Transsexual Toilets in Schools just plain wrong

This may be old news to a lot of you but a school based in North East Thailand is the first school to offer Transgender Toilets to it’s students. The Kampang School in Isan educates a total of 2,600 students and of that, around 10-20% of which are Ladyboys.

 

Read on for the full article and video news report:

 

The following is taken from BBC news:

It is situated in Thailand's impoverished north-east, and most of the pupils are the children of farmers.

Every morning at 0800 they all gather outside to sing the national anthem and watch the flag being raised.

Then they have a chance to use the toilets, before heading off the first classes of the day.

Kampang is proud of its toilets. Spotless, and surrounded by flowering tropical plants, they have won national awards for cleanliness.

But there is something else about them too. Between the girls' toilet and the boys', there is one signposted with a half-man, half-woman figure in blue and red.

This is the transsexual toilet, and outside, in front of the mirrors, some decidedly girly-looking teenage boys preen their hair and apply face cream.

'Uncomfortable'

The headteacher, Sitisak Sumontha, estimates that in any year between 10% and 20% of his boys consider themselves to be transgender - boys who would rather be girls.

"They used to be teased every time they used the boys' toilets," he said, "so they started using the girls' toilets instead. But that made the girls feel uncomfortable. It made these boys unhappy, and started to affect their work."

So the school offered to build the transgender boys their own facility, and they welcomed it.

Triwate Phamanee is a slightly built 13-year-old who is adamant that he will one day change his gender.

"We're not boys," he told me, "so we don't want to use the boys' toilet - we want them to know we are transsexuals."

Vichai Saengsakul, 15, agrees.

"People need to know that being a transsexual is not a joke," he says, "it's the way we want to live our lives. That's why we're grateful for what the school has done."

Call me a traditionalist or what have you but something about this just doesn’t feel right. Perhaps it’s a cultural difference thing growing up in the West but the idea of a dual sex toilet just doesn’t sound quite as appealing anymore.

Source: BBC News

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