Girls protesting about loss of single-sex toilets in schools

[Ofcourseshecan]

I've just seen this on another thread and thought it deserves one of its own. Sorry if it already has a thread -- I didn't see one.

There have been protests and riots in some schools the past few days, organised on Tiktok. And while some of the protests are about other issues, the loss of single-sex toilets seems to be a major concern.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11802555/TikTok-protests-rock-Britains-schools-Pupils-scale-gates-trash-classrooms-rules.html

In Southampton, two hundred pupils staged protests at Weston Secondary School yesterday after being left 'uncomfortable' by new unisex toilets.

As they chanted 'toilet rights', the youngsters pitched up at the lavatories to also take a stand against rules preventing them from leaving lessons for the loo.

The children reported worries about the same-sex toilets at the academy school after their introduction in September.

One female pupil said 'girl emergencies' mean they should be allowed to use the toilet without having to wait 'up to two hours' for a break or lunchtime.

Meanwhile, a parent said their daughter felt so uneasy about sharing a toilet with boys that she has stopped going to the toilet during school hours.

Pupil Chloe, 14, said: 'We don't think it's fair, girls in our school are not comfortable. People think it's funny to unlock the doors while you're in there.

'We're trying to tell the teachers that it's just not fair. We've tried to talk to them before we did a protest but they're just ignoring it.'

You do not have to be in school, you must be 'educated', in a school or 'otherwise' (1944 Act, still in force). Parents can choose other ways than a state school to educate their children.

Yes, let's all focus kn the students' behavior rather than the toilet provisions. That's what feminists do 🙄

Or, you know, an overly literal interpretation of what 'like a prison' means 🙄

See some of this really isn't fair.

Most of the kids going to the loo aren't going to the loo.

They are going to the loo because they don't understand what the teachers going on about and want to get out by any legitimate means possible because they are freaking out.

They are freaking out because they have to sit still for 50mins and they just can't do it.

They want to disrupt the teacher and arguing about their rights is a jolly good way to do it. Although most of the kids in this bracket are actually kids that also fall into the first two brackets.

Sadly the ones who do want the loo probably find it safer/quieter/etc to go to a singular unisex loo which is easily supervised because most kids are in class than a single sex loo when everyone is about.

They wouldn't necessarily chose a job where they can't access loos. Either they will chose a job where the physical aspects make attention difficulties easier to manage. They will chose jobs they ate naturally interested it. They will eventually find their tribe and their confidence.

We have pushed up the age where people who don't fit into the school environment still have to be in the school environment.

We haven't changed the school environment or expectations to accommodate that change.

Prisoners get more daily outdoors time than the average schoolchild.

Teenagers are not adults, they don’t have Line Managers they can raise a formal complaint with. The protests got them attention from the press. Many people who had no idea this was happening in schools now know and are rightly concerned. Good on them.

Parents can get permission to take their child on holiday. And if they can't, their parents can take them anyway and pay a fine. Prisoners don't have the luxury of paying to get out for a day or two. Claustrophobia and prisons are two different things. I hope you never end up in one because, if you're expecting it to be like school, you're in for a very big shock.

Prisons and schools are so very different. To use them as an analogy doesn't do children any favours.

Most parents don't have that choice. No teenagers do.
If they are registered, then they have to attend. Parents are obliged to ensure attendance.

Yes, once you enroll in a maintained school. But the law allows you not to do that, so it is only a case of 'must attend' whilst you contract for your child to attend - which is different from having to send your child to school by law (it's not the law).

Children are in school 7 hours a day and 1 - 2 hours of that is out of classes where they can go outside. The other 17 hours is out of school where they can be outdoors if they want. I think you'll find the average prisoner does not get that sort of time outdoors.

Have you seen the videos?

Some are OK

But some i definitely not. I wouldn’t want my DD caught up in something like that. Worse when DS with SN at mainstream if he had been.

Unisex toilets may be the headline but they are not why these protests are happening.

These are happening because disenfranchised children are venting their frustration.
Because those kids who really don't need any encouragement to riot, who would otherwise with support and guidance just about get through the school day, will now riot anyway, damage school property and end up potentially with criminal records.
Timid kids who are scared of school anyway will feel even less safe and may be more inclined to school refuse.
All the kids are much more or edge and behaviour is harder
It will be much harder to settle The whole class, if we don't get want they want who cares we can just riot.

Just because the headline issue is one that appeals to gender critical sensibilities does not mean it is in any way a good thing.

I really don't want to argue with you because I don't actually agree schools are like prisons

But really your concept of what a school looks like and how the day is structured is no more accurate than any possible concept i may have of what a prison is like.

Either way it's a deeply unhelpful sidetracking

And a phone camera under the door. Nauseating.
Poor kids.

A poster upthread made a point about encouraging the kids to protest through appropriate channels first - fair enough. But what if they had and no compromise offered?
I get that many students will abuse being let out during lessons and it is disruptive, but how do you design a system that does allow girls starting periods or pupils genuinely unwell still to be able to go?
Lack of resources in schools must make this even harder because there won't be sufficient staff for monitoring corridors/toilets presumably.

I wouldn't be at all surprised, in fact I think it pretty likley that mixed sex ( gender neutral) toilets have been introduced into schools in the same way that violent male prisoners have been permitted entry to women's prisons - because it was imagined that nobody would really care about women in prisons; the least powerful and largely silent. If the insertion of males into female spaces could be achieved in such circumstances, it could then be achieved much more easily elsewhere.

Likewise, If children are trained from a young age to expect mixed sex toilets then growing up it will become normal for them. After all, children are relatively powerless to effect any decisions made on their behalf. This way you influence the direction of travel and embed this expectation in each subsequent generation.

That sort of excessively child centred school is counter-productive in the long run, and virtually impossible to implement. We all need to be able to adapt and fit into our society and into its dominant culture to a greater or lesser extent.

My university placed unisex loos in the 24hr library in my 3rd year. When I was writing my dissertation, sometimes I’d still be in the library until 2am. I went to use the toilet around 1am and a male walked out of the cubicle while I was washing my hands. I had instant alarm bells ringing in my head. I realised it was just him and I in there, with hardly anyone else around outside the toilets. I ran out of there and I started using the disabled toilet from that point forward.

My work has opened a new building where most of the toilets are all unisex. There are some sex segregated on the 2nd floor, and there are 4 cubicles. All 300 people in the building seem to want to use the segregated toilets, leading to large queues. The multiple unisex toilets are left mostly unused.

I’m so sick of it all. I couldn’t imagine having to deal with this issue at such a delicate time of my life, like these kids are. Clearly everyone at work feels uncomfortable with the situation, but hey let’s shove it on the kids too. The immaturity of teen boys, and the girls getting to grips with their periods and changing bodies is the worst combination for unisex toilets.

My point still stands.
Children can neither register, nor deregister, themselves. They have to go to school.
Parents can be, and are, prosecuted for failing to ensure attendance.

I think we should maybe try treating children with respect and setting expectations on behaviour in secondary schools rather than locking access to toilets and locking doors to stop children from leaving. Marking them down as late and refusing to allow holidays, threats of prosecution it's all just social control.

If they don't make it to lessons or do not meet the required standard, why are there no consequences to this? An example is the American school system where the incentive to do well and meet the required standard is based on not being held back a year/having privileges taken away such as places on sports teams ect.

Instead we force them to sit (some of them unwillingly) in classrooms and conform, becoming disruptive in some cases, anxious and with mental health issues in others.

Another ridiculous example of social control and forced conformity is nit picking over uniform.

We don't offer alternatives to academia like learning a skill/trade in school after a certain age and with the required standard of basic subjects being met. This would suit so many youngsters these days.

Not everyone is academically inclined

Damn right they should be protesting. Toilets are a red herring. Our school system is broken and no longer serves a purpose.

For how the days are structured, I can only speak of the school and two prisons I taught at. Where you teach might be different.

I didn't sidetrack anything. Someone compared the two. I said they weren't alike. It's you that's keeping it going.

That assumes the kids who don't fit in at school will then not find their groove in life.

They do. Often in trades, hairdressing mechanics, funnily enough often things like insurance too.

They can fit into the right life OK.

Not many things in life require you to sit quietly and study in depth something you have absolutely no interest in repeatedly 5 times a day for 50 mins a time.

It's not that I believe in child centred school. I just don't believe it is productive to force every child into a school environment for as long as we do. I think we make kid stay at school waaaay too long, and we don't offer education easily enough an age they are more ready for it if they want to return to it.

As a result we make it harder if not impossible for some kids who can and should be able, to thrive within a school environment.

The thing we do need to be able to do is live within a political system, effect change within the political structure and live with it when we cannot. These protests are doing nothing to contribute to that.

Actually also by just phrasing it as protesting over unisex toilets we are missing the problem with social media algorithms.

If I search "school toilet protests" on tic tock, I will get a myriad of protest videos, many of which are phrased in the sense of is you school cool (definitely to wrong word more clever/brave) enough to protest.

If you watch those videos ticktock algorithms will go "oh so this interests you, we will show you more videos like this", including the more extreme ones where property become damaged.

The extreme become normal. All thanks to social media algorithms

The same thing that has driven the suicide videos, the Andrew tate fandom, trans, the hotties at your school videos the school fight videos etc etc etc

Just about everything dodgy has a heavy involvement with social media algorithms.

Fascinating that the Guardian can write an entire article about this and not highlight in any way that the main issue is that girls do not have separate toilets as females…

Probably because it is inaccurate in a number of the schools