By Elizabeth Townsend
Special to In Motion
Gender neutral restrooms, both single-user and multi-user, have popped up in places all around the United States from burger joints and college campuses to the big White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Gender neutral restrooms are restrooms that people of all genders and gender identities can use without embarrassment, persecution or questioning. The implementation of these restrooms has been a hot topic across America and in other areas of the world, especially in the LGBT+ community.
Although Daytona State College is a relatively small campus, it caters to students of many different walks of life including members of the LGBT+ community who may not feel safe using gendered restrooms. Even with the push for gender neutral restrooms worldwide, changes concerning the restrooms at Daytona State College don’t seem to be an issue, despite the fact that transgender students are prevalent on campus, according to campus advisers for the LGBT+ community.
Austin Albro, president of the DSC Student Government Association, said the topic of gender neutral restrooms on campus has never been an issue brought to the association. Still, Albro added that just because there aren’t gender neutral bathrooms on campus, people shouldn’t think that SGA isn’t trying its best to accommodate and make receiving an education better for all students.
“We just went to a conference in Miami and voted to put in the handbook that the college can’t discriminate against transgender students.” Albro explained.
The overwhelming consensus from the seven student government members was that it wasn’t an issue that has ever been discussed and so, they don’t see a demand for gender neutral or even simply single-user stalls on Daytona State’s six campuses. Albro did mention, however, that if the issue of gender neutral restrooms became of concern to the students he would be there to tackle it head-on and help as much as he can.
“I do think gender neutral restrooms are important to students. We have a significant population of students who are transgendered and others who consider themselves gender-queer. As an institution, we all want students to be comfortable meeting their basic needs, so avoiding confrontations in the restrooms — or the fear of confrontations — is in all our best interests,” said Professor Maggie Karda, adviser of the Gay-Straight Alliance at DSC.
Karda said that this isn’t a new topic on campus by any means. Two years ago, the Gay-Straight Alliance brought the issue to the administration after speaking with students and faculty, who agreed there should be gender neutral restrooms on campus.
“We had a very good meeting with Carole Eaton, who was the College’s president at the time about that issue and some other issues affecting LGBTQ students,” Karda said.
Karda hasn’t encountered any resistance to the idea of implementing the restrooms from students, faculty or administration. Eaton was very receptive to the idea of establishing gender neutral restrooms where possible. Lonnie Davis, the college’s equity officer, was then asked to develop a list of single occupancy restrooms on campus with the idea that they could convert all of the single restrooms to gender neutral restrooms. The only question has been how to implement the plan because renovating and building restrooms can be expensive.
The work of the Gay-Straight Alliance and SGA indicates that gender neutral restrooms are not purposefully being kept off the campuses here. The real factor as to why gender neutral restrooms haven’t been implemented doesn’t seem to be due to the lack of willingness within student government or administration to implement them, but more so due to the lack of attention to the issue.
“All of the administrative changes in the College, including the resignation of Dr. Eaton, has shifted this issue to the back burner,” Karda said, adding that she is trying to keep the conversation going with students and faculty along the way.
She expects the issue to resurface as new Gay-Straight Alliance members regroup and decide on their agenda for the spring semester. Meetings are held in Quanta, classroom 209, in the Library at 4 p.m. Tuesdays.