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?

The toilets pictured don't give anyone any privacy or dignity at all they are awful I would have rather had my face smashed against a wall in a regular toilet than have to use those .

Really? You would rather have your face smashed into a wall than use completely enclosed, private toilets?

Deal with bullying..send the buggers home or stick them in isolation or something.

Yes, if you can identify them and catch them. Not if they are anonymously launching missiles over toilet doors, or peeping over the tops of cubicles, or banging on the toilet doors, or unlocking the cubicle doors pushing them open and then running away, or any number of intimidating acts that mean many girls won't use the toilets.

And no, sharing unisex toilets is no more humiliating than sharing single sex toilets. You aren't being made to squat over a bucket in a field. They are floor to ceiling enclosed cubicles.

Ha ha a dancer
..
. no I'm not a man.

I am a teacher. I work in schools with unisex toilets. The roll runs to 2000 in one and 500 in the other. I have never had a pupil complain about the toilets. And they would if they felt it was an issue trust me.

I would hate to have unisex toilets at work. Yes I know some of you like them but I don’t and I’m a democracy my voice should be heard too. Where I have worked with unisex toilets people tended to set up theor own rules ie men’s toilets to the left and ladies to the right.

Lots of women don’t like doing a poo in the ladies toilet let alone having men in there again some of you will ridicule that but that is how it is. I wouldn’t like to do a poo song have my boss follow me in afterwards. Yes strange but that is how I feel and my feelings are valid. Women and men like to have a quick safe chat with the same sex in the toilets. Just leave the toilets alone. I can’t understand what is being gained by mixing them.

What exactly are you arguing for. Open plan or unisex or both?
Unisex loos should he a huge no. Whatever the lay out. If you can't seen the problem then you are being wilfully blind.

Why can't single sex loos have full length doors if that's the argument?

Beansandcoffee

Yes your feelings are valid. So to are the feelings of people who don't feel safe in school toilets. Why shouldn't their views be heard?

Women and men like to have a quick safe chat with the same sex in the toilets.

Do they? Maybe some, not all and surely the operative word there is safe ie free from bullying and intimidating behaviour.

What exactly are you arguing for. Open plan or unisex or both?

I'm arguing for the toilets as described here. In some schools they are two long rows of cubicles boys oneside girls the other, in other schools they are a row of cubicles anyone can use any cubicle. They all open directly onto an open, clearly visible space.

Why can't single sex loos have full length doors if that's the argument?

Most single sex toilets have a large contained room with cubicles in them, shut away from over sight by staff. That's the problem. They provide a secluded space for trouble makers to congregate.

So you would in fact pick an open plan single sex toilet. One as open as said unisex toilet ? If it was between that and a more enclosed unisex?

If they were private (floor to ceiling) and opened into an overlooked space then I couldnt care less if they were unisex or not. Annoying I know but there you go.

So you would in fact pick an open plan single sex toilet. One as open as said unisex toilet ? If it was between that and a more enclosed unisex?

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

The toilets that I have seen, designed like these, are a row of cubicles, fully enclosed. They are for anyone to use. They open straight onto a corridor.

They are not the more traditional room with cubicles within the room.

I do not care who was in the toilet before me or after me nor who is in the cubicle next door to me. They are enclosed.

I would prefer a unisex cubicle onto a corridor or an open plan area than going into a traditional toilet set up. I feel more vunerable in these especially when there are 2 doors. Work is different as it is more of a known quantity, and blocks with no doors. One set I use has 2 doors and I always feel a bit vunerable there.

It’s not even privacy, men are animals when it comes to toilets. Just been in a bar that had a single, unisex toilet and the man before had pissed all over the seat and tried to dry it with the hand dryer angled towards it. Obviously it did nothing.

Having been a cleaner in a cinema, I never found the womens toilets any less disgusting than the mens. If anything the mens were slightly better as the piss was generally concentrated around the urinals (rather than the cubical floor) and there wasn't used sanitary wear on the floor. But yes it was perpetually amazing to see how filthy people were in a public place and I often wondered what they were like at home.

Why the hell are schools and businesses making the switch to unisex? Who has said they want this?

Mermaids and Stonewall (who are now effectively a trans organisation, not an LGB organisation) have been going into schools to provide "diversity training" and told schools they need to do this.

Mermaids have no expertise in safeguarding or child development or, well, anything really. They're a lobby group. The CEO's qualifications are project management.

Stonewall also have no expertise in safeguarding or child development. Also a lobby group. We should be particularly worried about Stonewall and safeguarding, as it happens (See the recent damning report on their trustee Aimee Challenor - and notice Stonewall's lack of action).

Both these lobbying organisations are using schools for their own political ends and schools are going along with it, often as it's unchallenged and they think it's the right thing to do.

It's up to us as parents to stand against this.

Yes but that doesn't explain why anyone is making these kinds of changes instead of providing a third mixed sex space.
This movement has made so much headway so fast.

men are animals when it comes to toilets.

Have you ever used a public toilet? It's always piss over the seat because people are hovering

There was unisex toilets at my old school. They changed them to unisex when I was in year 10, this change didn't bother me or anyone I know.

user because a 3rd space provides no validation and still allows boys and girls their own separate single sex spaces. That's certainly not what Stonewall and Mermaids want.

And with the school in question it is highly likely that one or both of these lobbying non-expert highly biased groups has been involved.

I think it's a great thing to start in schools. The more normal we make it the less it will bother people. And it will be fairer for all...no clutching pearls over who can use which gendered toilet.

They arent gendered they are sex segregated .

Organisations are busy campaigning for single sex toilets in other countries FOR A REASON.

It is nothing to do with Stonewall, Mermaids or anything else.

These toilets are an entirely different issue. Honestly, I have been a school governor since 2006. Not once have any of these organisations been mentioned in the schools that I've been linked with.

We looked at redesigning, renovating our toilets at the request of the school council because they were run down and a place where no one wanted to be. Nothing to do with a 3rd space, gender neutral or anything remotely similar.

But you are aware that these organizations are going into schools and advising them? And this issue will be one of their hobby horses. To the detriment of the children in the school.

If you are still a governor you can't afford to be blind to this. You can't afford to ignore that unisex toilets are less safe (I'm not talking about bullying or mean girls, I'm talking about actual assaults). You can't afford to ignore that this is grooming girls into accepting men into their safe spaces. It's already practically unacceptable to object to sharing spaces amongst this generation, you're a bigot and hateful if you do. Those of us who can need to speak up for those who have been silenced. That is what I will do, every time.

But you are aware that these organizations are going into schools and advising them?

The only place I hear about it is on MN. No one that I am in contact with have experienced them.

You can't afford to ignore that unisex toilets are less safe (I'm not talking about bullying or mean girls, I'm talking about actual assaults).

Firstly what are you referring to when you say "unisex"? What exact layout are you talking about?

Secondly, as I asked earlier, please provide a link that shows that these toilets in schools are less safe?

And please don't under estimate how devastating girl on girl bullying can be. I've permanently excluded girls for "actual assaults" on other girls but intimidation and verbal bullying can be just as harmful.

You can't afford to ignore that this is grooming girls into accepting men into their safe spaces.
And you are conflating issues. These toilets are new spaces. They are not "girls accepting men into their safe spaces". These spaces belong to no one. They are for the use of all. They are an individual cubicle belonging to the person occupying it at the time. We aren't talking about converting the current girls toilet into a unisex toilet but an entire new build, hence why they are so expensive.

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