Troubling school toilets: resisting discourses of ‘development’ through a critical disability studies and critical psychology lens

Slater, Jenny; Jones, Charlotte; Procter, Lisa

doi:10.1080/01596306.2017.1316237

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The data from which this article draws were collected for the Around the Toilet project, to explore potential points of coalition by centring disabled, trans and queer people, whose use of toilets may be obstructed in a number of different ways (see also Slater & Jones, 2018; Slater et al, 2018, 2019). We use ‘trans’ as a term to describe anyone who does not wholly identify as the gender that they were assigned at birth, including non-binary people.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The toilet debate: Stalling trans possibilities and defending ‘women’s protected spaces’

Jones

Slater

2020

The Sociological Review

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As one of the few explicitly gender-separated spaces, the toilet has become a prominent site of conflict and a focal point for ‘gender-critical’ feminism. In this article we draw upon an AHRC-funded project, Around the Toilet, to reflect upon and critique trans-exclusionary and trans-hostile narratives of toilet spaces. Such narratives include ciscentric, heteronormative and gender essentialist positions within toilet research and activism which, for example, equate certain actions and bodily functions (such as menstruation) to a particular gender, decry the need for all-gender toilets, and cast suspicion upon the intentions of trans women in public toilet spaces. These include explicitly transmisogynist discourses perpetuated largely by those calling themselves ‘gender-critical’ feminists, but also extend to national media, right-wing populist discourses and beyond. We use Around the Toilet data to argue that access to safe and comfortable toilets plays a fundamental role in making trans lives possible. Furthermore, we contend that – whether naive, ignorant or explicitly transphobic – trans-exclusionary positions do little to improve toilet access for the majority, instead putting trans people, and others with visible markers of gender difference, at a greater risk of violence, and participating in the dangerous homogenisation of womanhood.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The toilet debate: Stalling trans possibilities and defending ‘women’s protected spaces’

Jones

Slater

2020

The Sociological Review

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“…Struggles for better toilet access need to work against, rather than functioning easily within, this capitalist context. Whilst we have demonstrated that disabled people's access to toilets continues to be a struggle, our wider body of work has shown that it is not only disabled people for whom toilet access is limited Slater et al, 2019). Toilets offer the potential, therefore, to bring together fights for collective access and disability justice frameworks give us the tools to do this.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Toilet Signs as Border Markers: Exploring Disabled People's Access to Space

Slater¹,

Jones²

2021

International Journal of Disability and Social Justice

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Signs prescribing our permission to enter or abstain from specific places, such as those on toilet doors, mark murky borders between quasi-public and private space and have profound impacts upon our lives and identities. In this paper we draw on research which centred trans, queer and disabled people's experiences of toilet in/exclusion to explore how the signs on toilet doors shape disabled people's experiences of toilet access away from home and therefore their use of public space more broadly. We argue that the use of the International Symbol of Access (ISA) both delivers a false promise of accessibility and maintains the borders of disability through (re)enforcing a particular public imaginary of disability. We note the forced reliance on toilets in institutional and commercial settings when away from home and argue that, under capitalism, accessibility is persistently restricted by its potential to be lucrative.

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“…With the above as its context, this article reflects on some of the social, media, academic and institutional reactions to research on trans, queer and disabled people’s access to toilets through AtT (the wider findings from which can be found elsewhere: Jones & Slater, 2018a, 2020; Jones et al, 2020; Slater & Jones, 2018, 2021; Slater et al, 2018, 2019). AtT initially ran between April 2015 and February 2018 to examine the extent to which toilets provide a safe, accessible and comfortable space for everyone, whilst centring the experiences of disabled, trans and queer people.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mundanity, fascination and threat: Interrogating responses to publicly engaged research in toilet, trans and disability studies amid a ‘culture war’

Slater

2023

The Sociological Review

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Toilets are political spaces: inadequate toilet access means limited access to wider space and community. Between 2015 and 2018 I led a series of interdisciplinary research projects collectively known as Around the Toilet ( http://aroundthetoilet.com ), which centred the experiences of trans, queer and disabled people to explore what makes a safe and accessible toilet space. The research sought to consolidate commitments to feminist, queer, trans and disability politics. In this article, I interrogate the repercussions of doing work at these political intersections by focusing not so much on the research findings themselves, but on the ways in which the project has been responded to within a context which is anti-expert, anti-‘woke’ and one of perceived scarcity. I reflect on my experiences as a trans person, leading a public-facing research project which centres trans lives, within a context of increasing trans hostility. I will show how Around the Toilet has at once been understood as too mundane (a waste of taxpayers’ money; a humorous thing to be researching); a fascination (a good journalistic ‘hook’; focus on particular aspects of the work, whilst ignoring others); and a threat to social order. I argue that – during a time where ‘impact’ is valued and academics are expected to be ‘public-facing’ – universities need to recognise harms that can come from this, and resource the labour that it takes to mitigate these harms (if the risk is deemed worth taking). I also outline ways in which universities and those with varying degrees of institutional power can help to make the academy a more sustainable place to work for those targeted in current culture wars.

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Troubling school toilets: resisting discourses of ‘development’ through a critical disability studies and critical psychology lens

Cited by 11 publications

References 29 publications

The toilet debate: Stalling trans possibilities and defending ‘women’s protected spaces’

The toilet debate: Stalling trans possibilities and defending ‘women’s protected spaces’

Toilet Signs as Border Markers: Exploring Disabled People's Access to Space

Mundanity, fascination and threat: Interrogating responses to publicly engaged research in toilet, trans and disability studies amid a ‘culture war’

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