Gender Revo-loo-tion

This week I wrote a piece for The Student in response to a news article which appeared on the front page last week. The headline, "Teviot loos go transgender" was not only factually inaccurate but also theoretically incorrect. Only one toilet was affected so the plural "loos" was inappropriate. Also, the correct term is "gender neutral toilets" not, "transgender". Only people can consider themselves to be transgender, not inanimate objects.

Although the article itself was well-balanced, the inaccuracy in the headline resulted in widespread misconception, with many students thinking that all toilets would be affected, or that new toilets were to be built. I was even chatting to a former Edinburgh student (now living in Cambridge) who had heard about it and was under the impression that lots of money was being spent on it. Well, it isn't. So that's why I wrote a column on the subject for the Comment Section. And here it is!

Lots of people have been talking this week about the installation of gender neutral toilets in Teviot in the very near future. News of the impending changes appeared on the front page of The Student last week, and a slight panic seemed to set in, with one particularly concerned, but understandably anonymous source being quoted as enquiring about “what would happen to girly bathroom banter?” A terrifying thought though that may be, there are, of course, wider issues to be considered.

Don’t get me wrong; my immediate first thought upon hearing about gender neutral toilets was the terrifying prospect of having to hold my breath, shield my eyes and don my wellies in order to limit my ammonia intake every time I dared to use the facilities. Worse still, imagine the scene at The Big Cheese when the rugby boys are in! Some sick initiation ceremony involving the freshers being challenged to piss in one another’s direction while someone attempts to catch it in a plastic pint glass is definitely not something I want to witness whilst reapplying my lip gloss.

These concerns are, however, completely ridiculous once we analyse the facts.

Firstly, out of all of the toilets across every EUSA venue, only one toilet is being affected by the change. Just one. Not even one set of toilets containing several cubicles. Just one toilet.

Secondly, this one toilet is buried so deeply into the recesses of the building that if we took a swab we’d probably find some of Gordon Brown’s pubic hair stuck to the underside of the seat; a disturbing legacy from his early days as rector of the university in the mid-1970s. In fact, Gordon’s probably the only person alive who even knows where that toilet is. I reckon that only about one in ten people reading this article will even be able to tell me where Teviot’s Dining Room is. Incidentally, it is outside this room that the chosen loo is located.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the only change actually being made is the replacement of a sign that currently reads ‘gents’ by a sign that reads, ‘toilet’. It’ll probably cost less than a VK Apple in the library bar, will go unnoticed by the vast majority of students, and yet will hugely improve an awkward situation for those students who do not identify within the gender binary.

Students who visit The Pleasance regularly and, like me, are too lazy to walk up the stairs, use a gender neutral toilet every time they use the disabled access toilet by the bar downstairs. There is also a gender neutral toilet upstairs by The Pleasance theatre that has remained unnoticed and inoffensive for quite some time. Other universities have gone much further than we have in the provision of gender neutral toilets and there is still much to be done at Edinburgh to keep up this trend. So what’s the big deal? Except that the changes don’t go far enough, of course.