Ireland will no longer be providing single sex toilets in primary and secondary schools!!!

[XXSex]

I am LIVID!!! New technical guidance has been released.
www.education.ie/en/School-Design/Technical-Guidance-Documents/Current-Technical-Guidance/sdg-02-06-sanitary-facilities-april-2021-.pdf

All mixed sex. Hand basin outside the WC (WAH your bloody hands in front of boys). Doors down to the floor (any one else see an issue in a mixed sex school with mixed sex toilets with this set up)

What the were the department thinking?!!!

The only reference to sex is for changing rooms. And in that case it’s not for the students - it’s for joe public who might rent out the hall in the evenings!!

Does that mean that the school is to consider changing rooms mixed sex also?! This is meant sarcastically as I presume Irish schools won’t go that far. Jesus I’d hope so!!!!

I don't understand. Do the building regulations not apply or are they entirely different in Ireland?

Has the Duchess been notified?

Has anyone been in touch with Safe School alliance?

The parents need to mobilise - surely there is a commitment to the EA2010 and they understand that single sex exemptions are legal?

Letter to the Irish Times anyone?

ROI isn’t subject to the EA 2010: it’s a different country

I can’t see this going down well with parents or the wider public

Exemptions are legal but don’t HAVE to be applied

Will Irish school boys be capable of closing the door when peeing?

What could possibly go wrong?

This is the completely logical conclusion of gender ideology.

XX I have read through the entire document.

It's fairly comprehensive and has bullying and disability provision as part if the design brief.

Unfortunately, nobody thought to think of one of the main forms of bullying i.e. male on female.

I have a real problem with this- if anything, I suspect it would entrench single sex provision in schools. I wouldn't want my DDs going to a school where their personal private bodily functions can be monitored by their male peers.
And the nature of adolescent boys is, that they will intrude, regardless of how well they mature later.

Also, what about single sex provision for staff?
Single sex provision for our growing Muslim population?

@XXSex

Letter to the Irish Times anyone?

Yes. Thanks to the very brave ladies who have been writing over the past week, and the response to the Emer O Toole article, I feel safer sticking my head over the top. My professional organisation has been completely captured ("men can be pregnant too" policy). So, professionally, I've felt unable to say anything to date.

I also sit on a Board of Management. Currently looking at designing a potential new school.

The coloured photo is the standard. It’s at the back of the linked document above. The people on out are clearly both male and female in the same space. The black and white photo is the ALTERNATIVE to be considered on a case by case basis!

Fuck the bullying in my all girls school in the toilets was horrendous, this is crazy.

I hate this. School toilets are hellish for girls already. Dealing with periods in front of boys. Boys listening outside cubicles, pushing their way in, making lewd comments, trapping girls in cubicles.

In my first few months of teaching, a girl came to me to tell me her friend had been dragged into the boys' toilets and was being gang-raped. It was true. Police were involved but by then, she'd been raped.

How stupid is this 'no single sex provision' lark, wherever it is.

I can’t even type right now I’m so livid

Yes of course the EA2010 doesn't apply to Ireland sorry - I guess what I meant was, since I don't know, what equality laws apply and are how do the exemptions work? I would have expected there to be some equality laws in place that this would directly conflict with, since other U.K. law is reflected in Ireland.

So if they don't have to be applied, are there comparable situations where they have been applied?

I imagine this will end up in court with a judicial review type case/civil case. Is that likely/possible?

Schools in the U.K. usually have to undertake consultations with parents so if this happens they will be alerted and can complain/make their feelings known. The link should be widely shared.

It's surprising as generally in new buildings / architecture the trend is to give full closed cubicles off main corridors with basins inside etc. But perhaps that's U.K. and as a result of the EA.

A local high school has toilets all like that and less bullying and graffiti was the main thing a staff member commented on. (had trans squiggles on the doors but I could see that these were relatively safe and in such a communal area.) we have them too for staff and our building was built at the same time.

I'd say letters to papers is a good way forward and also raising all the recent reports on sexual assaults.

Also, girls using moon cups; how embarrassing to wash them in public

Yes regarding cups. We have a period product Bill being debated at the moment and the senators said that these should be considered.

Debate here www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/2021-02-08/15/

The senators who mentioned them are
Pauline OReilly and Mary Seery Kearney.

This detail could be included in the letter to the Irish Times.

The problem is, our Equal Status Acts mention gender, not sex -

The Equal Status Acts 2000-2018 (‘the Acts’) prohibit discrimination in the provision of goods and services, accommodation and education. They cover the nine grounds of gender, marital status, family status, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, and membership of the Traveller community.

Pretty much all of our equality legislation mentions gender instead of sex, which makes it pretty much meaningless if people can identify into whatever gender they please.

@OhHolyJesus

Yes of course the EA2010 doesn't apply to Ireland sorry - I guess what I meant was, since I don't know, what equality laws apply and are how do the exemptions work? I would have expected there to be some equality laws in place that this would directly conflict with, since other U.K. law is reflected in Ireland.

So if they don't have to be applied, are there comparable situations where they have been applied?

I imagine this will end up in court with a judicial review type case/civil case. Is that likely/possible?

Schools in the U.K. usually have to undertake consultations with parents so if this happens they will be alerted and can complain/make their feelings known. The link should be widely shared.

We have exemptions on the Gender ground if there could be embarrassment by being in the presence of the opposite sex.

Has the government done an Equality Impact Assessment on the Gender ground or the religion ground?

I note that as usual, they've centred the toilet in the cubicle so the sanitary bin is pressed right up against one side of the toilet....

It's such a basic, and easy thing to fix, and they still can't bloody do it.

My experience of (admittedly smaller sized, and admittedly only a small sample) Irish primaries is that they're more likely to be purpose built - my children's primary has a single user, accessible toilet in each classroom, and no communal ones at all (pre-covid, a desperate parent was allowed to nip into the teachers toilet). And this was also the case in another two that I visited when looking for my children.

I don't have any experience of secondaries yet - but since I'm looking at sending my son to a boarding school as a day pupil, this is something that will soon strike very close to home.

@Kotatsu

I note that as usual, they've centred the toilet in the cubicle so the sanitary bin is pressed right up against one side of the toilet....

It's such a basic, and easy thing to fix, and they still can't bloody do it.

My experience of (admittedly smaller sized, and admittedly only a small sample) Irish primaries is that they're more likely to be purpose built - my children's primary has a single user, accessible toilet in each classroom, and no communal ones at all (pre-covid, a desperate parent was allowed to nip into the teachers toilet). And this was also the case in another two that I visited when looking for my children.

I don't have any experience of secondaries yet - but since I'm looking at sending my son to a boarding school as a day pupil, this is something that will soon strike very close to home.

Yes, Kotatsu, I had noticed that.

No1:- the close proximity of a (not always clean) sanitary bin; that is so annoying for all users.
no.2:- if you need sanitary protection, can you imagine being a 13year old girl, and getting supplies from a dispenser in the common area, before going into one of those loos (either Primary or Secondary).
No. 3- boys- will they be taught to close the door while peeing?
No.4 :- really really quite eeuuuch to think about, but havent we seen instances where the contents of said bins have been used in v v v unsavoury ways.

I think the closing the door when peeing should be a problem that we can solve among kids - my boys would be absolutely scandalised by the thought of other people seeing them peeing (even other boys TBH), so it's just a matter of making it unacceptable to pee without the door shut, and primary school seems like a place we can make that happen.

I'm surprised that schools are prepared to pay out so much for a bin in every cubicle - which they absolutely should.

Of anyone is wondering where this odd coming from-
I think it’s objective 10 in the strategy for LGBTI+ Youth.
Numbered Page 25 (but 33 pages into this document)
assets.gov.ie/24459/9355b474de34447cb9a55261542a39cf.pdf

Am i looking at the plans incorrectly or is the area in which the sinks are placed completely open to the corridors or whatever communal area is outside?

I never understand how bullying is supoosed to be improved. I mean you have double the number of kids using the space if anything it gets worse surely?

And all the staff who suddenly aolear to supervised mix sex areas to stop bullying, where were they when it was single sex?

What do they do that can't be done in single sex areas ?

So on the one hand you have this

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/27/how-schoolgirls-finally-found-voice-to-tell-of-sexual-abuse

And then on the other ROI is taking away one of the obvious ways to ensure girls have a safe space to escape from sexual assault in schools.

In order to validate a tiny, tiny minority.

Fucks sake.