Anger as gender neutral toilets introduced at primary school without parents knowing

[MrsSnippyPants]

www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/17197253.anger-as-gender-neutral-toilets-introduced-at-primary-school-without-parents-knowing/?ref=twtrec

I would be furious about this. Girls often start their periods at primary school and can take a while to get the hang of dealing with them. They absolutely need somewhere private to wash hands etc.
I thought single sex toilet provision was compulsory from age 8?

A stonewalled champion? Says it all

I don’t know if anyone else saw that program a year or so ago about making a class environment gender neutral - things like getting the class teacher to stop calling the girls ‘love’ etc. The only thing the boys and girls really hated was making the toilets unisex. Really not a good idea.

How can a primary school have anything to do with Stonewall for a start ? Surely Primary School age children won’t have any real sense of their sexual orientation. Why are we so keen to sexualise children ?
That’s before you get into the issue of not allowing girls any privacy or dignity, girls who as pp says, may start their periods at nine, ten or eleven.

The more I hear of Stonewall the more dubious they seem.

Get girls used to seeing penises in their spaces earlier.

Use the presence of girls to improve behaviour

Who cares about embarrassment when you can be politically correct.

Never mind that transong kids is chikd abuse and 're enforced harmful stereo types let's just make all kids feel uncomfortable and give them UTIs

Fuck off

Wow the school have spectacularly misinterpreted the Equalities Act. And what 8 year old has the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment? Just sounds like they have regurgitated some nonsense given to them by the Stonewall trans advisory panel- I'm recalling some pretty dubious names involved there. This needs a legal challenge IMO.

How much do they get paid for this sort of advice? Who pays?

How are muslim girls going to manage? Their parents may very well feel they have no choice but to pull them out of school. I don't know if this affects any other groups alongside the girls as a whole being exposed to boys messing around in the toilets.

Quite a few boys are exposed to pornography now, so could easily act out what they've seen on screen. Ds2 told me that the boys used to trash their toilets in primary school and the sexual language indicated that some of them were exposed to pornography. This was at a predominantly middle class Catholic primary in a decent area as well.

Primary aged Muslim kids usually mix and go to mixed sex schools. It's when they get to secondary age they 'should' avoid each other.

Nevertheless, mixed sex look for kids? No.

If the school are so sure all is ok..of stuff is within the law and it's a positive thing then y is no one ever told it's happening

Why is the new menu at the cafeteria on a hand out in book bags.

Why is the movie night to raise funds for for the new football field markings advertised.

Why are new teachers starting and the extension to the library announced in the news letters.

Why are all these things common knowledge and on the web site yet kids turn up after the summer holidays or half term to an entirely new set up? Why the secrecy ?

'Gender neutral' is an utterly meaningless term.

The toilets are actually mixed sexed.

Why the secrecy?

Because they know it's wrong.

Because they know there'd be an outcry from parents.

How many girls are going to trash their bladders by being unable to go and empty them?

How many urine infections will result?

How many will develop toilet phobia and school refusal, particularly when menstruating.

How will sex abuse survivors cope?

Badly behaved boys tend to drag everything down to their level, so all the toilet areas will end up filthy, blocked and trashed.

Interesting that the school says they have an obligation to follow the Equality Act 2010 and then ignore the protected characteristic of sex.

Baby a exactly what I was thinking cities

No one can fart in a school without everyone knowing about it. The sheer effort of keeping this operation undercover proves beyond a shadow of a doubt they knew it was a bad idea

I don’t know if anyone else saw that program a year or so ago about making a class environment gender neutral - things like getting the class teacher to stop calling the girls ‘love’ etc. The only thing the boys and girls really hated was making the toilets unisex. Really not a good idea.

It's a shame that when they went to the trouble of making that programme, they didn't understand the difference between gender and sex.

Expectations about what activities girls and boys can do = gender. If you don't use your genitals to do an activity, both girls and boys can do it.

Deciding which toilet to use = sex. Girls' bodies are different from boys' bodies.

That's
weird auto correct

Apologies

This has made me incredibly angry. Girls are being institutionalised into believing that it is unkind (not inclusive) to have single sex facilities, when schools should be teaching girls to recognise when they should have single sex facilities and spaces available, and teaching that boys and girls have different needs and requirements for privacy because of their biology. Simultaneously, in order to promote inclusivity, they should be going hellfire to tackle toxic notions of masculinity and femininity.

As for the total misinterpretation of the Equality Act... I am extremely pissed off.

I don't see why mixed loos are a problem. They have them at my eldest's school. They have cubicles for privacy and no doors to separate the corridor from the toilet area so teachers can easily keep an eye on whats going on. We don't have separate toilets at home so I don't see why it is an issue at school.

Because you are not related to everyone in the world sophia totally irrelevant analogy.

I don't see why mixed loos are a problem.

Except that they are illegal for children over 8 years of age.

The school has a statutory duty to follow the Equality Act 2010 which 'requires all schools in England to eliminate discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender reassignment, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different groups of students'.

This is what happens when single issue lobbying orgs advise on equality law.

The Public Sector Equality Duty, which forms part of the EA, actually says the school must:

(a)eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under this Act;

• and this applies to ALL the protected characteristics (except marriage/civil partnership which only applies in employment), not just sexual orientation and gender reassignment.

(b)advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it;

(c)foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

Further, (3)Having due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it involves having due regard, in particular, to the need to (among other things):

(b)take steps to meet the needs of persons who share a relevant protected characteristic that are different from the needs of persons who do not share it;

Such as maybe providing single sex toilets for girls who are very likely to be starting their periods at around this age, and not making them share sinks with boys.

It's useful for them to know what harassment is, as they have a duty to eliminate it. It means engaging in unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic which has the purpose or effect of violating someone's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.

I'd say removing the girls' toilets and making them share with boys fits that description.

We don't have separate toilets at home so I don't see why it is an issue at school.

Really? You must be either very naive or seriously lacking in imagination then.

As for the total misinterpretation of the Equality Act... I am extremely pissed off.

Stonewall are clearly lying to schools about this and scaring heads and governing bodies (who should know fucking better, however) crapless.

We don’t have separate toilets at home..
Well unless you leave your front door open, with a sign outside saying MIXED SEX TOILETS, ALL WELCOME, PLEASE DO COME IN AND USE THEM then that is a nonsensical comparison.

Stonewall need their funding to dry up.