Thai School Introduces Transgender Bathroom

A secondary school in northeastern Thailand, the Kampang School, has designed a new bathroom for transgender people.

The "transvestite toilet," designated by a human figure that's half man (in blue) and half woman (in red), has been in use since classes started in May.

"The Kampang School came up with the idea of the unisex toilet after a survey conducted last term showed that more than 200 of the school's 2,600 students considered themselves transvestites," said school director Sitiak Sumontha, according to the Associated Press.

The introduction of the new toilets is intended to help transgender students go to the restroom in peace. Using the women's restrooms made some students uncomfortable, and going to the men's room often resulted in harassment.

Thailand has always been seen as a liberal country when it comes to LGBT issues. Though the country does not support same-sex unions, the LGBT community is still considered one of the world's most free and open. (The Advocate)

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Name: Daniel
Date posted: 6/19/2008 11:55:00 AM
Hometown: Fort Lauderdale

Comment:
This designation for a 3rd bathroom is like the taste of saccharine, sweet at first, but left with a bitter aftertaste. The bigger issue here is not the need for more bathrooms, but rather a community-wide education effort that teaches students not to harass others who are different. Students should be able to use the bathroom they feel most comfortable associating their gender with. This seems to be the equivalent of 'gay' high schools in this country in LA and NYC. Proponents of these schools side-stepped that these homophobic/insecure straight men should have been held accountable for beating up students who act differently at the prior schools these victims attended. Segregation teaches there's something wrong with one group for an orientation/identity they have no control over. When homophobic students graduate they will not have the option of working in a segregated workplace: why should they be taught that bigotry is ok when they are most mentally malleable??
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Name: Pat
Date posted: 6/19/2008 12:14:00 AM
Hometown: Seattle

Comment:
This policy is really objectionable. In effect, it's asserting that trans-ness is the most important fact of trans people's lives, i.e., a transwoman is first and foremost trans, rather than a woman, and similarly for transmen (except that the policy -- and this article -- doesn't really acknowledge their existence at all). Maybe what we need are restrooms for men, women, and transphobics.

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