Unisex toilets are not ‘woke propaganda’; they are vital for safety of queer youth

The addition of one unisex loo at a Central Coast high school caused a stink. Parents were asking questions about safety, but not the right ones.

My good friend cried in my arms on a late-night Uber ride home from an inner west nightclub last weekend.

He had entered the male toilets alone, and two men assaulted him.

He had found them trying to usher an incredibly intoxicated woman into a cubicle alone. He stepped in to make sure she was safe.

They shoved him against a wall, until realising that he is AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth).

“Oh, you’re not a real boy,” they sneered, and stopped.

On one hand, my friend was relieved — to not have been raped or beaten due to this realisation.

A Central Coast high school added gender inclusive signs “He/Them” and “She/They” to one toilet recently, prompting parental complaints on a community Facebook page.

On the other, he was reminded that something as ordinary as entering a bathroom is not safe for people like him, even in a city as rainbow-friendly as Sydney.

The addition of one unisex bathroom to a Central Coast high school Northlakes was recently branded a “safety” concern for parents.

NSW MP Mark Latham pictured at State Parliament in Sydney. Picture: Sam Ruttyn/Daily Telegraph

One Nation MP Mark Latham said the “LGBTIQ-style pronouns” would encourage boys to use girls toilets, posing risk to young girls.

He ignored, of course, that all the school’s other toilets are all still women’s and men’s. Just the one is unisex.

“At Northlakes High School, except for one unisex, lockable, single cubicle toilet attached to the school sick bay, all toilets are single sex,” a NSW Department of Education spokeswoman said.
Cisgender students can continue their toiletry business as per normal. But for trans and non-binary kids, that loo is a lifeline.

Because when gender diverse people enter the bathrooms, they face a lose-lose decision.

My friend must (A) use the women’s and risk being perceived as a predatory male. Or (B) enter the men’s and risk physical or sexual violence from transphobic men.

Mr Latham said parents had contacted him about a rainbow and trans pride flag draped across a fence at Abbotsford Public school in Sydney’s inner west. “No one in the Abbotsford Public School community had approached the school with concerns about these flags, which have flown for several months,” a NSW Department of Education department spokesman said.

That’s not opinion, but statistical fact.

Nearly half of transgender Australians have attempted suicide, according to research by Sav Zwickl and Associate Professor Ada Cheung at the University of Melbourne, thanks to unrelenting stigma in daily life.

One in three trans people in Australia have experienced discrimination in employment, and in accessing healthcare. Three in five have experienced verbal abuse, and 20 per cent have been physically attacked.

I doubt Mr Latham, or indeed most straight men, have ever feared for their safety while using a public toilet.

That is a privilege. Privilege is not having to endure uncomfortable, unsafe, and unfair experiences, by virtue of something out of one’s control, such as sexuality or gender identity.

It’s also a privilege to make an issue of queer safety about your personal discomfort. Mr Latham called the unisex toilet an “insidious political campaign”.

The personal is political, sure. However, the existence of solitary unisex toilet does not take anything away from him.