NEWS VIEW: Door slammed shut on unisex toilets no one wants
Toilet arrangements when I first went to primary school in 1961 were straightforward.
Facilities for the girls in Beauly Junior Secondary were indoors. For the boys it was different. The toilets were outside and consisted of a couple of six-foot high walls shaped as three sides of a triangle, akin to a segment of a prehistoric maze, and one cubicle. None of it was covered in any way. So if it was raining or in winter when it might be snowing the priority was doing what nature intended as quickly as possible and getting back inside the main school building as fast as you could.
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Maybe we should have kept these arrangements in schools, including the uncovered outdoor toilets with the rain lashing down.
It might have limited the scope for anguished contemplation over whether they should be "unisex" or not.
Following a Supreme Court ruling on biological sex and the need to ensure the separation of all relevant facilities for men and women, and boys and girls, Highland Council now finds the toilet door has been slammed on its enthusiasm for providing "unisex" facilities.
There should have never been any "unisex" toilets in the first place. It's awkward, unnatural and embarrassing for children. The vast majority of people recognise that.
Never mind our chilly outdoor arrangements back in 1961, that has been obvious since the beginning of time.
Parents and pupils at Culloden Academy sent a message loud and clear to the council in 2021 about "unisex toilets". It was: "We don't want them." This was as emphatic and uncompromising as it possibly could have been.
At the time an official said: "There are similar facilities in place at Alness Academy, Wick High School, Inverness Royal Academy and Charleston Academy. These are in line with what is happening across Scotland."
It was happening across Scotland under an SNP government still obsessed with gender issues.
In recent years if Nicola Sturgeon had got her way as SNP First Minister men "self-identifying" as women would have been able to walk into the female changing rooms at venues like the Inverness leisure centre and there would have been nothing legally anyone could have done about it.
That madness was blocked by the UK government.
Now after the court ruling on gender the zeal for unisex toilets for kids looks like being terminated as well. Highland Council will conduct a priority "review" of the issue.
Back in 1961 no one thought there was anything wrong with boys doing their business outdoors shielded by a couple of uncovered walls with the rain or snow coming down.
Such primitive arrangements were swept away over time and that was progress.
But then when boys had nice toilets and girls had nice toilets people of influence decided that wasn't good enough, and that boys and girls should actually share toilets.
The only remaining questions which will probably never be answered relate to why those in charge of these arrangements veered down the route they took and pursued a course of action that virtually no one wanted? And why did it take so long to stop them?
