Ireland will no longer be providing single sex toilets in primary and secondary schools!!!

Sadly EyesOpening, children are never consulted about these changes. Just as women are never asked if they wish to share facilities with males. The only people who get a say are some influential men and the unrepresentative lobby groups. The impact on children and the welfare of girls having these changes inflicted on them is of no interest to these people.

WRT bullying in toilets, I can understand that they can somehow measure if the new toilet design has reduced the bullying (in toilets) but how are they going to measure if it’s created any new problems such as students not drinking/using the facilities/causing urinary infection and also whether students not using the facilities could be the reason the bullying (in the toilets) has dropped and also that it could just be taking place elsewhere? Are they anonymously surveying the students? Do they have something to measure the footfall in the toilets? Do they have measurements of footfall in the previous toilet layout to compare it with?

@rabbitwoman "I think it is! But you know what - no-one is interested. It really is a shrug and an 'oh well. Nothing we can do.'"

I think you're wrong there, this is also for the provision of staff toilets, so if all new staff toilets are now mixed sex, you've suddenly got a very poweful lobby irritated and while theres an awful lot of single sex schools here, I've never heard of a single sex staff in any school.

I agree with you though, no ones going to just care about the discomfort of students.

I also think that there will be a push back in single sex schools against this because its ridiculous even more so in that environment. Like I said earlier in the thread, there is a new all boys secondary being designed near me, can you imagine how ridiculous it would be to have to only have cubicles rather than cubicles and urinals as well?

I would expect there will be push back from those quarters and also an all boys school now having to provide sanitary bins in every toilet (I could see the point in an accessible toilet) and have to pay for them to be specially emptied once a week etc from every cubicle, you're talking tens of thousands a year

We still have mostly single sex schools around here and I was opposed to them until gender ideology and the absolutely hypersexualised culture we have these days became the norm. Now I am so relieved for my daughters to have them. There are a number of trans boys in my daughters’ school and I think being in an all girls school will offer them real breathing space and loads of positive female role models while they make very significant choices for their future.

Bring back single sex schools is maybe a good alternative now, at least for the girls.

A local primary school (mixed, built 1960s) has rooms of girls and boys toilets with 2 classes using each room (so JI and SI girls use one room, JI and SI boys use another and so on). Due to Covid and the need for class bubbles each class now uses one room of toilets (eg JI boys and girls use one room). The children can only go one at a time so there are never boys and girls there at the same time. BUT the girls toilets are now disgusting and there have been issues with toilet rolls being put down toilets which has happened before with boys toilets but not the girls. There is usage avoidance going on amongst the girls.

My dd is just going into secondary. I won't tell her about this policy move because of the stress and distress it would cause her.

I am angry and upset and need to take a few breaths before working out who to write to and what to say.

I don't care for myself. But these poor girls, dealing with periods for the first time, are mortified. It's the first lesson in just putting up with bad behaviour, not speaking up because nothing is going to change anyway....

rabbit I have the exact same story about boys banging on the door - except I was in the disabled loo straight out onto the corridor. Must be a nationwide ‘thing’.

Why is this stuff never effectively dealt with though.

I mean perhaps if we didn't simply just remove the topic of or the opportunity to bully and actually dealt with the behaviour we might be better off.

I'm yet to hear how it actually reduces bullying.

If its the open plan part that does it then you can.have more open.plan single sex toilets.

Or is it because girls don't speak out against their assailants so they just absorb it all and then everyone can pat themselves on the back for solving the problem.

Or is it cos none if the.kids will actually use it because the girls are at home on their periods or at the drs with a UTI amd the boys are just using the bushes.

What's it all about. Really.

I work in a school with loos a lot like this except they have floor to ceiling doors with sinks in the cubicle - but the loos are open to the corridor and boys on one side, girls on the other.....

I took a design lesson once and the brief was to redesign one aspect of the school. Every single child chose the loos - making them single sex again.

They all said because they have no privacy....

And also, one day I had to use the student loo at break time because all the staff loos were occupied. I took in my sanitary towel, as soon as I ripped it open there was an unholy racket as a load of boys banged on my cubicle door and rattled it on the hinges.

They didn't expect me to emerge and ran off round the corner. A group of girls waiting told me that they listen at the doors for the rip of sanitary packaging and then bang on the doors. It's humiliating.

I always let kids go to the loo during lessons now, even though it's against skool policy....

A high school in a city nearish me was built with mixed sex toilets. Roll on three years and the toilets have all been changed to single sex.

Definitions are crucial. Also when people say gender neutral toilets they usually mean mixed sex so always use the term mixed sex. Say what you see and all that. Using gender neutral or unisex to refer to mixed sex toilets is misleading.

She had miraculously revived from her cabbage-like stupor.

I'm sorry, but this made me laugh out loud.

As for every issue around gender and sex, definitions are so important - and ambiguity around which toilet type is being referred to is really clouding the problem.

Hmm in accordance with the definitions above the loos I've described are mixed sex, not unisex
Although the school calls them unisex.

Our local high school, a new building, has unisex toilet blocks just like the OPs colour photo. It's in Scotland. The toilet cubicles are alternately pink and blue, with sanitary bins in the pink cubicles. The kids hate them, I've heard reports of girls going the whole day without going for a wee, and avoiding drinking water too.
On the ground floor the children themselves have designated one block 'girls' and one 'boys' but some kids still avoid using them just in case.
It's awful and the school are adamant that it reduces bullying.
The loos have no lids either so you can't even sit on the loo and have a cry/moment to yourself.
It's a community facility too so in the evenings/weekends you have adults using the facilities too.

As per above, the distinction between single-sex, unisex and mixed sex toilets and bathrooms needs to be made clear and then consistently used. Even within this thread, posters have used unisex and mixed sex interchangeably. No consistent definition will absolutely cloud this important issue.

Might be worth emailing [email protected] too, Irish posters.

This winds me right up too.

The hierarchy of identity politics.

To those mentioning the issues that Muslims will face, this is indeed more likely to garner attention than the issues all women will face.

About two years ago, I had my Lib Dem councillor over for a cup of tea. I wanted to talk about my city council's enthusiasm for mixed-sex toilets. She was with me for an hour and a half. Her eyes were completely glazed over as I went through all the reasons why this was a serious fucking problem: risk of assault, discomfort for girls and women menstruating, privacy issues, trauma for girls and women who have been previously abused...all of it. It was like she was comatose while listening to me. It was disturbing, actually. Then, towards the end, I mentioned Muslim women, gently suggesting that such arrangements could literally obliterate their access to public toilets. Her eyes cleared instantly, she sat straight up and said, in an excited voice, 'that's a good point! I will raise that with the party!' She had miraculously revived from her cabbage-like stupor.

It's cynical as hell, but it might be worth pointing out the religious issue while we wait for people's brains to de-jellify.