Gender-neutral bathrooms — devoid of male or female pictograms and open to anyone — are rare on college campuses across the country.
Like Northwestern, most campuses have bathrooms that are exclusively for either males or females, although there are single-stall “unisex” facilities in buildings such as Harris, University and Elder halls. But some students here and elsewhere say the shortage of gender-neutral bathrooms poses problems for transgender students.
“The bathroom problem can be more daunting than people think,” said Sarah Wolff, a Music junior and executive board member for the Rainbow Alliance, NU’s support and advocacy student group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered students and allies.
“By making gender-neutral bathrooms,” Wolff said, “I think it makes transgender people more comfortable and more safe.”
When a transgender student is in a gender-specific bathroom, she said, they potentially can face humiliation or even physical danger.
Such worries prompted a group of students at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, to lobby for single-stall, gender-neutral bathrooms on campus. The students hope to install locks on the outside doors of all the single-stalled bathrooms and remove all gender designations from the doors — replacing them with the word “washroom.”
“It’s more about questioning this (gender) dichotomy that’s been created and how it’s relevant,” said Louis Julig, a transgender student on the bathroom committee. “If someone’s gender identity isn’t male or female, why should they be forced to pick one of those rooms to go into in order to pee?”
Julig hopes to see the washrooms in place before graduation in May.
But at Northwestern some student leaders said it might be a little longer before such a plan becomes reality.
Leslie DeMonte, a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Support Network co-chairwoman, said she was not familiar with the gender-neutral bathrooms at Simon Fraser and that she had not heard of any concerns about bathrooms at NU.
Kate Rigot, a Weinberg senior and a transgender student who identifies herself as androgynous, said she isn’t too bothered by having to choose which bathroom to use. But she said it can be a problem for some people.
Incidences of arrest and abuse involving the transgendered are not uncomMonday, said Diana Williamson, chairwoman and newsletter editor of the Illinois Gender Advocates, an organization in Chicago concerned with gender variance.
Williamson said most cases usually are resolved quickly and involve charges being dropped, but can be inconvenient and emotionally damaging.
“It’s just embarrassing, humiliating, and a big waste of time,” she said.
Associated Student Government Rainbow Alliance Sen. John Hughes said no one has expressed concern about the bathroom to him. But Rainbow Alliance is still wary of such issues.
“If there ever was a situation where someone came to Rainbow Alliance and said, ‘I have been harassed or taunted because of my gender identity,’ then that’s something we would pursue vigorously,” said Hughes, a Weinberg junior and a board member of the Student Publishing Co., which oversees The Daily.
“It certainly is possible that (gender-neutral bathrooms) could solve the problem,” he said, “I’m just not aware of any problems at this time.”
DeMonte said that until there is a public outcry, gender-neutral bathrooms probably won’t be a priority at NU.
“If the need is there, then that’s something to look at,” she said. “But we can’t change unless we know something needs to be changed.”
