I'm trans so I've never used the school toilets- BBC artical pro gender neutral toilets

[Xoxoxoxoxoxox]

This is about a trans child FtoM who has been offered the use of male, female or disabled toilets in their school but they are still unhappy as there is no gender neautral toilets.

The article is written as though the child is being discriminated against when the school have been very supportive!

I can understand why 'Felix' feels worried going into boys toilets but they have been offered alternatives.
The argument for not using the disabled toilets is that it would be 'taking it from people who need it' - but single sex spaces for girls are needed too, and these needs are completely disregarded (as usual).

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-61167271

Someone should inform felix that single sex facilities are already 'gender neutral'.
Female toilets are for all females regardless of presentation or personality.

Funny how there are so many (lgb)QT+++++ clubs popping up in schools to promote gender ideology.

Funny too how both males and females who identify as trans seem to target female sex based rights and protections.

This is about a girl who presents as a boy though. So if the toilet is used based on sex, the girls all think they have a boy in their loos.

We have a F-M child just arrived, at 13yo, at our school. You'd never know and the students don't.

We know that most children eventually desist and are same-sex attracted, and we know that - at least right now - that doesn't suit certain narratives or the positions of certain groups. Would these kinds of articles make detransitioning harder, or take longer, or incur unwanted comment from those so invested?

Yes I think this is really important – being feted and put on national news for your transness may seem great when you're 13 and totally into your new identity, not so great if you come to have doubts, which many will. The same goes for schools making a big fuss of trans-identifying pupils, parents having big gender coming out parties, well-meaning fundraising efforts for top surgery, etc.

As you say, toilets are literally all about genitals, and pretty much nothing else.

We have a F-M child just arrived, at 13yo, at our school. You'd never know and the students don't

How can they not know? Who are they doing PE with? If its the boys then they are placing the boys In.a very awkward position of potentially harming a Female student .

Why isn't this child being safeguarded ?

Students don't change for PE here, child does PE with the boys - is a very good rugby player

Quote from the article: "Felix, for example, said he can feel upset when listening to boys' voices in his class because they sound different to his own."

I'm finding it hard to have sympathy - how on earth do they cope in the world? There's lots of males with male voices around, they're bloomin' everywhere!

And believe me, there is a whole ton of safeguarding around this child. It's practically a FT job in itself.

They are not doing children any favours at all in pretending that they can be the opposite sex.

I just read that again. The boys are being "put in a awkward position of potentially harming a female student". Surely they shouldn't be harming anyone.

FWIW this chid is probably the most aggressive one we have. Clearly very distress ed.

@WoodenClock a biological female is playing rugby with biological males and they don't know? The chance of an injury seems pretty concerning to me!

@WoodenClock
I think it a slippery slope for a school to allow use of accessible toilets. Perhaps today there is no one needing a disabled toilet. But what about the future? And what about children with additional needs? Some people with autism have blue badges for example. Before long, these facilities could be jammed up with kids, who don’t want to use single sex spaces. Once the facilities have been repurposed, it is more difficult to roll back.

Oh my goodness, no to every option. 🙈🙈🙈 Felix sounds like a typical high maintenance teenager, why are grown ups indulging so much?

Accessible toilets in schools (or usually anywhere else actually) aren't designated for disabled use only. They're simply spaces that are more accessible for those who need extra or different facilities, but they're available for anyone.

In our newly built school (100 students) we have 16 toilets and 4 of them are accessible. We currently have no staff or students who need one because of a disability. I've never met a child with autism who feels they need to use an accessible toilet, although they're free to if they wish.

As I said, loads of safeguarding and risk assessment around this.

If that’s the case, then there’s a clear user need for more accessible toilets.

Your students at 13 play a contact sport on a muddy playing field with no post game hygiene standards?
Poor teachers and cleaning staff.

Felix sounds like a typical high maintenance teenager, why are grown ups indulging so much?

"Mum, I want to tie my shoe laces together!"
"I don't think that's a good idea, darling."
"You don't understand!!!"
<stomps off>

Later, a distant wail:
"I can't walk."
"Uh-uh..."
"Can you carry me?"
....

(At least that's what so much of this sounds like to me.)

I agree here. The bit about feeling bad hearing boys’ voices is absolutely in expectations management territory.

Actually telling the boys that there is a biological female on the pitch would be a reasonable thing to do. They deserve to know.

not even just because of the risk of injury. It’s a contact sport and there will be places they don’t want to accidentally come into contact with on a female body.

If my Y8 son was in this situation, I’d be complaining to the school. It’s not ok. PE should be segregated by sex or not segregated at all (we did mixed sex PE all through school - which means the whole thing is approached differently to single sex groups). It shouldn’t be about your ‘gender identity’.

If it's anything like dd's school, nobody can go for a wee. The toilets are either vandalised, locked or full of people vaping.

It could be your school for all you know

It's a huge challenge for schools, who can't get anything right. Until very recently Stonewall was the only advice that mattered and whilst that is slowly unravelling, inclusion is still a very big driver, much more so than women's rights, despite education being being basically run by women.

In my school 5/6 SLT are women, but the rights of people to live as they wish, regardless of the effect on others is very much the priority. TBH it's only on MN I hear these arguments at all. I'm around professional women every day and "what is a woman" is just not on the agenda.

That is the horrifying thing.

Whichever school it is, they are not safeguarding the teenage boys being forced to play rugby with a young female.

That child’s feelings about their gender identity are not more important than the boys’ right to know the sex of the people they’re being asked to learn to tackle in PE.

*Felix, for example, said he can feel upset when listening to boys' voices in his class because they sound different to his own."

Many kids around this age like a self-indulgent, self-pitying whine. It's normal as an adolescent to find things difficult and awkward, to feel like no one understands you, the world is out to get you, your parents are idiots and no one has suffered like you do. I have one of these myself, and I also was one.

It's the job of parents, adults and teachers to balance listening and caring - and of course taking upsetting problems seriously - with encouraging independence, empathy with others and teaching 13yos that they're not the centre of the universe. But at the moment, they just have to identify as trans and everything they say is gospel and no one is allowed to challenge any of it.

It is REALLY not good for them!

I was at a meeting earlier this week where parents were complaining about the gender neutral toilets provided at our local secondary school in order to be more inclusive ( I have no children if that age) and how girls at the school were avoiding using the toilets at school because of the behaviour of the boys also using the toilets ( just for clarity biological girls complaining about biological boys no trans issues involved) meaning girls not having access to toilets of their own choice. The trans/ questioning kids actually use the disabled toilets. I don’t see the girls being featured on the BBC news though.