Though Cowards Flinch

Perhaps some of our Manchester comrades can enlighten us as to what on earth is going on in Manchester University students’ union and its newspapers. A debate has apparently been raging over the re-naming of one pair of toilets in the basement of the Students Union from “Male” and “Female” to “Toilets” and “Toilets with urinals”.

The local students newspaper, Student Direct, carried the following editorial in its September 22nd edition:

“Student Direct was fascinated to learn about the introduction of unisex toilets into our Students’ Union building.

The ‘non-gendered’ facilities will be provided for all those men who do not ‘self-identify’ as men, and all those women who do not think of themselves as women. This potty parity is good news for all those students who’ve always fancied a bit of titillation in the bathroom, but may have been put off by the awkwardness of entering the Ladies’ or Gents’ hand in hand.

There are of course those for whom the idea of such communal conveniences fills them with dread, most importantly among certain religious groups on campus, while Student Direct feels pretty certain that the multitude of young ladies who congregate to powder their noses (and the like) in the toilets will feel less than enthusiastic about doing so in front of their male classmates…Political correctness gone mad?”

Are we really so uncomfortable with our own bodies and our sexuality as to resort to such narrow-minded populist drivel? As one Manchester student said,”Since when has Student Direct turned into the Daily Mail?” More and more student newspapers seem to be turning into bastions of uber-conservative drones who, between coke snorting bouts, find the time to moralise with the rest of their student colleagues, or while themselves doing nothing productive don’t mind slinging mud at Student Unions.

Setting my despair to the side for a moment, most universities already have a large number of unisex toilets – they’re called Disabled toilets. They are regularly used by people of both genders desperate for the loo but caught out by the occupation or distance of other toilet facilities. All of this rubbish about how unisex toilets are about titillation is simply an ill-conceived jab at the people who have requested one pair – not the whole university full, but one pair – of toilets be made unisex.

That’s not to say people won’t have sex in toilets – they do. However, keeping the toilets gendered hasn’t stopped that trend, particularly in the clubbing areas of SUs up and down the country. Why do we think that de-gendering the toilets will increase it? I suspect that at the root of all this is a simple dislike of the notion of transgendered people and a desire not to accommodate them, a symbolic stand against the erosion of what such bigotted people consider “normal”.

Reading over the record of the issue in the Manchester Evening News, it turns out that the University of Manchester Student Council directed their executive to look into gender neutral toilets for transgender students and executive actually did their job. The women’s officer at UofM raised the issue because apparently on Manchester campus transgender students have suffered abuse in the toilets before. As far as I can see, that makes this an issue of bullying – and answers need to be sought.

To the Student Direct editors who commissioned this vile nonsense I would say, perhaps those nose-powdering young ladies (a stereotype straight out of the Old Man’s Guide to Clubbing, it has to be said) could find a different toilet to use for make-up. Or, they could stop being so utterly vain, dress themselves at the beginning of the night and let it go at that. As for any dismayed ‘religious groups’ on campus, don’t they have enough to deal with? I mean pre-marital sex must be rampant.

The War Against Condoms won’t fight itself; the anti-abortion revolution won’t be won if all their time is spent on the issue of a unisex pair of toilets!

Bugger me but I’m glad I’m done with student life at university. That this stuff even gets national attention makes me want to seriously hurt the fuckwits responsible for publishing it.