Accessibility to bathrooms is a basic need that most assume is always met. For the majority of people at Episcopal the most challenging decision when choosing a bathroom is which floor of Upper School they should go to. Yet for some members of the community, and other institution’s populations, going to the bathroom with only gender specific facilities can be a challenge.
No new facilities need to be built, a simple accommodation would be to open one of the single stall faculty bathrooms up to students as a gender neutral space. It may seem unnecessary for most, but for many LGBTQ members this simple change could make them feel more comfortable and accepted in the EA environment; however, as of yet there have been no specific requests from the EA community for such a space.
“We don’t currently have any students who have requested access to transgender/gender neutral bathrooms,” stated Catherine Hall, Assistant Head of School. She continued noting, “If we had a student or anybody who needed that currently we have dedicated staff bathrooms that are available that are gender neutral that would certainly be an immediate solution for anybody who didn’t want to go into a room dedicated as a boys room or a girls room.”
As for recognizing the community atmosphere Episcopal wants to bring about, Hall made sure to emphasize the importance of students feeling accepted and safe. “Yeah, if there certainly was a need that students in our community had, we obviously would always want to be making sure we’re providing spaces for students to feel certainly safe and comfortable and that potentially is something we could talk about solving differently than just using a staff bathroom.” Co-education provides that gender identity becomes a personal conversation for students, and one that does not naturally disgruntle the school. “I think in a co-ed school environment, where gender identity does not drive the conversation as much around our program offerings and we have the ability to be more fluid and more flexible. Gender and identity plays a role at the table as lots of identities do in a co-ed school, just as race, socioeconomic status, and age and all the other identifiers play an important part of the makeup of any classroom or sports team,” explained Hall.
She went on to say, “I think it becomes much more about the culture and the climate at the school in ensuring that, you know, students’ identities are respected and valued and their safe spaces to have the students sort of feel like they are living out their lives in the school community.”
Hall went further into the separate issues that single-sex schools faces, stating that “the issues are certainly more complex for single sex schools, where I think some of the questions that emerge around gender become very, very different when a school identified itself as being, you know, about a particular gender and then suddenly gender identity is something that isn’t as fixed as the schools…that raises questions for the community that I think to be much more challenging to address.”
Hall did note, however, that she has heard the conversation about gender neutral bathrooms currently, emphasizing that,“A lot of single sex schools are spending a lot of time talking about this right now and it’s everything from some of the school traditions that suddenly come into play and certainly athletics teams, things that become complex… And there are many more decisions to be made in that and I think it frees us up to be able to have conversations that are really very student center and are really about what is going to be in the best interest of each individual student as we look at our community as well.”
There is no doubt that this conversation has to increase in educational communities in general in the future, not only so students can always feel comfortable in their school environment, but also to increase awareness of others. Hall agrees with this statement saying, “We certainly have been having the conversation in the sense that, you know, I think I mentioned, having an inclusive school community where we are tuned into the work we need to be doing to create those safe spaces and being tuned into the needs of our students.”
Students also shared their views on bringing gender neutral bathrooms to Episcopal. Maddie Hughes ‘16 explained, “ I think it would take a lot of work, and I definitely think we would have to talk to students who would consider using those bathrooms to see what they want. The ultimate upside to gender-neutral bathrooms is that it would make EA a more inclusive and progressive environment for all students.” Nellie Konopka ‘16 believes, “Bathrooms are a human right, it’s a school’s job to meet their students needs, even if that means just letting gender queer students using the teacher’s’ bathroom.”