Siviwe Gwarube: Education department to focus on pit toilets before gender-neutral bathrooms

Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has said her department will focus on eradicating pit latrines in schools before deliberating on implementing policies for gender-neutral bathrooms.

“Schools actually have been really excellent in accommodating learners who require the use of certain bathrooms … but, of course, as the minister who is responsible for 13 and a half million learners, there are still learners who don’t have access to safe sanitation, so my priorities are wide-ranging to make sure that schools are safe for learners,” Gwarube said.  

She was responding to questions from the Mail & Guardian about the education department’s response to implementing policies to make the school environment a “gender-inclusive space” for all learners. 

The department has no guidelines on how to approach students who are sexually and gender diverse, for example, transgender learners, according to various groups and experts.  

“It all starts with the school, its teachers and its policies. Do students feel safe to express their gender identity? Not really. To what extent will they be protected by the school in terms of bullying and advocacy? It is unclear,” said Ronald Addinall, a clinic social worker at the University of Cape Town. 

Addinall, who was involved in the Western Cape education department’s draft regulations on gender identity and sexual orientation in 2020, said the province was experiencing an increase in children who were gender diverse and the national department did not have any clear policies, therefore a provincial body had to be established. 

He said the department had been “dragging its feet in adopting a framework to deal with sexual orientation in schools”. 

But according to basic education spokesperson Elijah Mahlangu, the department does have guidelines for teachers on how to approach learners who are gender diverse. He said it was parents who were divided. 

“There are many policies in the [education] sector that seek to address some of the social matters we encounter in the schooling system,” Mahlangu said. “There are individuals who hold dear to their beliefs and customs to the extent that their prejudices express themselves in public.” 

Because of this, he said the department had to balance its policies to benefit all learners. 

Gwarube said that creating a policy for learners who are gender inclusive would require the department to deliberate with stakeholders to ensure that there is a balanced approach to meeting their needs. 

“As a department, we need to occupy ourselves with how to evolve with the time and develop policies that speak specifically to learners that may be requiring different needs,” she said. “While we are doing that, we have to also balance that with the needs of other learners.” 

In 2023, the department started discussions on guidelines for socio-educational inclusion of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, expression and sex characteristics.  

The department has given no updates about whether it will go ahead with the legislative process. 

Gender equality advocacy group Triangle Project has called on the department to take swift action in adopting guidelines. 

“The ongoing delay in rolling out the national [sexual orientation, gender identity, expression and sex characteristics] guidelines is a concern, especially since these guidelines are not new legislation but rather a consolidation of existing laws that require implementation,” said Juliana Davids, of the Triangle Project. 

 A 13-year-old learner at a rural school in Gauteng who is in a “transition period” and identifies as a boy, said his teachers help make him feel secure but he is afraid of what other learners will say if they find out. 

“It’s difficult — my teachers know and they are very supportive but I have to hide it from my classmates because I am afraid that I will be bullied, and maybe even sexually assaulted, because of who I am.” 

The teenager had to change schools after learners allegedly bullied him for being transgender. 

Cases similar to this often occur because teachers are not equipped to handle situations when a child identifies as transgender, the Triangle Project said. 

“While some teachers may have a basic understanding of gender issues, many lack the specific training,” Davids said. 

To mitigate gender discrimination, the department released the Early Childhood Education Gender Responsive Pedagogy toolkit, a practical guide for teachers aimed at “promoting gender equality in early childhood development” in May this year. 

The department said the toolkit would assist teachers in becoming aware of gender biases, enabling them to help children “break free from traditional stereotypes about gender that may limit their growth and development”. 

The toolkit was rejected by religious coalition For SA, which claims to represent more than 20 million Christians, Muslims and adherents of traditional African spirituality faiths.

The coalition warned that the guide “trains teachers to create a culture within pre-primary and primary schools [up to the age of nine] that conflicts with the norms and values regarding sex and gender that many parents hold and have the legal right to pass onto their children”.

A social worker at a rural school in the Western Cape, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said even though she has her personal views on the LGBT+ community, she does not allow it to prejudice her. 

“You have students in early grades who come in with fears and anxiety regarding their sexuality and, even though I have my personal opinions, I am not allowed to stereotype against this person but rather do my job as a social worker to ensure that the child feels safe and secure in the school,” she said. 

While the government determines the school curriculum, the school governing body (SGB) is mandated to implement the curriculum and adapt it to the values and needs of the specific school community. 

Gwarube said SGBs are important because they can make decisions based on the needs of the school. 

“You can’t set policies as a top-down approach and that’s why SGBs become very important,” she said. 

The Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (Fedsas) believes that the collaborative efforts of the government and the SGBs can create “inclusive schools that respect and accommodate the diversity of all learners and staff”. 

But it mentions that there is a “gap” in the legislative framework that addresses how schools should approach learners who are transgender. 

“This gap in the legislative framework can create uncertainty for schools and SGBs as they strive to meet the needs of all learners,” said Juané van der Merwe, Fedsas’s chief executive and head of legal services.

The organisation added that multiple SGBs have asked it for guidelines on how to approach various aspects of gender identity, including toilets, dress codes and participation in school activities. 

Van der Merwe said Fedsas is “ working to provide SGBs with the necessary tools and guidelines to address these challenges in a manner that is both legally compliant and sensitive to the needs of all learners”.

Pinelands North Primary School is one of 15 public schools in South Africa that has changed its policies to include an “inclusive approach to learning”. 

Principal Ann Morton said the school had decided to become a “gender-neutral space” in 2008 after a mother approached the school asking whether her son could be identified as a girl. 

The school amended its admission, uniform and bathroom policies to allow for a safe environment where learners could “be themselves”. 

“We have lots of children who are gender different in our school. We had to look at everything that we did, all our policies that had any discrimination in it, we had to look at and say how can we do it differently,” Morton said. 

The school has had gender-neutral bathrooms since 2018.  

When asked whether the education department had adopted policies that fostered an inclusive school environment, Morton replied: “I don’t think so.”

Opposing voices 

But this sentiment is not shared by other primary schools. A principal at a primary school in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs said she didn’t agree that children as young as seven to 12 years old should be making decisions about their identity. 

“Children are born either a girl or a boy. I don’t want to confuse them any further — that is what they are and parents, teachers and the SGB are okay with this decision,” she said. 

According to the principal, who asked to remain anonymous, when parents begin the application process, some of them ask whether the school has adopted gender-neutral policies. “They are relieved when I tell them that I will not be adopting those policies at my school, I don’t care if I get fired — it goes against my beliefs” she said. 

A principal in Soweto said, even if the department made changes to its policies, places such as Soweto and other majority-black areas would not allow them to be implemented because of “ancestral beliefs”. 

“It is unfortunate but it is like that. At our school, nobody has come forward to say, ‘I want to identify as the opposite gender,’ because they are scared of what others will say, for which they will then get bullied. We can only do so much to protect a child at school and what about after school [hours]?” said the principal, who has more than 30 years of experience in education. 

Commenting on whether the department of education will propose guidelines on sexual orientation and gender identity, Gwarube said she was optimistic that policies would be developed to create “inclusive spaces”. 

“We have designed more complex policies before. You’ll recall at the dawn of democracy when we had to design policies that said that schools must be racially inclusive — that was a difficult time in our country but we did it. 

“So, I have no doubt in my mind that we will design a policy that is constructive, that can make sure that we’ve got inclusive spaces, but also that does not exclude voices in the entire sector,” she said.