Girls not comfortable sharing toilets with boys at Underdale High, relative says
An Adelaide school is at the centre of debate over unisex toilets - do they improve student behaviour, or make girls stop eating and drinking to avoid having to go?
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An Adelaide high school is facing claims girls are not eating and drinking properly to avoid using unisex toilets, and not wanting to go to school when they are menstruating.
But the Education Department says behavioural incidents in toilets at Underdale High have fallen since the unisex loos were introduced last year.
The issue of gender-neutral toilets came to prominence earlier this month when a furore erupted in Brisbane over their use in new $80 million public high school.
That prompted the grandmother of an Underdale Year 9 student to contact The Advertiser, saying she was “appalled” by the effects on her granddaughter and her friends.
“The female students are not coping with sharing toilets with their male counterparts and as a result are not eating and drinking normally in the hope that they may not need to use the facilities,” said the woman, who spends a lot of time looking after her granddaughter.
“(It) is affecting her wanting to go to school when she is menstruating and affecting her learning. They are still young children having to deal with growing up and life changes etc, and should not have the added pressure of worrying about sharing private needs with the opposite sex, which could lead to the situation being abused by the use of mobile phones and sexual connotations by male students or visa-versa.”
“Can you imagine the state some male students would leave the toilets in on purpose for the next unsuspecting female student to find? Anyone I tell about this situation feels the same way I do.”
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The department said alternatives for students uncomfortable with unisex loos included an access toilet in the resource centre and single-sex toilets in the gym.
A spokeswoman said there had been a “significant decrease” in inappropriate use of toilets after Underdale used the opening of the unisex loos as a chance to talk about “socially responsible behaviour for shared spaces”. The unisex loos were “all self-contained, fully enclosed, lockable cubicles with hand basin, mirrors and hand dryers in each”.
Such “fully enclosed” cubicles had been used in new and refurbished schools for a decade, whether in single gender or unisex toilets, she said.
For schools with separate male and female loos, a unisex option was provided “to address gender diversity”.