Which toilets a F to M transgender student should use

[WongaDotMom]

DH teaches at an FE college. One of his new students this year is transgender (female to male)
All staff and students are aware of his transgender status. (Not sure about any ops or medications, will ask DH when he gets home)

The student wishes to use the male toilets. Staff had a meeting regarding this issue, trying to avoid any issues with the male students using the toilets at the same time, and decided that the student should NOT use the male toilets, but allocated him use of the disabled toilet instead.

He was offended by this suggestion, as he does not have a disability, and is taking a stance by walking the 10 minute journey to public toilets in town where he can use the male facilities without discrimination.

I think the college should allow him use of the male facilities, DH disagrees, so I am putting it out for the MN jury to decide.

Who is BU?

Imperial, I used to teach in a school with unisex loos (at request of the student council). The cubicles are floor to ceiling like individual rooms. The outer area with sinks etc was open plan to the corridor, so no one could lurk in the loos. The students really liked them, they were kept cleaner and there was no more bullying in the loos.

Male, maybe as a compromise he could use a cubicle instead of urinal? Sorry if I'm repeating someone else's suggested. Had a vino and CBA to read through sorry.

Male.

But the college should ave unisex toilets.

The college are discriminating against him by not allowing him to use the male toilet. It could be argued they are also breaching his human rights.

They are potentialy discriminating against the students who do need to use the disabled toilet.

While the student is going to the public toilet he should visit the CAB.

Male, obviously.

Disgusting we need to debate otherwise really I hope he seeks legal advice over this.

Male, and it's horrific the girl the year before was forced out of the female toilets by ignorant twats tbh. It really is disgusting that this is still an issue at all.

My uni has unisex toilets in all the major areas which works well, but honestly anyone complaining about a transgendered person (how would anyone else know anyway?!) using the loos they were most comfortable with would be told to get a grip. Quite rightly to!

It's not 'ignorant' that as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse that I don't want anyone with a penis in the area in which I go to the toilet, or am getting changed for swimming. It would leave me feeling incredibly vulnerable, and would leave ME leaving the premises to use the toilet or get changed.

The only reasonable solution is to provide Men's, Ladies AND unisex toilets.

The feelings of the transgendered person should not override my feelings, they should both be given equal weight.

I would not choose to use the Unisex toilets, and equally I don't expect anyone with a penis to use the Ladies toilets.

That doesn't make me have any issue with transgendered people, it just means that I wish not to feel vulnerable when using the toilet or changing room.

Both people's feelings need to be given equal weight, IMO.

Unisex toilets in secondary school is a terrible idea.The kids would be at it like rabbits! (some of them anyway)

Those of you who say he should use whichever toilet he wants, are, I feel discriminatory. You wouldn't say that to a man born a man!

But the issue isn't about a man born a man

Thing is, there are laws about this. So, rightly or wrongly, it doesn't come down to feelings.

My old secondary school has now installed unisex toilets. They are individual units with a sink and hand dryer in which open directly onto a corridor. The patrolling adult at break times can stand outside and easily see who's going into which toilets. We also have these at the university I work at. I've never heard anyone complain about them.

There was a girl assaulted in a unisex school toilet in a Secondary near me. Would she ever feel safe in a unisex toilet, or a Ladies toilet that a pre-op transgendered person was allowed to use?

Which person would be more distressed? The girl in fear of a repeat assault, or the pre-op transgendered person being prevented from using a single sex toilet of the gender they identify themselves with? Hard to say?

That's why ALL parties issues must be considered. You can't discriminate against one person in the process of eliminating discrimination for another. Therefore both parties issues carry equal weight, and should both be considered, and a solution should be found that doesn't discriminate against EITHER party.

How does making a toilet only for women prevent a man coming in and assaulting them?

The only thing it does is prevent discomfort when someone who looks male (despite identifying as female) comes in. That is of course an important consideration.

well he is a F to M iwould imagine he has either had operations or having treatment ATM he should use the male toilets he Identifies as a man, Id imagine he would use a cubicle in the toilets , must be hard to decide what is for the best though as they have other students to consider

This is ridiculous. He is a man.
Not only is this incredibly insensitive and intrusive (how often do you have to justify what's in your pants to virtual strangers?), it's also almost certainly illegal or highly legally questionable and the student would probably have a good case - I can imagine many lawyers would be only to happy to represent him.

This was an issue over 20 years ago at one of the places I worked at.

Transgender male to female. Wasn't allowed to use female toilets, but the men didn't want her to use their loos either, so everytime she needed the loo, she went home (lived relatively close to work).

She did this for the duration of the transgender period and after surgery, returned to the same place of work with a new name. She was then allowed to use the ladies loos.

She still works there now and is a bloody brilliant engineer, and I find it very sad that the guys there still call her prickless Nicholas behind her back

My whole point is that this was over 20 years ago - it shouldn't be an issue now at all

As Couthy said, male female AND unisex loos should be the norm. Everywhere.

couthy if you are uncomfortable using female public toilets which anyone who was born a man and is living as a woman could use, perfectly correctly and legally then you have the option of using a disabled toilet. You probably have used toilets which have been used by a TG woman, maybe just not at the same time or that you have realised.
I am not minimising or dismissing your feelings but you are projecting them onto people who are not responsible for them.
There are cubicles in women's toilets for individuals to use so there is no reason why there should be any penis on show, and after reading some of the comments on here I think it highly unlikely that a TG person would be using a communal changing room and risk facing some of these attitudes.
As someone said before, this is not about feelings, this is the law, it is very clear about discrimination. Oh and you can change your sex, again, not a matter of opinion, a matter of law.

It's interesting to note that f to m transgendered people should (according to this thread) be allowed to use the male toilets.

But I have seen many times (and as Couthy says on this thread) massive objections to f to m transgendered people being allowed to use female toilets.

Even I think he should use the male toilets and I don't understand transgenderism at all (which matters not a plink, I know).

Not everyone on the FWR board takes the attitude MtF transgender people should be excluded from women's spaces, by any stretch of the imagination. If they did, that topic would not be an area of huge controversy on that board. Actually, I think people who take that position are in a distinct minority.

I find it astonishing that the college does not know the law. It isn't exactly obscure, and there was loads of publicity about the Equality Act 201 and what it would mean. How can the whole thing have passed them by? They seem to think they have to power to ban transgender people from sharing single-sex spaces for the sex to which they are transitioning. They don't. Hapless as well as unkind.

If a man wanted to attack a woman in the toilets, the fact that he wasn't really allowed in the female toilets wouldn't stop him.

I don't think it's fair to say that someone who possesses a penis shouldn't go in the female toilets if (and it's a big if) they are fully living and identifying themselves as a woman. There is more to gender than the presence of a penis or not. People have been born with both male and female sexual organs, and people have been born with none at all, and transgender issues are complicated.

Should I be provided with personal toilets everywhere I go if I have been attacked and assaulted by a woman in the past? No? What about if my woman on woman attack had a sexual nature to it? What about the fact that male on male rape exists? Men are equally as vulnerable as women, but that's why we have locks on toilet cubicles.

This man who was born a woman doesn't (as far as we know) pose a risk to any other toilet users, whereas being forced to use something which is designated for a gender that he is not has potential to cause him much mental harm. That's just not fair to him.

While I agree that everyone's needs deserve equal consideration, where there is definitely a risk to the mental health of one person, and only a perceived possible risk to another who may or may not even know about the situation, let alone be in the toilet at the same time as the person that is transgender, then the needs of the former carries far more weight than the needs of the latter.

Male toilets. But, how does a female turn into a male? How do they grow/attach a penis? Genuine question.

Reconstruction, Fakebook.

I think Outraged describes it perfectly.

Do you not think that there will be a risk to the mental health of the girl that was attacked then? Because I do. So, again, how can you judge WHICH person's risk to their mental health is worse?

Surely the answer is to provide Men's, Ladies AND Unisex toilets.

He should use the men's loos. The clue is in the article 'he'.

M->F - she should use the womens loos.

I'm not suprised he's offended by being told to use the disabled loos. And then again, we get lots of threads from the POV of people with disabilities saying that ablebodied people shouldn't use their loos so there might be objections from that angle.