As I wrote yesterday in this long read on parents likely being forced to go to law to protect their children’s privacy in schools, the furore around the madness of imposing mixed-sex bathrooms on secondary schools hasn’t gone away, despite the curious disinterest shown by the legacy media.
But the indefatigable Offaly TD, Carol Nolan, has uncovered the rank hypocrisy of those in power in this regard by asking a most pertinent question: whether the DEI commitments of the Houses of the Oireachtas had led to the provision of gender-neutral toilets in Leinster House.
What was the reply? A lot of blather as usual about the OPW and inclusion and then an admission from the Minister Jack Chambers: “I can confirm that the OPW has not been requested to undertake a specific review of the provision of gender-neutral toilets.”
That’s actually pretty outrageous: schoolgirls across the country are being subject to humiliation and upset and risk because of the deliberate decision – made to placate a tiny number of people – that toilets in schools should now be ‘gender neutral’, but TDs and Senators aren’t subject to the same harmful nonsense.
Mixed-sex toilets for vulnerable 13-year-old girls – and boys – but not for TDs. Why do we let them away with this deceit? Thankfully, we have a small few honest representatives in Leinster House who can find out what is actually going on and expose these hypocrisies.
“While so called ‘Gender Neutral’ Toilets are being imposed on schools, a 2024 commitment to Gender Neutral toilets in the Oireachtas has still not been fulfilled? It’s crystal clear that there is an agenda to target school kids with ideology!” Deputy Nolan posted on X.
As the Minister’s response makes clear, those in charge haven’t even undertaken a review in regard to mixed-sex bathrooms in the Dáil. God, no. But gender-neutral toilets were foisted on schools without any consultation with parents or students, and when parents complained they were often ignored. Meanwhile, we have teenage girls going back to their classrooms in tears because they feel humiliated trying to access sanitary products in what used to be a private space – the bathroom – but is now shared with boys.
As one mother told the Irish Daily Mail, her daughter is ‘terrified of being ostracised if she kicks up a fuss”. It’s outrageous. The people who should be kicking up a fuss are the TDs in Leinster House, in particular the female of the species who bang on endlessly about bodily autonomy and privacy and period poverty etc etc. And where is the National Women’s Council? Surely they should have their taxpayer-funded apparatchiks all over this egregious disregard for the rights of girls. But no, not a peep.
As Leinster House staffer David Mullins wrote: “So, while gender neutral toilets are being imposed on school kids, a 2024 commitment to provide such toilets in Leinster House has not been progressed. A case of ‘good enough for thee, but not for me’?”
A survey commissioned by the Countess showed that 62% of respondents said that public buildings such as schools should have to provide single-sex toilets – yet mixed-sex toilets have been foisted on schools. But not on TDs. That’s very telling, isn’t it?
As was pointed out this morning in response to Deputy Nolan’s tweet, in 2022 a tampon and sanitary towel dispenser was installed in a men’s toilet in Leinster House – interestingly in a location “primarily aimed at visitors which often includes school groups but also are available to the wider community.” This measure was apparently undertaken to further “the aim of creating a more inclusive Parliament ” and would “be of benefit to the Parliamentary community and visitors”.
The move was widely ridiculed at the time. But that’s as far as it went. Female TDs are not being forced to share a bathroom with their male counterparts, but schoolgirls are. This is actually beyond rank hypocrisy: it’s deeply disingenuous, dishonest and wilfully indifferent to the safety of our girls.
There’s a sense that this trampling on the right to privacy of schoolgirls is partly driven by the political obsession with diversity and transgender ideology, and partly just another experiment in social engineering that the elites conveniently remove themselves from such as the undermining of marriage or attacks on faith-based schools.
Either way, as I also said yesterday, these matters are bound to ends up in the courts. But in the meantime, can the Minister and the gender ideology advocates in Leinster House either rapidly change all the bathrooms to being gender-neutral, or acknowledge their incredible hypocrisy in this regard.