Ain't no Restrooms for the Wicked: Gender Neutral Bathrooms in Schools K-12
A glimpse into what transgender and gender non-conforming students feel and experience when it comes to picking a restroom to use.
Remmy Tull, Staff Writer
March 6, 2024
March 6, 2024
A few weeks ago I found myself rushing around the empty halls of a foreign school, alone at a forensics competition somewhere two hours away from home. In a navy blue suit that didn't fit quite right, I turned corner after corner in search of an empty bathroom. With a time limit of 6 minutes before my next competition, I pulled out my phone to see how long I’d been gone. 4 minutes. Fiddlesticks. I turned the corner, basically sprinting at this point, and locked eyes with a closed door leading to an area of the school that looked more akin to a garage or workshop than a school. I crept towards the closed-off section and checked the time once more to see if I could waste any time in there. I really couldn’t, but maybe there was a bathroom remote enough to use inside its alluring gray concrete walls. Stepping into the closed-off section, a warm breeze rushed over me, and the thick scent of metal, dust, and factory filled my nose. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach, not just from the adrenaline of being somewhere you're not supposed to be, but also from my intensely overfilled bladder, which I desperately needed to empty. I turned around before going further into the dark corridor, trying to make sure no one caught me. The empty school corridors gave a slightly eerie liminal space feel, a sign as good as any to keep going. Now tip-toeing, I rounded the corner of this strange warehouse-like space.
That's when I spotted it. The small white man and woman stuck on a small black square hung on the wall. It was the bathrooms. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of searching I had found a bathroom remote enough, that I was sure no one else would be using them. It's not that I am a shy urinator, or that I feel uncomfortable listening to other people use the bathroom (although I do, it's kinda weird), but rather, I needed to seek out such a remote bathroom because I’m (very obviously) not the most cis person who ever needed to pee.
Using public gender-segregated restrooms is practically impossible for me. For one, I am uncomfortable in gender-segregated spaces because of the complex relationship I have with gender and my own identity, and they unintentionally force you to confront your gender, and others’ perceptions of it. For two, I feel extremely uncomfortable being perceived as a girl, and I don't usually feel very comfortable intruding on female-only spaces. But I also know that I don't pass enough to use the male restroom, and I understand the danger that not passing in gender-normative spaces can be for people like me, people who do not fit into the gender binary, or who do, but in non-cis ways.
My struggle is not one I experience alone however, it’s one many genderqueer students understand and can relate to. In fact, in 2019 GLSEN, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting LGBTQ rights in schools k-12 and stopping bullying and harassment based on gender or sexual orientation, reported in their school climate survey that many queer students avoid gender-segregated spaces because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable. 45.2% of the students they interviewed said that they avoid bathrooms, and 43.7% said they avoided locker rooms.
This overwhelming amount of LGBTQ students who avoid these spaces usually avoid them for a few different reasons. It's not just an issue for trans, nonbinary, genderfluid, and generally, genderqueer students, who can experience massive amounts of dysphoria and psychological distress when it comes to gender-segregated spaces, but it's also an issue for other queer students because of things like bullying, harassment, and sometimes even physical assault, which many LGBTQ students report they have experienced while in school bathrooms and locker rooms.
Every student should be able to have access to bathrooms safely and without fear of shame, stigma, ostracization, harassment, or assault. Without that, many queer students who avoid gender-segregated bathrooms are forced to hold it in, which is bad for your health for several reasons like UTIs and other infections, but also decreases focus and ability to learn in school. Would you be able to focus on finding X if what your body was shouting at you was to find a bathroom?
But in 2013, California became the first state in the U.S. to make a law that allowed transgender students to choose bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. Three years later, the state required all single-occupancy public toilets to be gender-neutral by spring 2017. But in many states that don't have that law, the most that many schools do is make any single-occupancy bathrooms into all-gender bathrooms. That's it. This seems fine for a while, until more than one student needs to use the restroom, or multiple kids need to change for PE (because they don't have anywhere else to change), the quick bathroom trip you wanted to take can quickly turn into a half-a-period wasted waiting in the nurse office. It's inefficient, and when you have to go all the way across school every time you want to pee, it gets kinda annoying. Plus it singles out kids who use it, kids who may not be out yet or aren't ready to share will quickly become noticeable. It's ostracizing and the nurse's office bathroom can quickly become stigmatized. Unfortunately, this is a situation many DHS students like myself face every day.
According to Carla Peña, manager of professional development at Gender Spectrum, an organization that works to create gender-inclusive environments for kids and teens, estimates that nationwide, there are maybe a quarter of all high schools have some kind of gender-neutral bathroom option, which she said is a very generous estimate, most of them are of the nurse's office variety. This is to say that nurse’s office bathrooms are inefficient, and just the bare minimum for an all-gender bathroom experience. Those schools are just abiding by Assembly Bill 1732’s Health and Safety Code Section 118600, which was added in 2016. The bill requires all single-user toilet facilities to be identified as all-gender toilets. The bill was intended to make inclusion of genderqueer students easier and more widespread, however, despite it being a requirement, many schools are only doing the bare minimum.
"Consistent access to safe bathrooms at school is an education equity/education justice issue. I spent years making myself sick—either from anxiety about having to choose which bathroom to use or from refusing to use the bathroom at all and suffering from chronic infections—because there was nowhere at school where I could safely go for fear of bullying or harassment. This work is life-saving for students who have been suffering in traditionally gendered systems for so long." - Benjamin K., a Trans Educator said in an interview with The New York Times.
There have been many efforts to make all-gender bathrooms and spaces in the US after Biden’s election, and many people have been pushing for the inclusion of trans and gender-nonconforming safe spaces in schools and public spaces.
Just days after his inauguration in 2021, Biden signed an Executive Order to prevent discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. In the order, Biden said, “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports,”.
However, rising animosity and intolerance towards Trans and gender non-conforming students have increased the number of reports and votes against trans-inclusive directives, and many community members refuse and speak out against them. The rising tensions over all-gender bathrooms and locker rooms have slowed efforts for more inclusive spaces for students in schools. All-gender spaces are a victim of debate and questioning across the country regarding their relevance and necessity in schools.
A federal judge two years ago temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s directives to allow transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms and to participate on athletic teams according to their gender identity. The order was in response to a lawsuit filed by 20 Republican state attorneys general two years ago, against the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Justice, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
All the controversy and pushback against trans rights movements and directives throughout the U.S. is an incredibly damaging and dangerous attempt to remove trans people from public spaces, and eventually society. Trans people and gender nonconforming people have been here since the beginning of humans. In many aboriginal societies, there were things like a third gender, or a fifth or sixth. But that's not to say that they were accepted or treated greatly at any point in time.
In 2024, after hundreds of thousands of years of existence, trans people are still oppressed and killed and refused any basic human rights. The issue of trans and gender non-conforming inclusion in schools is larger than just that. When we push for things like all-gender restrooms and locker rooms, it's seen as a perverse attack on cisgender spaces, and a gross deformation of what human gender is supposed to look like.
It's killing people all over the world, it's hurting them, it's leaving them deformed and broken shells of people. According to NCBI, which published a study on Trans and gender non-conforming people's rates of mental illness, approximately 58% of transgender patients had at least one DSM-5 diagnosis, compared to 13.6% of cisgender patients. According to the same paper, the suicide attempt rate among transgender persons ranges from 32% to 50% across multiple different countries. But in the U.S. alone, according to the Williams Institute, 81% of transgender adults in the U.S. have thought about suicide, 42% of transgender adults have attempted it, and 56% have engaged in non-suicidal self-injury over their lifetimes.
These numbers and statistics are insanely high and scary, but they are all also entirely preventable. Starting with the inclusion of all gender spaces in schools, and in public places (along with general human rights and access to more affordable gender-affirming care). This isn't just good for trans and gender non-conforming students, but it also provides multiple different benefits for cisgender students as well.
“We know that the availability of spaces at schools makes students overall feel safer,” said Joel Jemino, youth services manager at the Long Beach LGBTQ Center. “It’s a clear message from the school that this is a place where they are included, that — no matter what — they have a right to safety.”
But single-stall, all-gender bathrooms also decrease incidents of bullying, vaping, and school vandalism. It's also way fewer bathrooms to build if they are all all gender. Schools that are making plans for, and that have good all-gender bathroom situations are generally moving away from single-use bathrooms. Focusing more on a dedicated segment or segments of multi-user, more typical bathrooms, for all genders. That's even more efficient and allows for multiple students to go to the bathroom at a time, so we don't have situations like in the nurse's office. And before the overwhelming amount of pushback from conservatives, many schools across the nation were exploring all-gender bathrooms as an option to improve school safety and inclusivity.
There is a growing need for LGBTQ-safe spaces within schools and work environments as the world continues to criticize and shun queer people. The actual way to do that is not free, and it takes work, but everything does, and starting with small steps is okay, but that's not the finish line and you have to keep moving forward to create a safe and inclusive school environment. Basic things like access to bathrooms and locker rooms that are safe, and that don't trigger students is a good place to begin. If people stand up for one another, and look out for their neighbors’ safety and comfort, schools, work environments, and the world can become a better place for everyone regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.
That's when I spotted it. The small white man and woman stuck on a small black square hung on the wall. It was the bathrooms. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of searching I had found a bathroom remote enough, that I was sure no one else would be using them. It's not that I am a shy urinator, or that I feel uncomfortable listening to other people use the bathroom (although I do, it's kinda weird), but rather, I needed to seek out such a remote bathroom because I’m (very obviously) not the most cis person who ever needed to pee.
Using public gender-segregated restrooms is practically impossible for me. For one, I am uncomfortable in gender-segregated spaces because of the complex relationship I have with gender and my own identity, and they unintentionally force you to confront your gender, and others’ perceptions of it. For two, I feel extremely uncomfortable being perceived as a girl, and I don't usually feel very comfortable intruding on female-only spaces. But I also know that I don't pass enough to use the male restroom, and I understand the danger that not passing in gender-normative spaces can be for people like me, people who do not fit into the gender binary, or who do, but in non-cis ways.
My struggle is not one I experience alone however, it’s one many genderqueer students understand and can relate to. In fact, in 2019 GLSEN, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting LGBTQ rights in schools k-12 and stopping bullying and harassment based on gender or sexual orientation, reported in their school climate survey that many queer students avoid gender-segregated spaces because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable. 45.2% of the students they interviewed said that they avoid bathrooms, and 43.7% said they avoided locker rooms.
This overwhelming amount of LGBTQ students who avoid these spaces usually avoid them for a few different reasons. It's not just an issue for trans, nonbinary, genderfluid, and generally, genderqueer students, who can experience massive amounts of dysphoria and psychological distress when it comes to gender-segregated spaces, but it's also an issue for other queer students because of things like bullying, harassment, and sometimes even physical assault, which many LGBTQ students report they have experienced while in school bathrooms and locker rooms.
Every student should be able to have access to bathrooms safely and without fear of shame, stigma, ostracization, harassment, or assault. Without that, many queer students who avoid gender-segregated bathrooms are forced to hold it in, which is bad for your health for several reasons like UTIs and other infections, but also decreases focus and ability to learn in school. Would you be able to focus on finding X if what your body was shouting at you was to find a bathroom?
But in 2013, California became the first state in the U.S. to make a law that allowed transgender students to choose bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. Three years later, the state required all single-occupancy public toilets to be gender-neutral by spring 2017. But in many states that don't have that law, the most that many schools do is make any single-occupancy bathrooms into all-gender bathrooms. That's it. This seems fine for a while, until more than one student needs to use the restroom, or multiple kids need to change for PE (because they don't have anywhere else to change), the quick bathroom trip you wanted to take can quickly turn into a half-a-period wasted waiting in the nurse office. It's inefficient, and when you have to go all the way across school every time you want to pee, it gets kinda annoying. Plus it singles out kids who use it, kids who may not be out yet or aren't ready to share will quickly become noticeable. It's ostracizing and the nurse's office bathroom can quickly become stigmatized. Unfortunately, this is a situation many DHS students like myself face every day.
According to Carla Peña, manager of professional development at Gender Spectrum, an organization that works to create gender-inclusive environments for kids and teens, estimates that nationwide, there are maybe a quarter of all high schools have some kind of gender-neutral bathroom option, which she said is a very generous estimate, most of them are of the nurse's office variety. This is to say that nurse’s office bathrooms are inefficient, and just the bare minimum for an all-gender bathroom experience. Those schools are just abiding by Assembly Bill 1732’s Health and Safety Code Section 118600, which was added in 2016. The bill requires all single-user toilet facilities to be identified as all-gender toilets. The bill was intended to make inclusion of genderqueer students easier and more widespread, however, despite it being a requirement, many schools are only doing the bare minimum.
"Consistent access to safe bathrooms at school is an education equity/education justice issue. I spent years making myself sick—either from anxiety about having to choose which bathroom to use or from refusing to use the bathroom at all and suffering from chronic infections—because there was nowhere at school where I could safely go for fear of bullying or harassment. This work is life-saving for students who have been suffering in traditionally gendered systems for so long." - Benjamin K., a Trans Educator said in an interview with The New York Times.
There have been many efforts to make all-gender bathrooms and spaces in the US after Biden’s election, and many people have been pushing for the inclusion of trans and gender-nonconforming safe spaces in schools and public spaces.
Just days after his inauguration in 2021, Biden signed an Executive Order to prevent discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. In the order, Biden said, “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports,”.
However, rising animosity and intolerance towards Trans and gender non-conforming students have increased the number of reports and votes against trans-inclusive directives, and many community members refuse and speak out against them. The rising tensions over all-gender bathrooms and locker rooms have slowed efforts for more inclusive spaces for students in schools. All-gender spaces are a victim of debate and questioning across the country regarding their relevance and necessity in schools.
A federal judge two years ago temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s directives to allow transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms and to participate on athletic teams according to their gender identity. The order was in response to a lawsuit filed by 20 Republican state attorneys general two years ago, against the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Justice, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
All the controversy and pushback against trans rights movements and directives throughout the U.S. is an incredibly damaging and dangerous attempt to remove trans people from public spaces, and eventually society. Trans people and gender nonconforming people have been here since the beginning of humans. In many aboriginal societies, there were things like a third gender, or a fifth or sixth. But that's not to say that they were accepted or treated greatly at any point in time.
In 2024, after hundreds of thousands of years of existence, trans people are still oppressed and killed and refused any basic human rights. The issue of trans and gender non-conforming inclusion in schools is larger than just that. When we push for things like all-gender restrooms and locker rooms, it's seen as a perverse attack on cisgender spaces, and a gross deformation of what human gender is supposed to look like.
It's killing people all over the world, it's hurting them, it's leaving them deformed and broken shells of people. According to NCBI, which published a study on Trans and gender non-conforming people's rates of mental illness, approximately 58% of transgender patients had at least one DSM-5 diagnosis, compared to 13.6% of cisgender patients. According to the same paper, the suicide attempt rate among transgender persons ranges from 32% to 50% across multiple different countries. But in the U.S. alone, according to the Williams Institute, 81% of transgender adults in the U.S. have thought about suicide, 42% of transgender adults have attempted it, and 56% have engaged in non-suicidal self-injury over their lifetimes.
These numbers and statistics are insanely high and scary, but they are all also entirely preventable. Starting with the inclusion of all gender spaces in schools, and in public places (along with general human rights and access to more affordable gender-affirming care). This isn't just good for trans and gender non-conforming students, but it also provides multiple different benefits for cisgender students as well.
“We know that the availability of spaces at schools makes students overall feel safer,” said Joel Jemino, youth services manager at the Long Beach LGBTQ Center. “It’s a clear message from the school that this is a place where they are included, that — no matter what — they have a right to safety.”
But single-stall, all-gender bathrooms also decrease incidents of bullying, vaping, and school vandalism. It's also way fewer bathrooms to build if they are all all gender. Schools that are making plans for, and that have good all-gender bathroom situations are generally moving away from single-use bathrooms. Focusing more on a dedicated segment or segments of multi-user, more typical bathrooms, for all genders. That's even more efficient and allows for multiple students to go to the bathroom at a time, so we don't have situations like in the nurse's office. And before the overwhelming amount of pushback from conservatives, many schools across the nation were exploring all-gender bathrooms as an option to improve school safety and inclusivity.
There is a growing need for LGBTQ-safe spaces within schools and work environments as the world continues to criticize and shun queer people. The actual way to do that is not free, and it takes work, but everything does, and starting with small steps is okay, but that's not the finish line and you have to keep moving forward to create a safe and inclusive school environment. Basic things like access to bathrooms and locker rooms that are safe, and that don't trigger students is a good place to begin. If people stand up for one another, and look out for their neighbors’ safety and comfort, schools, work environments, and the world can become a better place for everyone regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.