When Mary Gray discovered that the new Communication and Culture, Human Biology, Medical Sciences restroom facilities plan would not include gender-neutral restrooms, she decided to find out if anything could be done to remedy the situation.\nThe gender-neutral restrooms are washrooms that allow anyone to use the facility. On campus, 14 residence halls recently made the switch to gender-neutral restrooms to include transgender students, as reported in a Feb. 8 IDS article.\nThe reasoning behind the accommodation was to allow students who don’t identify with a specific gender to feel more comfortable, according to a petition that Gray, a professor in the Department of Communication and Culture, initiated in response to the situation. In addition, gender-neutral restrooms are ideal for undercutting intimidation and will help people who are “not easily legible as male or female.” If a person in a gender-specific restroom is assumed to be the “wrong” gender, there may be real threats to that individual’s safety and comfort, according to the petition. \nWith construction of the new building, located on Third Street between the Hillel Center and the Military Science and Aerospace building, already under way, Gray contacted the Office of Space Management to request a restroom design for one single-occupancy gender neutral restroom. On Feb. 12, Gray and other faculty members who supported the request found out that the redesign was no longer possible at that point, as the building is currently in development. \nPlans and financing of the building’s construction have already been approved by the state, so IU officials were forced to decline the petition’s request. \nEven though the building will not include gender-neutral restrooms, Gray said instead they are now pushing for a campus-wide policy allowing for gender-neutral restrooms in the future construction on campus.\nTom Swafford, associate vice provost for Space Management and Research Facilities, said that the Office of Space Management in future construction projects will respond to requests such as gender-neutral restrooms. However, he said in some cases it will not be within their scope to approve it. \n“We have accessible restrooms now that are unisex in some buildings. There is one in Ballantine (Hall) and one in Goodbody (Hall),” he said, citing a few places the restrooms can be found.\nSwafford said it depends on the location and the condition for the cost of the restroom, saying that costs for a restroom can between $10,000 and $20,000.\n“To my knowledge, there’s been no voiced opposition to the inclusion of gender-neutral restrooms in future construction,” Gray said. “In fact, the Office of Space Management indicated in its response to CMCL’s inquiries that they would have included a gender-neutral restroom had we asked for it earlier in the process.”\nGray said that this suggests that the Office of Space Management is willing to include gender-neutral restrooms in future construction and renovation.\n“It would cost too much to go back and redesign the building to include one single-occupancy, gender neutral restroom in the building,” Gray said. “There have been no cost estimates offered for a redesign and there have been no cost estimates of what it will cost to add a gender-neutral restroom once the building is built.”
A new plan\nGray and other and other individuals in the CMCL department initiated a petition for the cause. The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Student Support Services manages the collection of signatures on the petition, and it is available at http://www.indiana.edu/~glbt/bathroomform.html.\n“The goal remains to seek remedies to address the need for a gender-neutral restroom in the building,” Gray said. “Right now, there is no campus-wide building policy that mandates inclusion of single-occupancy, gender-neutral restrooms in new construction.”\nSo far, according to the GLBTSSS, the online petition has received 80 signatures. \n“We agreed with the sentiments behind the petition and put it up on the Web site,” said Doug Bauder, coordinator of GLBTSSS. “The petition is a response we often do when different departments asks for help, keeping with our mission.”\nGray said the goal would be to take the lessons learned from the renovation of the residence halls, in addition to learning from the late request for such restrooms in the new CMCL, Human Biology and Medical Sciences building, to focus on bringing awareness to the need for a campus-wide policy on the inclusion of at least one single-occupancy gender-neutral restroom in campus construction and building renovation.
Signing the petition\nJean Robinson, professor of political science, said that signing the petition seemed like the reasonable thing to do.\nRobinson is a former dean of the Office for Women’s Affairs, located on the first floor of Memorial Hall. In that building there are two single-stall restrooms, one for women and one for men, she said, adding that there is the same situation on the fourth floor of Woodburn Hall.\nAfter Robinson received an e-mail notifying her of the petition, she notified the Department of Gender Studies and the Office for Women’s Affairs.\nRobinson said she suggested that the restroom in Woodburn become gender neutral.\n“For people who are going through the process, it is really hard to figure out which restroom to use and which one is welcoming,” Robinson said, as there are many people on campus and in the broader society who identify themselves as an unspecified gender. \n“It seems like this is a simple thing to do to make the campus more welcoming and reduce one tiny hurdle,” Robinson said. \nRobinson said that there are longer lines for women’s restrooms than men’s because of differences, but she said it seems reasonable in places where there are restrooms to have gender-neutral ones, because it doesn’t matter who uses them. \n“It’s just efficient,” she said. “Just looking around campus, it is odd that there are two single stall restrooms identifying between male and female. We may not even have a campus policy that even says restrooms need to be gender-specific, maybe it is just normal behavior and tradition to have male and female restrooms. We will always do it until someone says, ‘Hey, why does it matter?’”\nAfter construction of the new building, Gray said the department will have to go through the same costly renovations that the residence halls are going through with the gender-neutral restrooms. \n“I recognize that there is little to nothing that can be done affordably to change the current design plans for our building,” Gray said. “That is why I think the most important thing to do at this point is create a campus-wide policy on inclusion of gender-neutral restrooms in the construction and renovation of campus buildings. If we have one policy, one goal across campus, we won’t have to worry about buildings leaving out gender-neutral restrooms because of design oversight.”
