Debate: Should schools have gender-neutral bathrooms for transgender students?

Original post by VirgoStrain

No. No. No.

The schools first priority is to ensure all students are in a comfortable and non-toxic learning environment. You can have the best labs and teachers and library in the world. But if you’ve got a rubbish school culture in which you’re constantly bullied, then you will perform badly. It’s sad you think that a school should prioritise material objects over the wellbeing of their students.

I agree that kids need to know they are in a safe environment if they are to effectly learn what they are being taught, but that environment should not take precedence over the resources needed to provide the learning.

You can have the best school culture and an amazingly safe place, but if your textbooks are from the 70s and your teachers printed off their diploma, then the kids will perform badly. It's a balancing act, but with preference for the learning resources. Besides, better teachers can help teach their pupils that trans people are no different from everyone else. A *****y teacher might not give a flying duck.

Edit: It's sad to think you think schools should prioritise wrapping all kids in bubble-wrap over teaching them, which y'know, is the ENTIRE POINT of a school.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 44

Original post by VirgoStrain

Building a few gender neutral toilets is hardly going to bankrupt a school and set it back 100 years. Besides, with a good teacher, textbook and lab quality don’t matter. Good teachers can work with anything.

Schools are already underfunded as it is, so every penny counts. As such, they prioritise. Yes, and the good teachers are going to be able to choose where to work. Choose somewhere that puts "safe space" over learning, or instead go somewhere that actually understands the value of resources in learning.

Reply 45

Original post by VirgoStrain

No. No. No.

The schools first priority is to ensure all students are in a comfortable and non-toxic learning environment. You can have the best labs and teachers and library in the world. But if you’ve got a rubbish school culture in which you’re constantly bullied, then you will perform badly. It’s sad you think that a school should prioritise material objects over the wellbeing of their students.

The comfort of a minority - possibly none - over a benefit to all.

I am personally to be convinced that the provision of facilities for trans young people doesn't simply encourage some to declare it as a fad; distorting the true picture and numbers.

I'm personally not in favour of the promotion of non-binary gender issues. In terms of school toilets, I think there should be gender-neutral toilets purely for the convenience of everyone - if it can be done cost-effectively (i.e. not converting an old school building). But the sudden acceptance (or rather rush to blindly embrace) non-binary issues as a trend just seems foolish to me. It's barely understood what they actually mean, and I would hazard that most of the people claiming such status barely understand them. As such, how do you make provision for such nebulous statuses?

Reply 46

Original post by VirgoStrain

My school is a Grammar school, which is somewhat underfunded and has to manage its costs carefully. We have a new sixth form block and sports hall, but the main block has hardly changed and many desks and chairs are poor quality. Our school consistently gets some of the best results in the country. Contrast this with some public or independent schools which are very well funded, and have excellent equipment, but which perform very poorly.

What about your learning resources? The textbooks, lab equipment, teacher, etc? Are those up to date and of a good quality? My secondary school had desks and chairs from decades ago, but some of my teachers were enthusiastic and smart, so I enjoyed (and thus learned more) their classes.

Also, aren't grammar schools a bit exclusionary from the get-go? I mean, if you can pick who gets to attend, then naturally your scores are going to be high.

Reply 47

Good bloke

19

Original post by VirgoStrain

Building a few gender neutral toilets is hardly going to bankrupt a school and set it back 100 years. Besides, with a good teacher, textbook and lab quality don’t matter. Good teachers can work with anything.

The whole point is that the school with a bullying problem does not have good teachers (or it would not have the problem). Good teachers would not let the problem arise, or would deal with it far more cost-effectively.

Hence, these toilets cannot fix a bullying problem and waste money that could be better spent elsewhere.

Reply 48

Original post by VirgoStrain

Contrast this with some public or independent schools which are very well funded, and have excellent equipment, but which perform very poorly.

Name one.

Reply 49

Joinedup

Original post by Good bloke

It is also worth pointing out that toilets with urinals are much quicker to use and allow large numbers of people to use them quickly, which is one reason why male toilets almost never have queues while female ones very often have long queues.

Well I think that's usually architects giving equal floorspace to male and female toilets when they should really be giving more space to female toilets... if you're going with separate m/f facilities.

School toilets need to be oversized anyway cos they get hammered for 10 minutes out of the hour and stand empty for the other 50 but it's reported that you get more bang for your floorspace buck with gender neutral.

Reply 50

Original post by euphonious

Tell me what you think. :smile:

Schools should have gender-neutral loos only, not male, female and transexual.

Reply 51

Original post by usualsuspects

Schools should have gender-neutral loos only, not male, female and transexual.

Getting rid of urinals is discriminatory to males. It would mean that males would be waiting in long queues unnecessarily. It would also increase queue times for everyone else trying to use fewer toilets with more people trying to use them.

Reply 52

Original post by Trinculo

Getting rid of urinals is discriminatory to males. It would mean that males would be waiting in long queues unnecessarily. It would also increase queue times for everyone else trying to use fewer toilets with more people trying to use them.

Urinals are vulgar regardless. Removing them is not discriminatory, only civilised. Girls currently suffer long queues while males none at all. This is inefficient. The reason why the waiting time is longer for women is that they spend more time inside (and in front of the mirror), not that boys have urinals. This must be true since at both my school and university there are none, yet there were/are no queues for males.

Reply 53

Original post by Trinculo

Getting rid of urinals is discriminatory to males. It would mean that males would be waiting in long queues unnecessarily. It would also increase queue times for everyone else trying to use fewer toilets with more people trying to use them.

I agree, but we could simply have a urinal section in the gender-neutral toilets.

Reply 54

Original post by usualsuspects

Urinals are vulgar regardless. Removing them is not discriminatory, only civilised. Girls currently suffer long queues while males none at all. This is inefficient. The reason why the waiting time is longer for women is that they spend more time inside (and in front of the mirror), not that boys have urinals. This must be true since at both my school and university there are none, yet there were/are no queues for males.

If you remove urinals - everyone loses out. But males much more than females.

The males who used to have very short (if any) queues - will suddenly have long queues, and females who used to have long queues will then have even longer queues because of all the males now queuing up for the same facilities.

Reply 55

keithys

1

As a person who is transgender (ftm) I really couldn't care less. And in fact it would probably just draw attention to me which is something I am trying to avoid anyway. Going into a gender neutral bathroom would just make everyone think, "oh, they're trans". And considering that I just want to be normal would be the opposite of what I want.

In my experience, people who are calling for gender neutral toilets tend to be doing it for a political statement rather than actually caring about the people they're doing it for. If it's really such a huge issue for the minority of people who struggle with this then exceptions should be made on a case by case basis. For example, disabled toilets or staff ones.

Reply 56

Original post by Trinculo

If you remove urinals - everyone loses out. But males much more than females.

The males who used to have very short (if any) queues - will suddenly have long queues, and females who used to have long queues will then have even longer queues because of all the males now queuing up for the same facilities.

The idea is to replace a men's and a female's with one of the same capacity. With space-efficiency of one single facility, this gender-neutral one should even have higher capacity than the sum of the two. Therefore, girls will definitely enjoy shorter waiting times.

I have already explained why the removal of urinals won't have a particularly strong effect on waiting time.

Reply 57

Original post by usualsuspects

The idea is to replace a men's and a female's with one of the same capacity. With space-efficiency of one single facility, this gender-neutral one should even have higher capacity than the sum of the two. Therefore, girls will definitely enjoy shorter waiting times.

I have already explained why the removal of urinals won't have a particularly strong effect on waiting time.

Urinals have a greater capacity than cubicle toilets and they get used much faster.

Just because you've explained something doesn't make it correct. Queues in womens toilets are not down to the mirrors. It's because women take longer to use the toilet.

Reply 58