Students unaware of gender neutral bathrooms

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Christian Olivares

Room 205, teacher's lounge, no gender neutral bathroom sign displayed.

School administration says that there are gender neutral bathrooms in the building, but most students are unaware of their existence.

“So we do have two designated gender neutral bathrooms. One is a shared restroom between staff and students in room 205… and also use the bathroom in the nurse’s office downstairs which is the building’s identified gender neutral bathroom,” Principal Meredith Inbal said.

If a school building has a single use bathrooms, it must be designated, or as Inbal described it, “identified” as gender neutral. This requirement came about at the end of 2020, when New York State passed a law that required schools “to develop policies and procedures ‘requiring all single occupancy (single use) bathroom facilities (toilet rooms) are designated as gender neutral for use by no more than one occupant at a time.’” The law came into effect in Mar. 2021.

According to Inbal, the policy is that students can request a gender neutral bathroom by asking a school counselor or social worker or the school nurse. They can use either the bathroom in the nurse’s office or the one in room 205, but Inbal explained that “the one in 205 has to be arranged because it is in a teachers’ space that doesn’t have easy access to all students, but if a student wants to remain up here on the 2nd floor, they are able to access it.”

Inbal claimed that, “it’s public knowledge that the downstairs bathroom is the buildings, so for all three schools, anybody who wants to access a gender neutral bathroom the building’s one is downstairs so that’s public information.” However, this statement was not supported by any of the many students interviewed.

“I do not think there’s a gender neutral bathroom,” said junior Tracy Yang. Bella Delia and Belinda Tabora, both juniors, were also unaware of the gender neutral bathrooms. Delia added that she “only sees the ones for boys and ones for girls.”

Sanan Mustafa, a senior and member of GSA, was likewise under the impression that there was no gender neutral bathroom, but hoped there might be one in the future. “I heard that there was one that was going to be set up on RFK’s floor, so the first floor, and that we were going to be getting a gender neutral bathroom to be inclusive and stuff.”

The confusion about gender neutral bathrooms could be avoided if building administration followed the law.

The Gender Neutral Single-occupancy Bathroom Facilities law clearly states that, “existing single-user toilet rooms which do not have signs which indicate gender neutral must be provided with new signs with the words, “all gender” (preferred) or “gender neutral.”

Currently, there is no signage indicating that there is a gender neutral bathroom outside of room 205 or the nurse’s office, therefore it makes it harder for students to know that there are bathrooms that are available to them. Social worker and GSA staff adviser Jill Kaufman is aware of the issue and said that GSA has been working on trying to put up a sign to let students know about what is available for them.

“So we are talking about signage, like a sign for the bathroom that’s in the nurse’s office downstairs. A lot of people don’t even know that a bathroom exists for students,” said Kaufman.