Tampons provided in men's toilets in offices at General Medical Council
Topics: UK News
Kit Roberts
Featured Image Credit: Richard Levine/Corbis via Getty Images / BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Topics: UK News
There are many small things that organisations can do to support the trans community, and the General Medical Council (GMC) has taken one small but meaningful step.
This is by providing tampons in all toilets, including the ladies, gents, and the unisex bathrooms. The move is a small way to support the trans community.
It is more intended towards trans men and non-binary people who still menstruate - someone who might be very masculine may still need to use sanitary products when it's that time of the month.
Providing these products in the gents is a way to prevent trans men, who funnily enough are very masculine, from having to suffer the embarrassment and even safety risk of going into the ladies.
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In a statement to the Telegraph, a spokesperson for the GMC said: “We are an inclusive organisation, and we want to meet the needs of colleagues and visitors who come to our offices.
“That is why we provide sanitary products in our female, male and unisex toilets.”
It's not the only way that establishments support people in public toilets. For example, many places will provide sanitary bins in both the gents and the ladies, which is a similar way to provide some bare minimum of support.
The small but helpful gesture from the GMC has come not long after the UK government announced that it would be 'cracking down' on gender neutral toilets in a bid to 'protect single-sex spaces'.
A statement which was released as part of the government's Levelling Up scheme alleged: "The change comes amid dignity and privacy concerns from women and elderly people who feel they are being unfairly disadvantaged as publicly accessible toilets are increasingly being converted into gender-neutral facilities."
Last year, a spokesperson for trans-led organisation We Exist told Vice News that the UK government's stance on gender-neutral bathrooms is a way to 'exclude, alienate and discriminate against' trans and non-binary people.
They added: “There is also little to no evidence that cisgender women feel unsafe in current provided facilities so we are concerned that the government is creating a false narrative by which to exclude trans and gender non-conforming people.”
Conservative MP Caroline notes has also criticised the government's plan, arguing that gender-neutral toilets already exist in many places without people even realising.
She told PinkNews: “If you have lavatory facilities that are each self-contained units, with their own wash basin and hand drier, and wall-to-ceiling walls and doors, and men remember to put the seat down, there really is nothing to complain about."