Ed Smith, 16, Daisy Abraham, 16, and Rose MacKenzie, 15, pictured in the new gender-neutral toilets.

For a transgender teenager, something as simple as going to the loo at school can be a huge stress.

So two Wellington schools are leading a dunny revolution: fitting gender-neutral bathrooms for students who feel uncomfortable using 'male' or 'female' bathrooms.

Wellington High School has transformed its level 4 boys' bathroom into, well, just a bathroom.

And Onslow College is soon to follow suit, spending tens of thousands converting an old block of girls' toilets into gender-neutral facilities.

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The schools join a global trend of schools and cities moving towards bathrooms that are not set up specifically for men or women.

"Some people don't identify with male or female fully, so it's hard for those people not feeling they can go into one of those bathrooms," said Wellington High School student Rose MacKenzie.

The 15-year-old said she had sometimes avoided using bathrooms in public, not knowing which to choose

"If I go into one I know I'll be told this is the female bathroom, but if I go into the other I might receive threats because of, you know, what I look like," she said.

MacKenzie is a member of Wellington High's UltraViolet club, representing LGBTQI+ students, which - led by student Ed Smith, 16 - raised the issue with the school board.

Deputy principal Andrew Savage said UltraViolet put together a comprehensive proposal on how the urinals could be converted, with sanitary bins put in each cubicle, and the sign outside changed to simply read 'bathroom'.

"The board of trustees listened to what the need was and within a short amount of time it was all done and dusted. It's kind of a boring story, in a good way," he laughed.

"The sky didn't fall in, there was no Erin Brockovich moment, it was very straight-forward."

Onslow College is also about to convert one block of girls' toilets into gender-neutral stalls, after its LGBTQI+ group Club Sandwich took the idea to staff.

"It's all about respecting diversity and meeting the needs of diversity, and I think it is the way to go," principal Peter Leggat said.

RainbowYOUTH national communication manager Toni Duder said Onslow and Wellington High were the first schools she had heard of taking the lead on gender-neutral bathrooms.

"It's phenomenal, and it's inspiring to see students doing it," she said.

Opposition against unisex bathrooms was often raised by people who thought women could be put in unsafe situations with men in shared loos, she said.

"But shouldn't we be addressing why women don't feel safe around men, not why they should have different bathrooms?"

Others argued that once the transgender community got the bathrooms, they might want more.

"But if you couldn't pee without feeling like you were going to get beaten up or teased, wouldn't you want that, too?" she said.

While Secondary Principals' Association of NZ president Sandy Pasley hadn't heard of any other schools fitting full gender-neutral bathroom stalls, she said many were installing individual unisex toilets.

She said some schools were being more flexible with their uniforms to be more inclusive, too.

﻿WHAT IS LGBTIQ+?

LGBTQI stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, and Intersex.

The + stands for other marginalised genders and identities not covered by the LGBTQI acronym.