"Girls are skipping school to avoid sharing gender neutral toilets with boys" - Mail on Sunday article

[Sunkisses]

Great article in the Mail on Sunday today about the awful impacts on girls of being forced to share loos with boys at school. With quotes from a female GP about the health and psychological impacts of girls not having single-sex loos, Stephanie Davies-Arai from Transgender Trend, and David Davies MP

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7542005/Girls-skipping-school-avoid-sharing-gender-neutral-toilets-boys.html

The mixed sex toilets were designed to try to eradicate that issue.

No, they weren't. They're being introduced in an attempt to accommodate children who ID as trans. Have you read the article linked in the OP?

Qcng

But when you are discussing the effects of utis based on girls not wanting to use the toilet the reason why they don't want to makes no difference to the outcome.

The original issue was that children were avoiding using the toilet at school because of bullying (by same sex children). A solution was thought to be open plan, single occupancy cubicles. That has been successful, certainly in the schools that I know of. When I've spoken to students there they all much prefer them.

Now, some students perhaps don't like them and maybe the schools need to make further changes.

What isn't correct us to blame mixed sex toilets for children avoiding using the toilet at school thereby risking utis. That was already happening long before mixed sex toilets existed.

Have only single sex toilets. Then how will you prevent students risking utis by avoiding the toilet?

No, they weren't. They're being introduced in an attempt to accommodate children who ID as trans. Have you read the article linked in the OP?

That is not correct. I know of 3 local schools who built mixed sex toilets. 1 of them I was very closely involved with. None of the 3 have trans children there. None of them cited this as a consideration. In all 3 schools they were driven by complaints from the students about bullying.

How about you have a word with the girls the article referred to and then get back to us, Tequila? Because they're avoiding the toilets because of boys.

Mixed sex toilets will increase the issues not decrease them

Again - the article is linked in the OP, go read it.

If a school is successful in tackling bullying and children were happy and safe using the toilets then they stopped using them because they became mixed sex because of privacy and dignity being removed then its entirely down to becoming mixed sex no?

So where is that happening? Certainly not in any schools that I know of.

What school has no bullying?

Tequila when you were involved in schools installing mixed sex toilets did you point out they were unlawful?

Indeed. Mixed sex toilets are technically in violation of the Equalities Act, and the UN would also frown on them. So anyone involved in facilitating their entry into British schools has some explaining to do.

How about you have a word with the girls the article referred to and then get back to us, Tequila? Because they're avoiding the toilets because of boys.

Clearly there are girls, and boys, who will avoid using mixed sex toilets. I'm not disputing that.

But there are also many girls and boys who avoid using single sex toilets.

I am disputing that mixed sex toilets are the problem and that by having only single sex toilets you remove all of the issues - that many children won't avoid using school toilets and won't be at risk of utis because they are single sex toilets.

Who will you blame when you can't blame trans gender children or boys?

Will you ban girls from using the girls toilets because they are bullying other girls? Taking pictures of them with mobile phones over the cubicle walls? Locking them in the toilet by holding the door shut and not letting them out? Throwing things over the cubicles? Pushing them around and taking their things because they can't be seen by staff?

Who is to blame for that behaviour then that makes countless school kids lives utterly miserable when it's happening in single sex toilets?

Tequila when you were involved in schools installing mixed sex toilets did you point out they were unlawful?

They aren't unlawful. They have to be an individual cubicle, with separate washing facility with a lockable door and floor to ceiling walls. They aren't unlawful.

I put this on another thread but what I found interesting was I go to a secondary school every Sat morning for a music activity with DD. The toilets were new build and all unisex open from the corridor , a line of about 5 cubicles , doors floor to ceiling no gaps and a trough sink outside. This Saturday I noticed the ones by the entrance were still unisex , but I walked around the school and the ones within the school had all changed so either had the girl sign or the boy sign by the entrance, with the other one clearly removed . I went in a girl one, which actually smelt fine, normally they all smelt a bit ‘men’s toilety’.
So - I just found it interesting that they had been changed back to single sex. I wonder why, push back from students, parents? They’d been unisex since the school opened so for the past 8 years maybe, and now suddenly single sex again. All the trough sinks are visible from the corridor so will avoid bullying but also allow girls (and boys) there own sex facilities.

Tequila's point seems to be that single sex toilets won't stop all bullying. And they are completely right about that. But, given that no one has said they will, banging on about it just looks like a massive attempt to derail the discussion. I wonder why someone would do that?

*their

bullying is wrong on all counts.

So is the state sanctioned sexual harassment of girls.

One thing happening is not justification to put all kids in every danger imaginable.

Still no explanation of how adding boys to the mix lessens bullying, I notice.

I realize it's probably hard to admit that you've made a mistake, but if you were in any way involved in the introduction of mixed sex toilets in schools then you have. Getting defensive and making accusations isn't helping.

Fucking hell Tequila Pilates. Should we only address problems if we think we can eradicate them? Or should we try to minimise issues where we can?

Your argument is ridiculous. Mixed sex toilets increases the number of children withholding and avoiding using the facilities. Just because some children do that regardless of provision, that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to make children more comfortable in toileting at school.

Plus mixed sex toilets with floor to ceiling doors mean that someone could he pushed right in to be assaulted and no one would be any the wiser.

Single sex toilets in my old school were basically "no go" areas due to them being taken over by the smokers at breaks and lunchtimes. If you weren't there to smoke, you weren't allowed in.

How on Earth teachers claimed they didn't know this is beyond comprehension as there was the smell/smog outside the toilets - teachers must have known, but chose to ignore what was going on - in the same way they chose to ignore bullying etc.

I once wet myself because I needed the loo but wasn't allowed in. Another time I went in and got my arm burned by a smoker who stubbed her cigarette out on my arm for daring to go into their area.

Your point is utterly middled Tequila.

It would be like arguing that we don't need to make bus stations accessible to wheelchairs because some people don't like buses anyway and find them intimidating. Batshit logic.

Researchers: We've discovered a new cancer drug that cures 90% of patients

TequilaPilates: 10% will still have cancer though so there's no point introducing it

I think the primary school for aged 5 is a red herring, ours have always been unisex at that age and seen from the classroom. I really can’t see an issue at that age.

Older, from puberty, absolutely should have single sex.

User surely there is more than one set of toilets at the school

Fucking hell Tequila Pilates. Should we only address problems if we think we can eradicate them? Or should we try to minimise issues where we can?

But mixed sex toilets in the schools that I know of were introduced to try to eradicate problems. The problem was bullying in single sex toilets meaning that children were not using the toilets.

Students, via the school council, campaigned for changes to be made and so the schools built the mixed sex toilets. The feedback from the students in these schools is that they prefer them.

We're they to feed back that they don't like them, then we would do something about it. In the school I was involved with they retained single sex toilets too so the students have a choice.

I'm interested to hear who you blame for students not using single sex toilets and therefore risking utis? How do you propose dealing with that?

I’d fix the bullying first before throwing potential sexual assault into the mix.