South Western’s elected school board is making some strange decisions.
For the last two years, they’ve fixated on which bathrooms LGBTQ+ kids use. In 2023, officials in this Hanover-area district played musical chairs with school bathrooms in a misguided attempt to appease the loudest bigots among them — ending up with five different types of bathrooms.
After a low-turnout school board election in which several far-right members joined their ranks, they hired a Christian law firm, decided to begin banning books and reopened the bathroom issue. Board President Matthew Gelazela, who was elevated to his post after previously serving as the board’s most vocal bomb-thrower, pointed to Red Lion’s discriminatory policies as something to aspire to.
Now, upon the advice of that law firm — the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center — the board approved spending $8,700 to cut windows so passersby can look into the so-called “gender-identity” student bathrooms.
Does $9,000 seem a bit low for the cost of adding windows to all the relevant restrooms in a school district?
Eh. Sawzall through cinder-block, pre-built window and frame, some caulk. Sure.
some caulk.
Better not be any of that in the GIRL’S bathroom!!
From a local station.
"Our students should not consider the space outside of our stalls as private within the multiuser restrooms. Our current policy states ‘In any facility in a District school that is for use based on Gender Identity, in which a person may be in a state of undress in the presence of others, school personnel shall provide private changing areas for use.’ Areas between our stalls and sinks in multiuser restrooms are not private changing areas under that policy.
Just fucking WOW. I guess we should check their assholes next.
Ok, I’ll explain that a little better: the place where you take a shit is a private space. The place where you wash your hands is a public space.
In a normal restroom, it is permissible to be partially undressed outside of the stalls, but within the hand washing area of the restroom, as that can be considered a changing area, like a locker room.
With the addition of the window, there is no longer a place that can be considered a “changing area” outside the stalls. If they built proper walls and used proper doors for the “stalls”, they just made some private restrooms next to some public sinks.
This is to alienate or ostracize a certain group. They don’t care that someone might change in that area. They want it to fail.
Since you only have a reference from tv about other places outside the US, Germany has unisex bathrooms. It is a place to shit and piss. If you want to change, knock yourself out. However in the US we have tiny doors that you can easily see around. Privacy is not high on our list.
The Republicans do, indeed, want to get rid of these bathrooms, and revert them to boys rooms. If they controlled the board, that is exactly what they would have. The fact that they have 5 different types of restrooms tells me the Republicans aren’t the ones making the decisions; the board is accommodating the students.
The Republicans are using a law prohibiting coed changing rooms. They are claiming the area outside the stalls qualifies as a changing area, and they have precedence to support that designation. If it is a changing area, the gender inclusive restroom violates the law. They do, indeed, want it to fail, which it will do if the issue goes to court while that law is in place.
Unless they can prove that the area outside the stalls is not a changing area. Changing areas don’t have public-facing windows. It can’t be an illegal, coed changing area if it has a public-facing window.
Germany has unisex bathrooms.
That is exactly what they made here. Each stall is now considered a unisex bathroom, and the hand washing area is no longer a “changing area”.
It is a place to shit and piss. If you want to change, knock yourself out. However in the US we have tiny doors that you can easily see around.
Does this particular room use typical semi-private partitions, or have they switched to some sort of wall or full partition that offers actual privacy? The photo shows only the window; it does not provide a good view of the stalls.
You are missing the major point. They are only doing it to one group (singling out). Imagine if they cut a window into the female’s bathroom and determined the outside was not considered private? How about they cut windows to all the bathrooms and make all as just bathrooms. Like you do at your house, unless you have a men’s and women’s bathrooms.
Not all communal restrooms have stall partitions suitable for that plan. Nor do they need them if the area outside the stalls is a changing area. The school does need to provide changing areas. Eliminating one unnecessarily doesn’t make sense.
The discourse around this is very confusing, especially as a non American who has never been in an American school bathroom.
What you’re describing sounds like a normal public toilet set up in my country
There’s a hallway or doorway into an open space with mirrors sinks and hand dryers, sometimes that hallway has a door to it, but often it’s just an open door frame. Sometimes they’ll put a 90 degree turn in the hall to obscure looking straight in, but not always.
Behind the sinks are private stalls. At more expensive locations they’ll have semiambulant stalls, some will even have their own sink inside the stall so that the full access toilet and wash room can be available to those who can’t ambulate.
(full access toilets and wash rooms are entirely seperate from the sink and stalls)
The sink area is often still segregated by gender at older establishments, but anyone walking past could glimpse in and see /shock fully dressed people washing their hands!
What you’re describing sounds like a normal public toilet set up in my country
From the school restrooms I’ve seen depicted in various British TV shows, there isn’t much physical difference. The only practical difference is that males, females, and various other genders might be washing hands in the same room at the same time. Now with a window to remind everyone that the sink area is a public space, and isn’t to be used as a changing area.
After a low-turnout school board election in which several far-right members joined their ranks, they hired a Christian law firm, decided to begin banning books and reopened the bathroom issue.
Fucking VOTE you dumb sons of bitches!
In case anyone else was wondering how they came up with 5 types of bathroom:
bathrooms for males assigned as male at birth, females assigned as female at birth, males based on gender identity, females based on gender identity, and private, single-use bathrooms for all students to use.
the fact they have the space for all of that means they have the space to eliminate communal bathrooms altogether
It sounded like that’s their current “problem.”. Since it’s the adults with agendas that are doing the only complaining, the kids are just using whatever bathroom is most convenient, so CIS kids are using the Identify as X bathroom because they don’t care, they just need to use a damn bathroom. I took it as that’s why they want the windows in the non CIS bathrooms.
I feel stupider for having to try to explain this like it makes any sense. Just have single, unisex bathrooms already like everyone has at home!
They go on and on about how they don’t want the dangerous transgenders in the bathroom, but now anyone can peek in to confirm… What, exactly? It’s not like the windows are in the stalls, so just for them assume someone gender? “You look too feminine, no boys room for you. Sorry, too masculine, no ladies room.” What’s next, strip searches? Wtf is it with them and the bathroom…
It’s to ensure people remain on the outside and excluded.
If someone’s preferred bathroom in the men’s room, but they are forbidden from using it, they have a special bathroom to use. However we can’t have them privately using a bathroom. We have to put them on display. EVERYONE needs to know they are different. The goal is to exclude, the goal is to make them feel different, the goal is hate. It’s disgusting.
As students, hopefully, they just start to use the bathroom normally. If all students use it, then it’s not weird. Now that’s unfair to push on middle school students. But it’s an option.
What’s next, strip searches?
Hardly “what’s next”. This has been a fixation by conservatives since since the Obama Administration
Aimee Toms was washing her hands in the women’s bathroom at Walmart in Danbury Friday when a stranger approached her and said, “You’re disgusting!” and “You don’t belong here!”
After momentary confusion, she realized that the woman next to her thought — because of her pixie-style haircut and baseball cap — that she was transgender.
Longer than that, even! Circa 2003/04 my 14 year old ass was getting chewed out by shitty Karens because they couldn’t fathom the idea of a young teen girl sporting a pixie cut and wearing baggy metal tees, skate jeans and vans. I’ve actually resorted - more than once - to showing my used menstrual products as proof. Well, more as a way to harass them back, but. You know.
Joke’s on me, though, I guess, since I’m actually genderfluid lol.
Wtf is it with them and the bathroom…
They really love people’s gentials. The younger the genital, the better.
And the school board president ran as a member of the “Libertarian Party”.
These are really fucking weird and dangerous people.
Conservatives are cockroaches.
man from the child molester party wants windows in childrens bathrooms for totally not molester reasons.
This won’t help much, hard to tell much just by someone’s face. What we need here is a window specifically for viewing the children’s genitalia. And then we need a dedicated monitor to watch all the children use the bathroom.
John, the repressed religious fundamentalist, has already volunteered. We’ve designed a room where he can monitor the genitalia from the holes we’ve cut, and we’ve also installed cameras inside the urinals and toilets with a feed that goes to the monitoring room, in case anyone tries to defeat our system.
The monitoring room has no windows or cameras in it, and the door locks from the inside, so, I think we’ve finally solved the problem. Consider the liberals owned!
i think we should probably take a page out of the book of “historical chinese cuisine” and cook dumplings in the piss of young boys or whatever the fuck that one thing they do is.
not /s, (well aside from my satire)
I’ll pass thanks
fair enough
So, we’ve created the Toilet Safety Administration. Wonderful.
Wow that’s a pretty disgusting clip even for Southpark
Disgusting? Yes.
Accurate? Also yes, unfortunately.
What fucking law firm approved this? Must be one Trump uses. Because letting people look in on underage kids in the bathroom must be unconstitutional not to mention illegal? If that was going on in my kids school I be suing.
This seems to be a pretty blatant violation of IBC chapter 21 1210.3
That doesn’t seem to be a code? Are you talking about the cope lintel and I guess 2104.1.1?
*oh that’s some 2021 version change. PA is on 2018 and chapter 21 is masonry which got me to the other violation.
You can violate 2021 IBC all you want in PA because it isn’t adopted code. 2018 only cares about privacy for urinal partitions and the enclosed stalls which weren’t touched.
Throwing out codes when you don’t know any details about the situation is classic lemmy brain
Perverts and child abusers, the lot.
They’re so concerned about what’s going on inside children’s pants that they now was to watch them in bathroom.
Sounds pretty fucking weird to me
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Whoever approved this is clearly very weird.
Yeah, is this not like blatantly pedophilic? Very weird
I’m betting there is some sort of legal prohibition against creating a mixed-gender restroom, and the way they are getting around it is by declaring only the toilet stalls to be restrooms. With the window into the area of the sinks, that area is a public space, and can’t legally be considered part of the restroom.
So long as the toilets are in actual rooms with floor to ceiling walls and actual doors (not the bullshit stalls we typically use in the US), and those rooms don’t have windows, this isn’t as terrible an idea as it initially seems.
They have already created gender neutral restrooms, according to the article these windows are not in those.
There’s 2 stalls visible in the picture. The walls are not floor to ceiling, the doors have larger gaps above and though it isn’t visible, I expect also a gap below. It’s not clear if there are vertical visibility slits on the sides of the doors. But they’re clearly just stalls really.
But it doesn’t really matter how the stalls are, the way that we know that this is targeted spite and bullying, is that windows are being cut only in a specific subset of the restrooms. They’re trying to shame and intimidate the kids that are in those restrooms.
Possible.
It’s also possible that the stalls do provide an adequate degree of privacy, coming very close to the floor, and sufficiently high enough to prevent people from seeing inside. They certainly don’t look like the stalls my school used.
Frankly, if their intention is to shame and intimidated, I’m rather surprised they are going to this much effort, when they could just not do anything at all.
Do we know that the other, gender-neutral restrooms are similarly communal? Is it possible that they are single-user facilities with sinks, and need only appropriate signage to make them inclusive?
It’s also possible…
As someone so eloquently said; maybe one if my pigs just shat a gold nugget (gotta check that out, right)
Read up on it some more, from a less biased source. The Republicans want this to be a boy’s room. The law prohibits coed changing rooms. Be “inclusive” of multiple genders in a room that qualifies as a “changing room”, and you violate the law.
Changing rooms don’t have windows. Put in a window, and the area can’t be considered a changing room. Since it isn’t a changing room, the Republican argument fails, and they don’t get to get rid of the gender inclusive restroom entirely. You still have privacy while you are using the toilet. You don’t have privacy while you are washing your hands.
So in this case, you might want to figure out where your pig has been eating and stake a claim.
I’ve stopped giving USA republicans the benefit of doubt years ago, Trump’s first year in office was enough to convince me. I’ve accepted that they are comically evil and that they have no redeeming qualities. So if I see something that is comically evil, then I’m not going to invent possibilities of why it might not be as bad, because in my experience it will turn out that after a little digging, it’s actually worse.
Also the administration was given the opportunity to justify or explain their actions by the reporter, and they chose not to, most likely not because they didn’t want to, but because they couldn’t do so in a matter that did not make them appear like spiteful bigots. There’s no point in inventing possible defenses for them if they could not provide them themselves.
Republicans don’t have five types of bathrooms. Republicans have two. That alone should tell you that the Republicans aren’t actually in control here.
What is actually happening is that the Republicans are trying to get rid of the “gender inclusive” restroom, and revert it to boys only. They don’t want 5 kinds of restrooms. They want two.
After reading some more, it turns out the Republicans are claiming the area outside the stalls is a “changing area”, and the law prohibits coed changing areas. Be “inclusive” of more than one gender in a “changing area”, and you violate the law.
Changing areas don’t have public-facing windows. Areas with public-facing windows aren’t changing areas. Without the window, the Republicans get to make it a boys-only room. With the window to the sinks - not the toilets - it is not a changing area, and the Republican argument fails.
Seems reasonable and likely, but that’s not what people here want they want an enemy they can pretend is pure evil so they can feel good about themselves
pedophilic
And yet, I don’t see any evidence of drag queen or gay involvement.
Nothing new here lol. Every accusation etc etc
They are out of their minds
