East Lothian Council finally sees sense over single-sex toilets at Musselburgh Grammar School – Susan Dalgety

Sometimes only a well-worn cliché will do, so I am happy to describe the decision by East Lothian Council to make new toilets at Musselburgh Grammar School single-sex as a victory for common-sense.

Musselburgh Grammar School will have both single-sex and mixed-sex toilets (Picture: Justin Spittle)

Parents had mounted a long campaign against the school’s earlier decision to designate the loos “gender-neutral”, open to both boys and girls.

Last week their persistence paid off when the council decided that the facilities would be “two separate, designated toilet blocks (one male, one female) with an additional four non-designated and fully enclosed toilets located in the same area”.

So everyone wins. Both the students who are comfortable with mixed-sex toilets and those, who like my schoolgirl self, regard the prospect of sharing a loo with the opposite sex as their worst nightmare.

One of my abiding memories of school was my fear of the shared single-sex showers we had to endure after gym. The prospect of undressing in front of my fellow schoolgirls brought me out in hives, literally, and I managed to get through five years of secondary education without stripping off. I simply would not have entered a toilet block if it had been shared with boys.

I understand that times have changed since I was a body-conscious teenager, but not that much. Adolescence is still a difficult time for many young people, and they can be overwhelmed by the physical and emotional changes it brings. Schools surely have a legal and moral obligation to protect all the students in their care.

There are several good reasons why school toilets should be segregated, not least to offer girls privacy during menstruation.

There is also evidence to show that if girls are too embarrassed to use mixed-sex toilets, as many are, some will avoid drinking during school hours, making them dehydrated. And a full bladder can lead to urinary tract infections.

There are also religious concerns to be considered. Muslim girls have to perform ablutions before prayers, and these cannot be done in a mixed-sex toilet. Nor can a Muslim girl adjust her headscarf in a space shared with boys.

And it is a sad fact of life that sexual bullying is all too common in our schools. A snapshot of girls’ experience at school by Girlguiding shows that, in a single week, 39 per cent of girls had their bra strap pulled by boys and 27 per cent had their skirt pulled up. Is it any wonder that girls want, indeed need, the privacy of single-sex toilets.

A year ago, East Lothian Council said that single-sex toilets no longer meet “national best practice for inclusivity and equalities” and insisted that mixed toilets elsewhere had been “well received”. But not in Musselburgh.

More than 2,000 people signed a petition against majority mixed-sex toilets in their secondary school and the campaign organisers deserve the thanks of parents across the region for their persistence.

Their victory sends a strong signal to those in charge of education. Schools have a duty to care for all their students and the Scottish government must provide clearer guidance.

Single-sex toilets should be the norm, with a mixed-sex option for those students who are happy to mingle.

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