The government has banned gender-neutral toilets in Australian schools following the backlash from the public after Fortitude Valley State Secondary College announced plans to convert all of their girls and boys toilets into gender-neutral (shared) ones.
While the Department of Education appeared to have defended the controversial decision, the plans were overturned by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk who expressed worries about potential consequences that shared toilets would have on the students.
As Minister for Education Ignazia Graziella Grace, a.k.a. Grace Grace, confirmed, “all necessary arrangements” are in place to respect the Premier’s ruling.
“This includes a change to make separate, gender-specific toilets for boys and girls available. There are also specific toilets for students with a disability. Separate boys and girls change rooms with toilets had already been factored into the design of the school,” she said in a statement sent to Daily Mail Australia.
Previously, the decision to open unisex toilets at schools sparked a nation-wide controversy in the country with parents arguing their children’s security was being compromised on purpose.
“We already know some really bad things happen to kids in bathroom areas of schools – bullying, sexting, kids recording on mobiles, these things already go on when they’re just within their own sex, and then you’re adding in an extra element,” an education expert and concerned parent Michelle Mitchell said in an interview with The Sunday Mail at the time.point 631 | 1
“Being a teenager is a really big time of change, for boys and for girls, and kids have a right to feel safe.”
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Replaced!