The ‘de-gendered’ toilets at the University of Manchester have made national headlines from The Guardian to the Daily Telegraph, proving that the PC brigade will stop at nothing to force ‘the majority’ to live by the rules demanded by a tiny, militant minority. It’s political correctness gone mad, isn’t it? (At least as Richard Littlejohn would say.)
The ‘story’ concerns a single pair of toilets in the Student Union basement which have had A4-sized temporary signs reading ‘Toilets’ and ‘Toilets with urinals’ blue-tacked over a small portion of the universally-recognised Female and Male symbols, in a (largely symbolic) attempt to provide a safe space for students who are transitioning, or who don’t feel comfortable using a toilet intended for their assigned gender. (Look at the photo illustrating the Mail’s typically hysterical response. Is that toilet intended for people who identify as male, or female? It’s baffling, isn’t it?)
Many of the comments posted in response to these stories centre on the presumption that the University are caving in to one or two students whose grievances amount to nothing more than a slightly quizzical look. Anyone within the transgender community can tell you that the use by someone whom non-trans people perceive as the ‘wrong’ sex of a segregated toilet often provokes a far strongly outcry even in what one might expect to be a safe space, as Roz Kaveney’s tribulations at London Pride this year testified.
Moving beyond the biological necessity of self-relief and into the economic necessity of earning a living, one might expect Brighton & Hove City Council to be one of Britain’s most trans-tolerant employers – this hasn’t always been the case either.
Hopefully these examples are enough to demonstrate that transphobia exists, and that public toilets are one of the key battlegrounds in the war against it, given how strictly they enforce the idea of binary sexuality, and how the gendered symbols for Men and Women implicitly link biology with gender presentation. Imagine how horrified those outraged by this single set of signs would be if people nationwide took the established toilet signs literally, and any (biological) woman not wearing a skirt walked through the door bearing the trousered symbol?
The fact that this single set of toilets (not even the closest set to the Manchester union bar: those that are remain safely conventionally gendered) has provoked such bluster, apart from testifying to the readiness of those who understand ‘political correctness’ the least to raise their voices the loudest against it, wherever they see fit (and they see it everywhere!), shows how much work the transgender – and feminist – communities have to do in breaking down a language (of words and symbols) that, unchecked over centuries, has evolved to render the idea of behaviour that does not fit a binary gender system almost inexpressible.
A commonly accepted vocabulary to articulate transgender feelings does not exist, and any attempt to popularise one, or even make those member of the public who have never had cause to consider how it feels to be transgender aware that those that have even exist, is decried as ‘political correctness gone mad!’ Cyberspace experiments with non-gender-specific pronouns have not led to trans-accommodating pronouns being adopted by the mainstream media, and even The Guardian published this ‘critique’ of unisex toilets last year, based more on unqualified fear of ‘any number of pervy men’ than any reasoned debate on the gender-inclusive possibilities unisex bathrooms might open.
So I support the University’s gesture. During my three years of study in Manchester (2000-2003), I definitely identified as transgender to myself, but never had the confidence to express that identity outside spaces I knew to be sympathetic (club nights I ran, a handful of trans-friendly clubs and, mostly, my own bedroom), and I am sure I was not the only such person there then, and would not be the only one now.
So the University’s symbolic decision to alter the description of two toilets to make them less intimidating to transgender-identified people may be the first step in creating a vocabulary that allows us to express ourselves (and satisfy our biological needs) without fear of reprisal. The furious reaction to this non-story, though, suggests we have an almighty struggle on our hands.