The privacy and visibility paradox: trans students’ experiences of toilets and changing rooms in UK secondary schools

Abstract

Trans people’s use of single-sex toilet facilities has become the subject of public attention, academic debate and research in recent years. One common solution is to offer transgender students access to an alternative toilet or changing space, such as an accessible toilet. However, in this paper, I critically engage with the suggestion that alternative toilets and changing spaces afford trans students more privacy than single-sex facilities. Drawing on research with teachers and young trans people in the UK, I illustrate that alternative toilets and changing spaces further compromise rather than secure their privacy as long as the broader environment in which they are situated is organized in a cisnormative way. This does not mean that trans students should be required to use single-sex facilities, but rather, I call for critical conversations around how far alternative facilities offer privacy for trans students in practice.