PSU to offer more gender-neutral facilities on campus

To address growing concerns that Portland State is in need of more gender-neutral bathrooms on campus, plans are in the works to offer more of the bathrooms, and maps showing gender-neutral bathrooms on campus will be provided beginning next week.

Seventeen of the single-occupancy gender-neutral restrooms are located in 10 campus buildings. These bathrooms are also built to serve special-needs groups like families, nursing mothers and the disabled.

“By having only male and female restroom options available to them, a lot of people feel that something very basic is being taken away from them,” said Tyrone Hanley of the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition in Washington, D.C. Hanley is its youth program coordinator, and is working to help students who do not fit gender norms feel more comfortable at their schools and other environments.

“These restrooms serve a number of purposes for people on campus and we recognize that it is very favorable to be able to serve a much greater segment of the population,” said Robyn Pierce, interim director of Facilities and Planning.

“We are continuing to add more gender-neutral facilities into future capital projects and look for opportunities to transition existing restrooms,” she said.

At PSU, Pierce said, “This is one of those situations where we do not really know what the need is.” Pierce said that there had never been a request for a map of these facilities to be made, but that one would be made available at the information desk in Smith Memorial Student Union for next week.

The current update of the Stott Center’s male and female locker rooms is geared towards the ease of use for the disabled, bringing bathroom and shower areas up to ADA standards. However, this does not address the need for gender-neutral bathing facilities. The only gender-neutral shower is located in the new engineering building at Southwest Fourth and College streets.

“This is a huge safety issue for folks who look different or express themselves differently,” said Cody Rowan, one of the coordinators at the Queer Resource Center. “Historically, locker rooms have been an uncomfortable place.” Stott Center’s male and female locker rooms do allow for partial privacy. Some shower stalls have curtains, but there is no separate space.

The San Francisco Human Rights Commission’s 2001 study of the need for gender-neutral restrooms documented that 41 percent of the participants had experienced harassment or violence when using a single-sex restroom. The study included transgender, gender-queer, gender-questioning, lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

The new student recreation center, slated to be built where PCAT stands today, is in the planning stages, and gender-neutral, private facilities might be included. “We could design it to have those features, and I think we should design it to serve a greater portion of the population,” Pierce said.

Those plans, and the building’s features, are currently under review by the building advisory committee, headed by Mark Gregory, the new associate vice president of Partnerships, Planning, and Technology.

“This is going to be a building designed for student use, and since we’re in the very early planning stages for it, now would be a great time for anyone interested to voice their concerns and reasons,” Gregory said. “The key is getting that word in now.”

“This campus has been said to have the most transfolk in the U.S., and it is important because this is another minority group that needs to be treated with respect and dignity like any other minority group,” Rowan said. Rowan added that signage in the most heavily used buildings could be improved to help find these restrooms.

“We’re at a point in time where people are becoming more aware of the fact that there are other folks out there beside men and women, and their needs should be met too,” said Kayla Goldfarb, coordinator for Students for Unity. “I hope that whoever is in charge of the financial aspect of these decisions will take into account how many people would like to see more happening in this area, people outside those directly impacted.”

Defining these terms is personal and individual. The Survivor Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the needs of intersex and trans survivors of violence, uses the term “trans” as a broad umbrella term to include anyone breaking away from the societal norms of male and female.

Transgender is another widely used term, often used to describe any variance from, or transition between, the traditional male and female genders.

Elsewhere in the country, colleges are accommodating people with these needs.

“Generally, most colleges are starting out with single-occupancy rooms. People are hesitant to put more than one toilet in a gender-neutral restroom,” Hanley said.