ASPSU pushes for gender-neutral bathrooms on campus

After spending some time on the back-burner in recent months due to the time constraints of the Vote OR Vote Campaign, ASPSU is now moving forward with a new initiative that aims to implement gender-neutral bathrooms around Portland State’s campus.

Many facilities on PSU’s campus already contain single occupancy, gender-neutral bathrooms. As of now, there are 17 single-occupancy restrooms on campus, though many are located in businesses that are not affiliated with the university. For many of PSU’s transgender students, this is a serious problem.

According to Cat McGraw, the Queer Resource Center coordinator, students with unconventional gender representations—such as those who are androgynous or transsexual—have reported being harassed in restrooms, being asked to leave or often times even being forcefully escorted from the restroom.

“Many students here on campus have reported holding their restroom needs until after class so they have time to utilize these gender neutral restrooms,” McGraw said. “This isn’t conducive with a healthy learning environment.”

Because the QRC was only incorporated as a PSU department in July of this year, McGraw said that few statistics have been obtained in regards to incidences in which transgender students face discrimination or harassment on campus. However, many students have admitted to receiving threats off campus.

In 2007, the Oregon Student Equal Rights Alliance (OSERA), an affiliate of the Oregon Student Association, conducted a study in order to better understand homosexual and transgender students in the context of higher education. The study found that 75 percent of homosexual students consider a school’s climate as a key in their college selection process. Unfortunately, it also discovered that these students drop out of school at three times the rate of heterosexual students.

Jessica Mease, ASPSU’s equal rights advocate, decided that this was something worth changing.

“During the executive staff meetings, when we were brainstorming what campaigns we wanted to take on for the coming year, this is something the staff agreed on, making these inclusive spaces,” Mease said.

Mease said that the campaign will make the campus a much more inclusive space overall. In addition, these restrooms wouldn’t be strictly limited to the benefit of transgender students. The current single occupancy restrooms on campus are equipped with changing tables for parents with small children and grab-rails for those with disabilities. They are also being referred to as “lactation spaces,” areas for mothers to breastfeed their children in private.

Due to the non-traditional setting of PSU, the university must consider the needs of a broader range of individuals, Mease said.

According to Mease, there is currently opposition to the plans. The biggest deterrent is the general lack of education as to why these bathrooms are so relevant.

“At least 95 percent of the people I’ve talked to haven’t even considered why these bathrooms are needed.” Mease said.

The Academic Student and Recreation Center is one of the newest buildings to cooperate with ASPSU. Right now, the building has two single occupancy gendered restrooms, but will be changing the signage in coming months to become compliant with the inclusive spaces initiative.

According to Mease, no imminent renovation is planned to include more gender-neutral restrooms on campus.

“It’s important to recognize small changes like those [made] by the ASRC, but to remain financially feasible,” Mease said. “This is going to have be something we begin to incorporate into future construction.”

Currently, however, the proposal is still in its infancy. Over the course of the summer, Mease met with various student groups and departments in order to form a coalition capable of lobbying for larger scale support. Besides the transgender community, Mease has established support from the Disability Resource Center, as well as a representative from the Women’s Resource Center.

The inclusive spaces plan is being enacted on a statewide level through OSA. Several of the major universities in Oregon are focusing on establishing rapport with state legislators, while others are focusing their efforts on the execution of the project on a campus level.

“I’m happy to say we’re doing both,” Mease said. “I believe that they’re equally important.” ?