Sanity restored on schools sanitary provision after ruling - Susan Dalgety
School toilets are never the most pleasant of environments. How can they be? They are there to cater for the sanitary needs of children and adolescents, a place where a girl can deal with menstruation in private and where boys can compare their physique away from prying eyes.
Despite everyone’s best efforts, school toilets smell of that potent mix of teenage perfume and body odour, and there is always at least one cubicle where the lock is broken or the toilet will not flush properly.
Until recently, the one thing that you could guarantee was that boys and girls did not have to share such an intimate space – but that was before the emergence of gender identity ideology and councils were persuaded by transgender campaigners that schools should have mixed-sex facilities.
A 2023 report by the campaign group For Women Scotland showed that here in Edinburgh, six secondary schools offered mixed-sex WCs, with the Wester Hailes Education Centre providing just four girls-only WCs compared to 28 mixed-sex ones.
The report also revealed that every one of the city’s high schools allowed pupils to use opposite sex toilets. But not for much longer.
A landmark judgement by the Court of Session last week ruled that all Scottish schools must provide single-sex toilets. It came after concerned parents, Sean Stratford and Leigh Hurley, discovered that the new Earlston Primary School in the Borders was only going to offer mixed-sex loos or gender-neutral to use officialese.
The regulations for school toilets are clear, as their solicitor Rosie Walker of Gilson Gray LLP pointed out. “There is no provision for gender-neutral toilets in the regulations. Any school not complying will be in breach of the regulations and could face a legal challenge from parents,” she said.
The rules, which came into force nearly 50 years ago, say that all state schools must provide half their toilet facilities for boys, of which no more than a third should be WCs, with the rest urinals. The other 50 per cent must be for girls only.
After the court’s decision, the Scottish government said it would carefully consider the implications of the judgement, adding, "The Scottish government is committed to ensuring that our Transgender Guidance for Schools remains up to date and fit for purpose…we will consider whether the guidance requires to be updated."
The government surely does not have any option but to update its advice to reflect the law as it stands and not as trans campaigners like the charity LGBT Youth Scotland demands.
Three years ago, For Women Scotland published legal opinion that confirmed mixed-sex toilets for pupils were unlawful, but schools, councils and the Scottish government ignored it.
Now taxpayers face a huge bill to rip out gender-neutral toilets and restore single-sex facilities.
As Trina Budge, a director of For Women Scotland, said after the ruling, “Girls’ privacy, dignity and safety should never have been compromised and we hope lessons will be learned from this.”
I for one am looking forward to the city’s education convenor Cllr Joan Griffiths telling Edinburgh’s parents how the council is going to make sure that from now on the dignity and safety of every pupil is guaranteed.