LGBT Officers defend criticised gender neutral toilets motion
A controversial motion for the provision of gender neutral toilets on campus has been passed at a UGM meeting last week.
Proposed by YUSU LGBT Officers Elanin Vince and Peter Warner-Medley, the motion aims to provide toilet facilities for all students who do not identify themselves as either male of female. Narrowly passing with a 50 vote margin, the motion has provoked an outburst of student opinion.
One dissenter, History of Art undergraduate Hattie Buxton commented: “I’ve never heard of anything more ridiculous in my life. This sort of thing shows how far political correctness has got. Firstly, there isn’t a difference between sex and gender.
Secondly, science is science. If you are born with male genitals, you are a man. If you are born with female genitals, you are a woman.”
Warner-Medley and Vince were keen to fight back against such opinions: “These sorts of people just show us how important education is,” said Warner-Medley. “People simply aren’t not informed enough about Trans issues, leading to this sort of bigotry. Imagine that someone has lived as a woman for the last two years of her life. It would be massively intimidating entering a female bathroom where women might think that they don’t belong.”
“It works on both sides,” added Vince. “It will help the men or women who are uncomfortable with people they perceive as the opposite sex entering the loos. Of course, we don’t want to promote such views, but they do exist.”
Several other motions proposed by LGBT were also passed, including the right for students to choose what name they are referred to as, and a proposed altering of data capturing methods.
Commenting on the latter motion, Warner-Medley said: “It is point-blank an invasion of privacy to ask for sex. It is asking what’s between our trousers, like putting on a form how big your penis is.”
Following the backlash of student opinion on the passing of the motions, the officers were keen to emphasise the importance of LGBT’s work on campus: “These people just show us much work we have to do. Acceptance, education: these are integral. I recommend that people go out and learn about what Trans really means. Learn. Then comment.”
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Paragraph 5, “his” should be “her”, assuming that Peter is talking about someone who identifies as female (which, iirc, he was). Also, the motion was not just for students who don’t identify as male or female. Binary identified trans students in transition from their birth sex benefit just as much.
It’d be nice if any kind of response from trans students were included to counterbalance the inaccurate statement about sex and the necessarily detached perspective of the officers.
What a load of tut… gender neutral toilets… why don’t you campaign for something actually useful… do you have any idea how practically impossible it would be for the university to convert all toilets into gender neutral ones. Have a good long hard think about your plans. Then forgot all of them and rethink what you actually want to do because if that’s the best you got then we should re-open elections because by the sound of things you’re a waste of space!
“do you have any idea how practically impossible it would be for the university to convert all toilets into gender neutral ones”
This is not what this motion is asking for. Take the time to actually read it before you decide to illuminate us with your insightful knowledge of the issue.
“What a load of tut… gender neutral toilets… why don’t you campaign for something actually useful… ”
This is highly useful and indeed important to at least one demographic that the LGBT Officers were elected to represent. It also passed at a UGM, which gives the LGBT Officers a mandate from the student population to work on this issue.
“do you have any idea how practically impossible it would be for the university to convert all toilets into gender neutral ones.”
This isn’t what they have asked for. Read the motion.
“Have a good long hard think about your plans. Then forgot all of them and rethink what you actually want to do because if that’s the best you got then we should re-open elections because by the sound of things you’re a waste of space!”
The LGBT Officers were elected to protect the rights of LGBT people on campus, to promote diversity and liberation, to provide welfare and support for LGBT people and to campaign on issues that affect LGBT people. These motions are very, very comfortably covered by their mandate. Would you rather they ignored the role they were elected to fulfil? Perhaps the Academic & Welfare Officer, the YUSU LGBT Trans Rep and the Welfare Officer Elect should also resign, as they seconded the motions? Clearly, they don’t know what they are talking about!
This is not the best they’ve got. They have already had a very active term in which they have started work with the university on LGBT welfare and support, organised two speaker events, co-hosted a successful late license event, started a fundamental constitutional overhaul, started working with the other liberation officers on a campaign for next year, planned a number of Welcome Week events, held regular welfare drop-ins, started planning a number of small campaigns for the next two terms, started planning for York Pride . . . the list is seemingly endless and I know exactly how stressed the two of them are, and how hard at work the committee has been.
What would you rather they were doing?
For goodness sake, we’ve had three weeks and people are still talking about converting all toilets?! Why don’t people read?!
The motion is to *where possible* convert *one toilet*, and *temporarily*, to being an open-sex toilet. This would be, for example, at Big D converting the Langwith corridor toilet. The rest would stay the same.
The other half is to build an open-gender toilet when building new sites, where possible – so that requires the LGBT Officers to talk to the university and try to persuade them. Rest assured that the university won’t do anything it doesn’t think is possible!
I’ve immediately lost all confidence in these officers, and it’s not taken long.
Not at all because of the motions (a sensible one on names, a well-meaning but stupidly described one on sex/gender on forms and an overdue one on toilets) but on the way they’ve commented on the response.
The holier-than-thou approach just doesn’t cut it. Calling someone a bigot for having a biological approach to sociology isn’t on.
The ‘penis size’ reference to writing your sex on a form is so ludicrously stupid – how am I supposed to take these guys seriously when they have beliefs that answering ‘male’ or ‘female’ on a form is equivalent to writing ‘male. 6 inches’ – just doesn’t make any sense.
The second half of the article is sheer arrogance. “Learn. Then comment” ….. some people did learn, at school, in biology, that there are XX and XY. That’s textbook GCSE biology. So I don’t think people aren’t educated at all. It’s a university for Gods sake, ‘course people are educated.
I know the LGBT campaign and society are well meaning. I know that they have their members’ best interests at heart and want to make people feel safe and welcome at campus. I know they want to help people overcome difficulties in their personal and family lives and want to help people enjoy university life. And for this is can only praise them.
But a marked difference between last years campaigners and this years is the hostility that comes across in this article. You’re not speaking to an angry bunch of fired up LGBT activists now. You’re speaking to 10,000+ people of varying views, cultures, backgrounds and attitudes and of course sexualities.
Telling people that they’re bigots for holding a perfectly plausible set of beliefs isn’t fair. Telling a university student body to get an education isn’t fair.
Not a good start.
A. Democrat: It’s upsetting that you feel that way. Hopefully this should clear things up.
As little as I want to comment on this until it’s resolved elsewhere, it needs correcting. I was at the interview and I can assure you that this article is a massive misrepresentation of both the attitude of the LGBT officers and what they said at the time. This isn’t a knock at Adrian, he was extremely receptive of what we had to say, but for whatever reason it’s come out disastrously inaccurate.
- The word bigotry was only used by Adrian – no-one else condemned or condoned it
- Peter never mentioned “these sorts of people”, he mentioned responses, and not in that tone
- The comment about two years full-time was about preferred names, not toilets
- The “Learn. Then comment” is a very rough approximation of a longer conversation from a completely different angle.
The officers absolutely did not take the condescending stance presented in the article.
Also, the penis size comment is not Peter’s personal perspective on filling out sex on a form. It’s a feeling he’s gleaned from talking to trans people put in that position. I’d very much like if the campus media would present something from a trans perspective, but thus far the interest seems to be in what the officers or other well meaning people have to say on our behalf, not what trans students are actually experiencing.
“The holier-than-thou approach just doesn’t cut it. Calling someone a bigot for having a biological approach to sociology isn’t on.”
I’ve had it on good assurance that they didn’t use the word “bigot” and were misquoted but chose not to bother since there had been no complaints; knowing both Officers, I can assure you that they are very inclusive of different views and wouldn’t call someone a bigot (at all, let alone in that context) for having different views to themselves. I did ask them specifically about that because I’m not a fan of the word myself and find it a harsh insult!
I would just briefly like to agree with Em that, if this issue is to continue to be covered in the campus media, an actual trans perspective is necessary. Em and I are trans, we were elected to represent Trans and Queer people in this University, why is no one asking us for comments? Why does it seem to me that no trans person has been quoted in any of these articles? (If someone has, i apologise for my ignorance)
Why is this discusssion still happening? The motion passed. Simple as. Accept that it’s happening and that the students of this university are open-minded enough to allow people to feel comfortable here. Peter and Elanin are good YUSU Officers who are representing those under their remit well. I know them well and I know they wouldn’t have kicked off in the way that Nouse have depicted they have. Nouse irresponsibility reporting again- errrr, YEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.