defend my position to my university if it came to that

Good! My university had GN toilets for one year then overturned the decision within the next, as so many disagreed with them.

I disagree with them too. Especially in places like students’ unions where partying/drunkenness are highly prevalent.

And they especially shouldn’t be in schools - teenage pregnancy rates would go through the roof, not to mention some people may have other ulterior motives.