The toilets in Manchester University's students' union have been stripped of their male and female titles and renamed "toilets" and "toilets with urinals", some newspapers exclaimed in horror today.
The union's executive made the decision to rename the loos over the summer after complaints from transgender students.
One paper warned the union it would be flooded with complaints from female students over the state in which men would leave the toilets.
But according to Harri Weeks, Manchester's trans representative, the changes apply to only one set of loos in the basement of the union building. The toilets in the rest of the university are not being made unisex.
"It was put in place to try to make a number of people more comfortable. People don't have to use them," she says.
"If a small change can be made that doesn't negatively harm anyone and is positive for a few people then it's still really important."
The row began with an editorial in the Manchester student newspaper, Student Direct, last week.
It suggested that trans students needed the loos for under-the-radar naughtiness – a comment that union reps and others found offensive.
According to Susannah Birkwood, Student Direct's editor, the editorial was meant to be mischievous rather than "transphobic", and the paper has refused to run a retraction or apology.
Is this all a tempest in a toilet or a genuinely important issue? And how would you feel about unisex loos where you work or study?
