University renames 'gents' as 'toilets with urinals' - to avoid upsetting transgender students
Anyone caught short at Manchester University will have to decide whether to use the 'toilets' or the 'toilets with urinals' after the women's and men's were re-named to avoided offending transgender students.<?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /><O:P></O:P>
The change was made in the university's Students' Union after a number of transgender women claimed they were uncomfortable using men’s loos.
A sign reading 'Toilets with urinals' was duly placed over the traditional 'stick man' symbol while a 'Toilets' sign replaced the women's graphic.
The university’s women's officer Jennie Killip told the student newspaper, Student Direct: 'Toilets are very much, you know, for boys and for girls, so we’ve taken away that overtly gendered aspect.
'A trans-student who does not identify themselves as a man would have to face abuse and violence if they used the "other" toilet.'
Speaking to the BBC, she said: 'If you were born female, still present quite feminine, but define as a man you should be able to go into the men's toilets - if that's how you define.
<O:P></O:P>'You don't necessarily have had to have gender reassignment surgery, but you could just define yourself as a man, feel very masculine in yourself, feel that in fact being a woman is not who you are.'
But some female students said they were unhappy with the decision. <O:P></O:P>
One said: 'Girls might not want to use the same toilets as boys, so then you just end up with people complaining about that - so you can't really win.' <O:P></O:P>
Another said: ‘I personally wouldn't want to be in the same toilet as a man." <O:P></O:P>
The university’s newspaper last week criticised the new ‘gender-neutral’ facilities.<O:P></O:P>
Almost 60 people, including Ms Killip, have signed a letter to the student newspaper criticising the editorial.
Newspaper spokeswoman Susannah Birkwood said: 'The toilets have been provided for men who don't self identify as men and women who don't think of themselves as women. <O:P></O:P>
'Whether or not this is political correctness gone mad… it certainly seems that way to some members of our student community.'
Writing on the paper's website one angry student said:
'I agree that this is a complete waste of time and money. I am sure the Union will now be flooded with complains from its female students about the state the toilets are left in by the men.'
It is unknown how many transgender or transexual students attend the university, nor how many had complained.
This is where my career started to go wrong. Maybe 15-plus years ago someone at boardroom level had an 'aha' moment and decided that from now on Total Quality Management was the thing. It's registered trademark, and seemed to be run by wide-eyed Americans and their British acolytes. After the initial pep talk I observed that actually, I was Church of England. Big mistake. I was not one of the inner circle from that point onwards. And then there was the matter of the Mission Statement. I pointed out that we were not the ****ing Star Ship Enterprise, but to no avail. We had to have ideas for a Mission Statement. I suggested Work Makes You Free. The earnest Americans mulled over the idea very seriously while a colleague with a better knowledge of history gagged over his coffee. The long the earnest Americans and their acolytes took the idea seriously, the more my friend turned a deeper shade of red and seemed to be in the grip of some convulsion. Eventually he mumbled an excuse and fled, his hysterical laughter echoing down the corridor. Work Makes You Free - Arbeit Macht Frei - stands to this day above the gates of Auschwitz. Ho hum... TQM eventually faded, but its jargon lives on. I can do bleeding-heart liberal just as well as the next man/woman/person/gender non-specific specimen of homo sapiens, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in capital punishment for the crime of management consultancy.
Talk to them in Old English, where there ARE no politically correct words!!!
A learned Trekkie friend of mine asserts that Klingon is even better as they don't even have terms of common politeness!!!!
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