I was contacted by the Evening Telegraph informing me they had received a Freedom of Information response from Dundee City Council stating that there had been no complaints at all in the 2.5 years since the authority had introduced mixed sex toilets for their pupils. The following is my response.

” The response from the Council to your FoI request is inaccurate as I myself have written to them to complain about the introduction of mixed sex pupil toilets.  Also, I am aware of others who have written to complain so it is a further concern that these are ‘missing’ from the Council’s official records.  

Besides, it would be wrong to interpret a lack of written complaints to mean that pupils, parents and staff have no concerns about the mixed sex toilets.  #MeToo revealed that the vast majority of the sexual harassment and sexual assaults experienced by women and girls day in day out, go unreported.  We also know from the Scottish Parliament’s Equality and Human Rights Committee inquiry on this issue that it is widespread

… sexual harassment and intimidation is being experienced by children in both primary and secondary school. Gender played a key factor we found, and is disproportionately impacting girls and young women.

Equality and Human Rights Committee

The best way to measure whether or not girls and young women are concerned about the mixed sex facilities within schools isn’t to go by the number of complaints they’ve received, if Dundee City Council want to know how their pupils feel then they should ask them, and more importantly this should have been done before any changes were made.   We already know from previous FoI requests that no consultations nor impact assessments were carried out prior to the introduction of mixed sex facilities, despite it being a legal requirement of the schools to consider the needs of all children and the possible negative impact it could have.

Draft guidance drawn up by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) for schools in Scotland was leaked online in August included a section on this very point.  It clarified the current regulations in Scotland are that all  

… schools must comply with the School Premises (General Requirements and Standards) (Scotland) Regulations 1967, which provide that in every school which is not designed exclusively for girls, half the toilet accommodation should be for boys

and

In line with their PSED obligations, when developing or updating a policy about access to single-sex facilities and the provision of gender neutral options, schools must consider any disadvantage or adverse impact and identify, where possible, alternatives to address those and avoid any discriminatory effect on different groups and individuals with protected characteristics.

EHRC Draft Guidance

Schools are required to provide sufficient numbers of separate toilet facilities for girls and boys, however there is nothing preventing schools from also providing additional mixed sex options to meet the needs of a small group of pupils who might benefit from this.

What we have been seeing across Scotland’s public bodies however is the successful advocacy by LGBTI organisations for the needs of this small population which has resulted with harmful unintended consequences to the wider population.  It is not just myself or other grassroots groups who are voicing concerns over these changes – all of the national women’s organisation (Engender, Rape Crisis Scotland, Scottish Women’s Aid, Close The Gap, Equate Scotland) have written to the Scottish Parliament warning that by

creating blanket provision of poorly-designed gender-neutral toilets inside a space for young people may exceed the requirements of non-binary young people and undermine the safety and dignity of girls and young women by exposing them to the risk of sexual harassment by boys and young men.

Engender, Rape Crisis Scotland, Scottish Women’s Aid, Close The Gap, Equate Scotland

Schools across Scotland are failing to meet the needs of this generation of girls and young women when they remove or drastically reduce the number of ‘girls only’ spaces.  The prevalence of sexual harassment within our schools needs to be recognised and urgent action taken.  Local Authorities should be seeking ways to prevent these occurrences and ensure schools are a safe inclusive environment for ALL pupils, instead, their continued support of the introduction of mixed sex spaces increases this risk by exposing girls and young women to further harm. “

Here is the link to the full article “Researcher rubbishes council claims of ‘zero’ complaints over mixed-gender loos in Dundee schools”