Universal Bathrooms on Campus | Photo by Abigail Abbott | The Wright State Guardian
With a new resurgence in making gender-neutral bathrooms around Wright State University’s campus, let us focus on what all bathrooms should include. All bathrooms should follow these universal standards.
Past and current efforts
Emily Yantis-Houser, the current Director of the Culture and Identity Centers, discussed the details of what started the push for gender-neutral bathrooms around campus
The plan to make gender-neutral bathrooms was originally proposed back in 2018, and a committee was formed with faculty all around campus who came together to strategically plan where these bathrooms would be placed.
This decision primarily came from the Campus Pride Index, which is a national index that takes information from different colleges– like housing, restrooms, support and, of course, restrooms– and gives them a rating out of five stars depending on how LGBTQ+ friendly it is.
When the initiative first started under previous director Petey Peterson, WSU had a score of 3 stars. According to Yantis-Houser, the score should be roughly around 4.5 stars now.
After the drastic changes that came with the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, a new committee was formed, and pushes to designate more gender-neutral bathrooms became less drastic compared to 2018.
“It’s kind of become a case-by-case basis sort of thing… we’re maintaining what we can,” Yantis-Houser said.
“It’s not really a priority for the rest of the university right now, so the committee has kind of stalled.”
Privacy
Everyone has things that they consider private, and oftentimes this means that they do not want others involved in these private things. One of these is using the bathroom, and yet the U.S. is notorious for having large gaps between the stall wall and door.
Beyond cutting costs, there is little reason to have such big gaps between stall doors. It only creates an embarrassing environment that may discourage many people from using public bathrooms.
Accessibility
The ADA has a variety of rules in place to make sure that wheelchair-accessible toilets are actually accessible.
An article written by Mark Nielson quickly explains one of the most noticeable requirements for a bathroom stall to be considered ADA-compliant.
“Wheelchair-accessible bathroom stall requirements call for minimum height floor gaps below doors and panels,” Nielson states.
He also explains that there are other reasons for non-ADA-compliant stalls to have these large gaps: Primarily, the material wield of regular door dimensions is optimized to reduce costs, but does not take into consideration privacy.
Another concern is that only one stall per bathroom needs to be wheelchair accessible. This implies that those with disabilities are few and far between, and those that are around are not important enough to dedicate more stalls to.
At WSU, one of the most accessible campuses in the United States, there is only one wheelchair accessible stall per bathroom. How are we being accessible if we do not do more than the bare minimum in terms of ADA requirements?
Inclusivity
One student, Mak Goddard, has personally experienced the qualms of gendered bathrooms.
As Treasurer of the Visual Arts League, she has learned that some parts of campus– like the floor where meetings are held in the Creative Arts Center– only have bathrooms for one gender, while the other gender’s bathroom is on another floor.
“[Gender-neutral bathrooms] would be simpler to use and people wouldn’t have to worry about being in the right one,” Goddard said.
However, despite the benefits of gender-neutral bathrooms, gendered bathrooms may remain in the picture for a long time due to societal reasons.
“In the societal picture, we have to have gendered bathrooms– and that’s not necessarily my ideal personally,” Yantis-Houser said.
She explained that, while bathrooms should be a less important topic in comparison to students receiving proper education, gender-neutral bathrooms– and all bathrooms in general– should be improved upon. Privacy, accessibility and all-around more universal bathrooms are ideal.
