Interesting school toilets story

[FlorenceLyons]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-43462823

Interesting on a number of levels, I think. The school had originally said a transgender child (a boy identifying as a girl) couldn't use the girls' toilets 'out of respect' - presumably for the girls.

An organisation called Transpire then got involved. Their spokesperson is quoted as saying "I find it quite amazing some schools are branding it respect when in fact it is segregation ... It's about giving people the opportunity to use the toilet they are comfortable with, not what the school is comfortable with."

The school capitulated, with the head saying "because of what the school stands for and the rights written into equality law, the school made the decision to allow transgender students to use a toilet that matches their identified gender".

This begs so many questions, doesn't it? Why is 'respect' being posited as the opposite of 'segregation'? Surely segregation by sex is partly about respecting the needs of people, particularly women, to single-sex spaces? Why does the comfort of one child trump the comfort of many children? And why is equality law being used to justify this, when we know it says no such thing?

So you solve male bad behaviour by putting someone with a penis in the girls' loos. You don't address the bad behaviour.
I know that there can be bullying and bad behaviour in the girls' loos. Do you deal with that by insisting the victim uses the boys' toilets?

Gina says that the public and colleagues are very supportive of her. I notice Gina's wife and children don't get mentioned at the end there. I wonder what they think? Gina is annoyed that when their daughter gets married, her marriage certificate will say Father: Gina Denham. Gina would like it to say Mother I suspect, despite the fact that it was presumably Gina's sperm that contributed to the daughter.

And that Independent article just shows how fucking grim this whole situation is.

Is it me or is there a whiff of racism in campaigning for girls in lower income countries to have single sex toilets while snatching away that facility from girls in higher income countries?

Sorry - meant to link to a couple of articles:

www.beingmecampaign.com/stories/ginadenham/
www.stonewall.org.uk/comeoutforLGBT/gina

It's all about validation. All of it.

This needs some formal complaints.
Ideally from parents of girls at the school concerned that their daughters rights to privacy, dignity and safety are being removed from them with no consultation

And the Essex police need to explain why it is OK for their police officers to get involved in cases that impinge on their personal lifestyle decisions and to explain why serving police officers are allowed to 'out' schools in this way to the press for their own personal / political campaigns.

Can't really blame the head, they are also being bullied into doing as they are told and don't want negative press. Someone needs to be collating all these cases and bringing lawsuit??

www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/toilets.htm
2.c
School are breaking the law.

The school is breaking the law, but to be precise because this is an academy failing to provide suitable single sex toilets to pupils rather than staff it is para 23 of the Schedule to the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014 which is being breached, rather than the Regs mentioned in that link.

This is of course assuming that the girls bathrooms consist of cubicles as rather than having a single toilet in an enclosed room.

If I were a parent to a pupil at the school I would be lodging a complaint.

I think it is important to be sympathetic to trans children's right to dignity and privacy through recognising that using same-sex facilities can cause humiliation, regardless of how supportive and kind there peers are. I am not sympathetic to the view that this means trans children should access same-sex facilities of their choice.

I am sympathetic to headteachers/ governors 'getting things wrong' as a result of people who are positioned as 'experts' giving dodgy advice. I am not sympathetic to headteachers/ governors failing to attend to the Equalities Act and the DFE's advice about standards and school premises when these are flagged up.

I strongly advice that people take reactive or preemptive action with the schools their children attend. If anyone wants help with doing this do send me a PM. I can help you request information to reassure you whilst simultaneously avoiding being labelled as exclusionary.

I've worked for years around disability rights and the Equality Act. The wording is reasonable adjustments . Reasonable in the context of impact on budget, time, effort and impact on others.

This can only be seen as a reasonable adjustment if you believe that feelings of distress, discomfort and embarrassment about an objectively, factually male body when the person's subjective preference is that they should be included as female are wrong, invalid and must be discouraged.

Basically that women and girls have no right to their feelings, boundaries and consent. Add to that that social pressure and threats (hate crime) is explained to those girls for showing distress and your Orwellian nightmare is complete.

This is ethically, morally WRONG. Corrupt. Bloody awful. And I bet if you spoke to the school, you'd find the staff on the quiet are very upset about it but its been made clear that God help them if they dare to speak out or resist.

What we need are a LOT of accounts in the press about these crying, wanting to leave the country, 'I don't like them leering at me' girls - the annecdotes are coming from MNetters. We need some anonymous accounts in public spaces and parents speaking out.

A boy is in my daughter's PE changing room, my daughter hates it but has been told it's a female penis and she's committing hate speech if she doesn't hide her distress.

And then get the statement from which ever TRA Insanity Unit is on call which will inevitably boil down to 'trans people are the only ones entitled to feelings/respect/consideration, and fuck women and girls'.

@Kneedeepinunicorns

Ditto here. The problem is the duty to make reasonable adjustment seems only to apply only to the protected characteristic of disability.

That's dreadful kneedeepinunicorns
Have parents considered complaining to Ofsted? (although I have a fear that trans pressure groups will have trained Ofsted) so you would need to include details of the actual law to 'educate ' them.

That makes me so angry kneedeep. Surely it contravenes safeguarding rules at the very least? Aren't parents up in arms?

I agree Smurf - why can't we change boys/mens attitudes to this?
Probably because it's easier to walk over women. I'm a parent and I struggle to understand how parents of these children think it's ok to trample all over girls. How does any parent think it's ok for their son to go to a girl guide camp and sleep with the girls or, as in this case, use their toilets.

This Head introduced gender neutral toilets and then had to back down - interestingly after doing that old fashioned thing of actually talking and listening to children!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4987780/Headmaster-apologises-gender-neutral-toilets.html

I suppose paying customers have far more clout than children / parents in other schools.

Kneedeepinunicorns

I don’t want to be a pedant but the concept of “reasonable adjustments” in the Act only applies to the protected characteristic of disability - it has no apllication in relation to gender reassignment.

In relation to schools, the Act provides (s82(2)):
The responsible body of such a school must not discriminate against a pupil—
(a) in the way it provides education for the pupil;
(b) in the way it affords the pupil access to a benefit, facility or service;
(c) by not providing education for the pupil;
(d) by not affording the pupil access to a benefit, facility or service;
(e) by excluding the pupil from the school;
(f) by subjecting the pupil to any other detriment.

But none of this means that the school has to let a pupil born male use single sex female facilities. They do have to allow the pupil to use a bathroom, but this could be eg a staff bathroom in an enclosed room with a single toilet.

TBH I do think trans-identifying boys will be unsafe in the boys' toilets & changing rooms. Even is we can eventually re-educate men to accept gender non-conforming males, teenage boys will be the hardest nuts to crack (no pun intended ). So I support trans-identifying boys having separate facilities, but it's fucking outrageous that girls are made to give up their privacy to accommodate them.

Argh, sorry, that was a theoretical example of what I was saying that should have been in speech marks! Not a real situation! My bad laying out of a post, sorry.

Rest assured if it was a real situation a daughter of mine would now be at a different school with a more confident head.

If this is illegal then why no lawsuits? There must be parents at these schools where this is happening either law savvy or able to afford good legal representation? Why is no one defending the rights of these girls? I don't get it!

I don’t want to be a pedant but the concept of “reasonable adjustments” in the Act only applies to the protected characteristic of disability - it has no apllication in relation to gender reassignment.

Arguably it should though.

From the article Capn linked:

On marriage certificates, it only allows for the father’s name to be present. It’s been like this since 1837. When my daughter gets married her certificate will say ‘Father: Gina Denham’.

Well yes, because in 1837 'Father' means 'he who provided the spunk' and that is still the case in 2018.

Ihavesomeballs

Transactivist pressure groups have been running round the country guilt tripping and gaslighting everyone, misinterpreting the law, using dodgy suicide statistics and successfully creating a narrative of the most vulnerable group in the world whose needs trump every other individual or group in the world for the last few years. They are government funded and endorsed and as they have trained everyone - government, the police, the press, lawyers etc they have been able to impose their personal beliefs on the rest of us. with ease.

It is a scandal of epic proportions but people are only just starting to recognise it. Their mantra #nodebate and their training of the police and then using them as their personal agents to enforce their vision is breathtaking in ingenuity!

Education and schools are their particular focus because of course young minds are so much easier to influence to their distorted vision of sex and gender. One day society will look back in horror at what has happened - but for now we're playing catch up.

A lot of parents may not know about it especially at a secondary school. Children are not always forthcoming with information especially if it involves sex, gender and body parts.

I'm not clear if the example above had consulted with parents of girls but given that trans pressure groups seem to dislike that I suspect not.

Perhaps the parents weren’t even told.
If the school has similar policies to UK Girl Guides then telling parents their daughters share facilities with a male-bodied girl will be actively discouraged..

“It is not a requirement - or best practice - to tell parents that a trans person will be attending a residential event.”

Source: www.girlguiding.org.uk/making-guiding-happen/running-your-unit/including-all/lgbt-members/supporting-trans-members/

I have been in several discussions in the last few years about unisex toilets in schools due to transgender children.

The problem I have with unisex is that they are mainly designed as floor to ceiling cubicles with no gaps for obvious reasons of privacy. But I've worked in colleges where we had students trying to commit suicide in toilets and been found because of that gap between loos. Probably a silly worry but really does concern me.

I also have a friend who is a cool designer working in a cool company who did unisex loos. After 3 months they begged the HR dept to create male/female toilets.

Probably been said before but so much wrong with this:

1. This is not the law. The head of Transpire is a policeman, a TIM. They essentially lied to the school about the law. The law does not unequivocally state people can choose their toilets.

1. He says it's about using the bathroom people are comfortable with. So yes - where is the girl's bathroom that girls are comfortable with - subtext: only trans need to be comfortable, girls need to suck it up.

1. Yes, it is segregation. Sex segregated spaces have a reason and are important. This is pure appropriation of racism.

The parents need to hit back and inform the school what the law actually is. Problem is, who wants to face the abhorrent abuse by TRAs that will inevitably follow?