Edinburgh school toilets must be refurbished after two court rulings on gender

Toilets at an Edinburgh primary school will have to be renovated, and ones at other schools modified, after two recent court rulings on gender.

A report set to be seen by city councillors on Tuesday will show that the toilets at Maybury Primary School are now not compliant with regulations.

A few more primary schools will have to make staff toilets available to pupils where gender-neutral toilets are not available.

But the secondary school estate in Edinburgh is already compliant with the rulings, as are most of the primary schools in the city.

The report also said work was under way to make sure toilets at schools both in construction and in planning will be modified where possible in order to conform with the rulings.

One of the rulings, at the Supreme Court in April, found that trans women are not legally women for the purposes of anti-discrimination law.

This has had wide-reaching consequences, including in the education sector, where the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission has issued guidance on school toilets.

It says trans women should not be able to access women’s toilets, and trans men should not be able to access men’s toilets – and raised questions over whether mixed blocks were allowed.

The other ruling, made in April at the Court of Session, found that mixed sex toilets were not allowed in Scottish schools.

In May, councillors asked city officers to compile a report on the impact the rulings would have on the city’s school estate.

At Maybury Primary School, toilet provision “will be managed by the school management team” until a long-term solution to the issues is found.

At some other primary schools, locks will need to be fitted to the external doors of washbasin areas to allow them to be used as gender-neutral toilets.

The report said that adaptations will be made where it is “possible and necessary” to do so at schools under construction, including Trinity Academy, Liberton High School and Wester Hailes High School.

It also found that the majority of a Scottish Government guidance document for accommodating trans pupils in schools was still valid.

But it said officers had identified toilets and changing facilities, physical education and residential trips as areas where the guidance did not conform with the new interpretations of the law.