“The fact that there is a ‘wrong’ bathroom [to use] is almost as if [saying] there is a wrong drinking fountain to use” Dr. Jes Simmons, lecturer of English composition and rhetoric at Longwood University, said when explaining how society influences which bathroom people use. Longwood has begun the process of creating “gender neutral” bathrooms on campus to have a place where all genders can use the restroom comfortably.
Last week Longwood’s Student Government Association (SGA) discussed this possibility. Constance Garner, the SGA president, said Dr. Tim Pierson, vice president for Student Affairs, approached her about the bathrooms.
“He wanted to bring it up to SGA to get some input from students to see how students felt about the topic… and it is something I feel strongly about,” said Garner.
Pierson said a number of students, faculty and organizations have asked for these restrooms and that he went to SGA to help with this project because, “I really respect the role SGA plays as the major student governing body on our campus. There is a partnership there with the university as we move forward.”
According to Pierson, gender neutral bathrooms would be restrooms in which “anyone could use,” from students, faculty, staff, guests and visitors.
“It recognizes our population, and I think a demand for and interest to have them. What strikes me very vividly is, why not [have them]?” said Pierson.
The gender neutral bathrooms could benefit a range of people, including those who are transgender, parents needing to use the restroom with a child of a different gender, or someone with a disability who needs assistants from their caregiver who is a different gender.
Simmons came out as male to female transsexual to the entire campus two weeks ago. Before she started her transition from male to female, she said she felt very uncomfortable using the men’s public restroom and even avoided them if she could.
“I think this would benefit Longwood because more students who were gender questioning or gender fluid would be comfortable. I think this puts us in the forefront of gender equality,” Simmons said regarding these kinds of restrooms coming to campus.
Garner said, “It’s so important to be inclusive. The biggest thing is acceptance. It opens up doors for people just feeling safe on campus and feeling accepted.”
Beasa Dukes is a senior English major at Longwood and identifies as bigender. Dukes describes bigender as a way to express being “between selves”.
“It was never really comfortable for me to ever identify as just a girl, or as just a woman… I’m open to explore two aspects of myself and parts of my identity without severing it,” said Dukes.
Dukes believes that the gender neutral bathrooms will allow a safe and comfortable space for those who desire to use them.
“It’s just a matter of acknowledging the fact that there are more genders than just man and woman. There’s no binary construct. Binary construct is something that shouldn’t stop us from seeing that there are others out there. There’s not just transitions to man, transitions to woman... We have a lot of work to do,” said Dukes.
Pierson said this was also affecting faculty who are parents and need to take their different-gendered children to the restroom, “In this case, the primary caretaker of the child was a man and so it was always a little uncomfortable to take his daughter into a male bathroom to change her.”
Pierson and Garner said SGA and Student Affairs will be working together to figure out which bathrooms on campus can be converted. This includes changing the signage and figuring out which areas of campus have the highest need for them.
According to Pierson, they will not be remodeling or creating new restrooms. “The primary change is in the signage,” he said. Signage is still being determined.
SGA will be used for student feedback and to help with funding, pending student approval.
Pierson envisions the converted restrooms having one stall, but having multiple-stall restrooms is still a possibility. Garner said the downstairs Student Union bathrooms are “great ones to transition” because a lot of students use the Student Union and they are already one-stall restrooms.
According to Pierson, the university has just begun the process of creating gender neutral bathrooms, so he is not sure what it will look like in the end, but they should be converted within a year. Currently, some gender neutral bathrooms do exist around campus, mainly in dormitory buildings.
According to the Huffington Post, there are 150 schools across the U.S. that have gender neutral bathrooms.
When asked why we are getting these bathrooms now, Pierson said is it not “about a trend or outside pressure,” but rather “... recognizes our population. Some people have uncertainty [about which bathroom to use] and this eliminates that. I haven’t heard anybody have any resistance to it. It’s to serve the people of Longwood, more so than anything.”
