The boys’ and girls’ rooms

The ASPSU Student Dignity campaign, part of a larger campaign put forth by student government, has recently begun to take shape. Part of the Student Dignity campaign is aimed at protecting students from persecution due to gender identity.

To move forward with their plan, ASPSU is working with the Queer Resource Center to create designated gender-neutral restrooms that provide a comfortable environment for transgender students, who may otherwise suffer from harassment and discrimination, to use as an alternative to gender-specific restrooms.

The ambitions plan proposes to have a gender-neutral bathroom in every building on campus, which would no doubt make it easy to find one when nature calls.

These bathrooms would be open to all students, and would be more-or-less only distinguishable from any other bathroom by the label on the door signifying its designation as a gender-neutral bathroom.

According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, roughly 1 percent of the American population is thought to be transgender. Unfortunately, there are no reliable statistics, as many transgender people do not disclose their identity and there is no official survey.

So though it may seem surprising that there is even a need for gender-neutral bathrooms when those students make up such a small percentage of the population, it’s also important to bear in mind that these bathrooms are open to everyone. The point is that the option is there for these students.

Then again, it raises the question of how many students need to be present and count for any particular demographic for a change to be considered necessary.

The move is aimed at giving transgender students privacy and protection in what is otherwise a common task to which nobody gives any thought. For most of us, going to the bathroom is second nature, but for transgender students it can be a confusing and discriminating conflict. Having separate bathrooms would eliminate the fear of discrimination.

To get a little perspective, someone who is transgender is someone who has changed the gender with which they identify from that with which they were born.

The real question is: Whose issue is this? Does the need for gender-neutral bathrooms come from the general populations’ unsettled attitude towards transgender students, or does it stem from transgender students’ need to be separate from other students in a bathroom?

From the perspective of a person who is not transgender, it may be confusing when a transgender person enters the bathroom. Socially, we have been programmed to expect that boys go into the boys’ bathroom and girls go into the girls’ bathroom. For anyone who has ever walked into the wrong bathroom on accident, you know that it is a confusing and potentially very embarrassing experience. For a transgender student, that may be the case every single time they use a public bathroom.

This also exposes those students to discrimination and harassment, which can really be wearing and trying over time.

So, bathrooms dedicated to these students would certainly be a safe haven and provide the necessary facilities for both these students and everyone else.

Ultimately, the addition of resources for students with any particular need can never be a bad thing. The addition of these facilities for transgender students is a good move that benefits students even if it is a small percentage, and it shows that here at PSU we don’t overlook small percentages.

This move also sheds light on the general attitude people have towards transgender people, and may signal the beginning of a larger social movement towards equality and acceptance in our day-to-day lives. ?