School toilets - rules

[CinderFuckingRe11a]

Hi all

I know someone here will be able to help.

My daughters school has just sent an email saying they will be continuing with year group toilets this year or mixed sex.

According to DD they are floor to ceiling enclosed, but handbasins are outside.

I recently had an accident at work where I bled through my skirt. This was embarrassing enough to deal with as a 42-year-old woman in a ladies only environment but I cannot imagine the modification of having to swill my skirt under a tap in a mixed sex toilet.

This has really focused my mind on this issue and I wondered if anyone knows the actual law on this - and if that law has been relaxed in any way because of COVID?

Thanks in advance fellow vipers

[SpartanRunningGirl]

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/resources-2/letter-templates/

Safe schools alliance are expert on the equalities act and the right to single sex spaces for girls. linked here is the page of their website with letter templates you can use to write to the school.

[SpartanRunningGirl]

This page also outlines law on single sections spaces and toilets. This bullshit of ignoring the law and contempt for the privacy and safety needs of girls must stop. Good luck! . https://safeschoolsallianceuk.net/resources-2/factsheets/#SingleSexxToiletsanddChangingFacilitiess_factsheet

[SpartanRunningGirl]

*single sex spaces

[CinderFuckingRe11a]

Thanks that’s really helpful!

[ChattyLion]

Also don’t forget to mention the reality is this is also a completely avoidable health risk and distraction from learning posed to females only: girls in schools who have to clear up male piss off the unisex seat before they can use it, puts many girls off using the school toilets at all in the daytime and so they get UTIs from holding and are uncomfortable all day. They also ration what they drink at school which gives them headaches. Please can a proper health scientist research and evidence this because we all hear it anecdotally from the primary and secondary school kids in our families yet schools persist with this. I bet over the summer holidays more schools will have taken the chance to turn the toilets unisex if they have been upgrading them.

[Kanaloa]

I understand what you mean but as an adult if I had bled through my skirt on my period I wouldn’t remove it and stand in the bathroom rinsing/washing it under the tap. I’ve never seen anyone else do that either.

Perhaps she could carry a small kit with some spare underwear and pads in case this happens. Other than that I’m not sure you have much you can do, the toilets are fully enclosed so safe to use. She will just be sharing the sinks.

[Namechangeno25788]

Can I ask what you would do in that situation @Kanaloa? Spare pads and underwear are no good if you’ve already bled through a skirt. I remember it happened to a few girls when I was at school, when periods weren’t regular. We had a grey skirt, so no way would we have walked round in a blood stained skirt rather than a quick rinse under the tap and the hand dryer.

[ChattyLion]

Yes this has happened to girls at school and women at work that I know bleeding through their clothes. Women at work also stained the fabric office chairs. It’s an awful experience you never forget, it’s humiliating. Girls and women should have somewhere single-sex and private to go and wash and dry their stained clothes on top of all that. Where if they needed to they can bring a friend to help, call for help if they are ill, and so on. The female only space outside the immediate toilet cubicle is important. Individual ‘gender neutral’ ie unisex cubicles usually open straight on to busy public corridors.

Single sex toilets where women can be in with other women provide a variety of functions and female safety and community benefits that individual unisex toilet cubicles, even if self contained, do not.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3203454-What-do-you-use-the-womens-toilets-for

[Kanaloa]

I’ve never thought about what I’d do - probably call a friend to help me, or phone my mum saying I needed to go home then go out with my jumper wrapped round me. I see it a lot on mumsnet, people insisting they use the common area in the bathroom for emptying moon cups, cleaning stained clothes etc, when in real life I have never seen anyone standing in their knickers in a public bathroom cleaning their clothes.

I’m not saying I agree with mixed sex bathrooms. I don’t. But I don’t think many teenage girls would stand in the school toilets with their skirt off cleaning it under the taps. Other girls would be as likely to pass unkind comments as anyone else.

[Kanaloa]

Plus if you have leaked all through your clothes then you would be likely to be messy under your clothes, and would want to go home and wash up - almost everyone now has a mobile with them at all times so I think on that very specific occurrence the teenager would be more likely to phone a parent and go home sick.

[JassyRadlett]

You don’t stand in your knickers, fgs. You twist your skirt around as best you can and use gymnastics to get the worst out under the tap. Or you get a mate to grab your PE kit from your locker. And it’s still fucking horrifying.

I was in my late 20s stuck in a horrific traffic jam in Beijing in the back of an official embassy car wearing a very pale grey suit when my period started, unexpectedly early and heavy. I still can’t think of it without cringing.

[Kanaloa]

I have plenty of empathy. I was just saying that of all the issues, I don’t think that bringing up a possible situation whereby a girl might need to wash a bloody skirt in the shared sinks is going to convince school to change their entire plans and sort new private toilets out.

And I don’t think it’s that unhelpful to tell your daughter if something like that happens she can phone you for help. I’d rather my daughter phoned me than tried to wash bloodied clothing out in the school toilets.

[gogohm]

It's horrible but they wouldn't take off their skirt single sex or not! In these circumstances they go to the office who will have spare uniform, using their jumper to cover themselves up. Schools are used to dealing with these things and are very matter of fact and reassuring

[GeorgiaMcGraw]

@Kanaloa

I have plenty of empathy. I was just saying that of all the issues, I don’t think that bringing up a possible situation whereby a girl might need to wash a bloody skirt in the shared sinks is going to convince school to change their entire plans and sort new private toilets out.

And I don’t think it’s that unhelpful to tell your daughter if something like that happens she can phone you for help. I’d rather my daughter phoned me than tried to wash bloodied clothing out in the school toilets.

The more common issue is bloodstains on the hands after changing pad/tampon/menstrual cup in the loo. Girls deserve privacy from boys. Imagine teen boys knowing which girl is on her period, how humiliating, and how easy for them to tease and be horrible to the girls. @op there was a Times report, then copied by the Independent about assaults in mixed sex spaces that might help, and there have been news articles about girls refusing to use the toilets. As PP said, look at Safe Schools Alliance. Good luck 👍

[Babdoc]

Kanaloa, you say that you would have phoned your mother or gone home, if you had bled through your school skirt.
My daughters, when they were teens, travelled 17 miles to school on the school bus, had no transport to get home during the day, and their mother was working full time in the operating theatre as a hospital anaesthetist.
How exactly would your solution have helped my daughters? Or the thousands of other girls who do not have the luxury of an unemployed mother constantly available?
When DD1 started her first period at the age of 11, she thankfully had a single sex toilet to clean up in, without jeering 18 year old boys standing watching.
The current generation are being denied dignity and privacy.

[Mumteedum]

@GeorgiaMcGraw exactly this. I was on my period at a conference and had the pleasure of hand washing in a large trough sink (with the one set of taps) with men, when I had blood on me. These were males I had just met professionally. It was shit. I can front it out but I was pissed off about being put in that position.

[biggerthehoops]

@Kanaloa

I have plenty of empathy. I was just saying that of all the issues, I don’t think that bringing up a possible situation whereby a girl might need to wash a bloody skirt in the shared sinks is going to convince school to change their entire plans and sort new private toilets out.

And I don’t think it’s that unhelpful to tell your daughter if something like that happens she can phone you for help. I’d rather my daughter phoned me than tried to wash bloodied clothing out in the school toilets.

They're not allowed to take their phones to the loos during lessons. If indeed they've been allowed out of lessons at all (but that's another issue!)

Same sex toilets should open out on to the corridor, girls shouldn't have to share the enclosed space with boys while they use the sinks. It's asking for trouble. Who thought this would be okay?!

[Kanaloa]

I don’t think girls are leaving the toilets with ‘bloodstained hands.’ If a little bit of blood got on them they would wipe it off with tissue before washing their hands in the sink. As I said, I do agree with single sex toilets (more for reasons of safety) but I think it’s daft to pretend the reason they’re needed is so girls can wash blood off their clothes/themselves.

Other teen girls are much more likely to comment/be nasty/jeer if a girl walks out of the toilet cubicle with her hands covered in blood.

And if a parent wasn’t available, as a pp said I would tell my daughter to go to the office/fetch her pe kit with her jumper tied round herself.

[HPandTheNeverEndingBedtime]

When girls have leaked through at school and told me I've sent an email to student support and they've either phoned home or had a look through the spare uniform box.

You will find that a lot of schools have toilets with floor to ceiling doors but the toilet area itself is open with sinks down the middle opening straight out on to the corridor. It prevents bullying in an enclosed space and of course the smokers trying to have a stealth one in the loo.

[Mumteedum]

We have single sex spaces for dignity and safety. Menstruation is a reality for many females and it's fair that if there is no sink within the cubicle, it should be single sex in the washing facilities.

For what it's worth, my young son is becoming more aware of his body. He now refuses to use the ladies loo with me so many males wish for single sex spaces for their dignity too.

One size fits all bullshit should be challenged.

@Kanaloa you clearly haven't had periods like mine. Lots of girls and women have an issue with this. Although it's not an issue as long as you don't have to share sinks with males.

[helpfulperson]

I also don't understand the skirt rinsing. If that happened i cant see that at a rinse in aink would make much difference. As an adult I would pop out and buy a new skirt. As a pupil I would go to the welfare assistant who would arrange for clothes to be brought in or the item to be washed in the home economics washing machine.
I'm not saying mixed toilets are right just I don't think this is a reason against.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

People are talking about teenage girls. But some girls start in primary school. DD at 10 is very clear that she doesn't want boys knowing about anything to do with periods in relation to her and her friends. She assisted two girls who started after her. She wasn't in the cubicle with them. She was in the common bathroom area. And was happy to share her supplies and talk them through it. Girls supporting girls. No need for support staff or the office because DD supported her friends. And told them they would get a hot water bottle and hot chocolate at home (she may have been over-egging the pudding there).

Privacy and space is important.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

And hasn't everyone done the "shit, anyone got a tampon?" over the walls? Girls don't want boys there for that.

[Davros]

As I keep saying, there was such surprise about the sexual abuse among pupils in schools when girls have nowhere to escape to and can be cornered by a boy who is allowed in there