To think secondary schools should not have unisex toilets?

[seriouslylong]

So my daughter started secondary school this year in a temporary sight and yesterday moved to the permanent sight. She came home and told me they only have unisex toilets in the school

I looked on a local Facebook page this morning and there was a parent on there asking for opinions.

I don't think boys and girls should have to share a toilet! They need their privacy at this age!

What are your thoughts? Also would be interested to hear if your children have unisex toilets at school?

And there's far less hanging around in the toilet area so less intimidating for the younger pupils etc.

God no, my DD would hate it always says the boys toilets smell when passing them . Plus no privacy for the girls especially if either on or just started there period so embarrassing for them as there's always some boy who's going to mess around . If they started implementing them in nurserys most kids wouldn't mind as would be used to them i suppose .

YANBU. Girls and boys need single sex toilets because girls need toilets for menstrual mop ups. They are entitled to some dignity and privacy as they get to grips with periods.

Arkos I agree with you, my dd's school has toilets pretty similar to what was in that picture. She says there are 'blocks' of 3 - boy/girl/disabled. They face onto the corridor and no opportunity for messing around etc -

I do think that when people think of unisex toilets they are just imagining a standard set of toilets which are just open to one and all to go into, and have just had the sign changed.

How do all these poor girls mange on airplanes?

I didn't dare use the girls' toilets when I was at school until I was in Year 11 and wasn't comfortable in there until 6th form - way too many gangs of girls in there gossiping, smoking, doing make up, making fun of younger/less popular children and generally doing everything but just go to the loo and get out. I'm lucky that I was a camel.

If they really are fully enclosed with their own sink and bin then I think they are far preferable to traditional school toilets.

Though I think fully enclosed, single sex toilets would be the absolute best scenario. But I doubt any school is going to spend the money modernising toilets like that unless the have to for the purposes of making them unisex.

yes, because being on an airplane is a common occurrence, just like going to school.

As the mother of a tiny teen, 4 ft 8, almost 14, who has heavy periods, I am horrified at this

By law there must be separate facilities provided for males and females for toilets. What they have done is illegal.

“Separate toilet and washing facilities must be provided for boys and girls aged 8 years and over pursuant to Regulation 4 of the School Premises (England) Regulations 2012, which falls within the exemption provided for in Schedule 22 of the Equality Act 2010.”

Sex assaults on girls at school by boys are unacceptably high as it is without having to share facilities. How will this help keep girls safe and ensure they have a dignified environment to get to grips with periods? How are religious boys and girls being accommodated? This is such pc bullshit.

Are people here struggling to read 🤔

Well there is (are?) separate toilet facilities, and I presume washing facilities are actually in regards to showers etc, not hand basins.

How do all these poor girls mange [sic] on airplanes?

Well for a start I wouldn’t have thought most of these girls would be on an airplane for around six hours every day. Happy to be corrected on that though. An airplane journey is by definition a temporary state of affairs.

Why are we moving towards gender neutral toilets? Why are girls and boys losing their toilets. Why are we rushing towards shared everything? Years ago women couldn’t go out because they didn’t have toilets. Elderly women do not want to share toilets. I hate shared toilets. Isn’t that my right?

I'm envious of some posters here who clearly inhabit a different world to me - one where ladies toilets are clean, sweet smelling and full of supportive individuals ready to dispense san pro and make up tips. Public toilets are not nice, and that includes ladies toilets.

At my school we avoided the toilet. They were where the gangs of "cool" girls hung out, bullying anyone not in their gang, throwing things over the tops of cubicles, standing on toilets and peering over the tops, bunking off lessons, beating other girls up - they were awful places. My daughter also refused to use the toilets at school for the same reasons.

The new unisex toilets in schools are so much better. They provide no opportunity for bullying and are easily visible to staff and passing pupils so.no vandalism. As they open straight onto a corridor they also enable students to use them.during lessons too as there is no way to lock them up during lessons and the school has less concerns about students bunking off lessons or hiding out and causing trouble.

Having free access to toilets during lessons is actually beneficial to girls.

And really - how many people have actually seen women washing visible blood from their hands? You simply don't see someone's hands that closely when they are using the sinks in a public toilet. I think some people are just looking for an excuse to be outraged here and ignoring the fact that for many girls these new toilets are a very great improvement.

Our school has similar except the sinks are within each cubicle so, arguably, more private.

The rationale behind this, as I understand it, is to stop potential bullying, etc. in an enclosed space which can be guarded.

Other than the usual dislike of any public toilet and them not always being functioning I'm not aware of any issues the students themselves have.

Toilets were out of bounds at breaks when I was at school anyway. They were taken over by those smoking and drug taking, so if you weren't one of "them", they didn't let you in or you'd get hit/burned if you insisted.

After those horrible experiences, I think more "open" spaces with individual private cubicles (for one) are a vast improvement as it will stamp out that kind of behaviour if it enables CCTV in the open areas or, as some say above, the open areas are visible to the corridor.

Of course, it also avoids having the complications of those transgendering or identifying themselves of the opposite sex. Surely you don't want boys who identify themselves as a girl going into a single sex girl's loo?

“How will this help keep girls safe and ensure they have a dignified environment to get to grips with periods?“

How is it LESS dignified to have a fully enclosed room to yourself with a sink in, than the standard cubicles with gaps at the top and bottom, and a shared sink.

These sort of toilets don’t share anything. They are individual, stand-alone facilities.

but in this instance the hand basins aren't inside the cubicles. And I've seen a photo of one of the sets of toilets and they aren't open in the way Arkos described.

My concern goes beyond what happens in schools as well - I have very real worries that girls are being groomed (and I use this word advisedly) into accepting boys and men in their private spaces and being taught that it's wrong to question and challenge that. Our children are growing up in a world where the mere thought of 'excluding' anyone from anything is inherently wrong. This is the same world where women are killed by men in the UK at the rate of 2 a week. Where the number of assaults in unisex toilet and changing spaces hugely outweighs those in single sex spaces (120 out of 134, I believe is the figure - not sure of the time frame but that clearly indicates that unisex spaces are not safer).

It's not just about what goes on in schools - we need to look at the bigger picture. If there are always queues outside the ladies' then the solution isn't to do away with the ladies', it's to realise that giving equal amounts of space to men's and women's facilities may be equality but it's not equity.

Surely the answer to both the bullying and privacy/safety issue is to build toilet blocks in these open corridors but still keep the girls' and the boys' very separate.

Surely the answer to both the bullying and privacy/safety issue is to build toilet blocks in these open corridors but still keep the girls' and the boys' very separate.

What does that achieve? The objections are that people (boys) might over hear the rustling of san pro, girls won't have a space away from boys, others (boys) might see you washing blood off your hands. How will doing what you suggest be any different to what is being done with these new toilets. People walking past a block of girls toilets that open onto a corridor will see/hear just as much as someone using an adjacent cubicle (in reality, nothing).

Many schools local to me are installing these toilets and the pupils are very positive about them.

@eggplantsforever well said! Nothing more to add, other than I completely agree with you. And the toilets in the picture look like a wise move towards a safer and more hygienic toilet area (wads of wet tissue on the ceiling anyone?). Also agree with those who recall girls’ toilets in school as being disgusting/women’s toilets often dirty...

Because it gives a modicum of privacy and space away from the male gaze, acknowledges that girls have different bodies and needs to boys (which for girls of certain cultures could be very important indeed) and doesn't instill the idea that absolutely everything has to be unisex.

Weetabix DD seems very positive about them too. In fact she thinks it very strange that I ask her about them. To her they are just a toilet.

Individual cubicles are single sex, so no sharing of spaces.

They offer no more privacy than if the toilets are used by both boys and girls. They are cubicles leading off of the main corridor. It makes no difference if the person inside the cubicle is male or female.

Honestly, you are entirely refusing to acknowledge the very real problems of single sex toilets that prevent many children from using the toilets during the school day.

Dothehappydance

Exactly. All of the students that I talk to much prefer these new toilets. They are a huge improvement on the old style toilets.

I don't understand why some people can't recognise how awful girls toilets can be (boys too probably but I have no personal experience of them).

“ I have very real worries that girls are being groomed (and I use this word advisedly) into accepting boys and men in their private spaces and being taught that it's wrong to question and challenge that.“

I agree, but having individual gender-neutral toilets is actually the quickest way to end that. Most new swimming-pools are being built with individual one-person changing rooms, instead of Men’s and Women’s. This is no different.

We have these toilets (with a sink in each) at my older girls’ school. I’ve used them myself at school events. Nobody is having anybody in their private space as they are fully-enclosed stand-alone toilets.