Five years of gender-inclusive restrooms at Ohio State

Twinkle Panda
Thu, 05 Sep 2019 01:00:15 +0000
Campus, News, columbus campus, freshman dorms, gender, gender exclusive, gender neutral, gender neutral bathrooms, gender neutral restrooms, gender nonconforming, inclusivity, non binary, nonbinary, ohio state, Ohio State app, ohio state campus, ohio state columbus, ohio state mobile app, ohio state university, residence halls, the ohio state university, transgender

Charlie Keohane a third year in psychology and women’s studies, standing next to the gender neutral bathroom on the third floor of the Ohio Union. Credit: Twinkle Panda | Lantern Reporter

Five years after the start of the university’s gender-inclusive initiative, Ohio State’s mobile app now displays the locations of gender-inclusive bathrooms on campus. All newly constructed buildings are also required to have gender-inclusive restrooms.

The Ohio State mobile app was updated in 2019 to include a list of gender-inclusive bathrooms throughout campus and their locations relative to the user. In addition to the app update, Ohio State has required all newly constructed or recently renovated dorms in 2019, such as Smith-Steeb, Park-Stradley, Seibert, Mack and Canfield, to include gender-inclusive bathrooms, university spokesperson Dave Isaacs said.?

The “campus” button on the app has a gender-inclusive bathroom tab that lists buildings in order of proximity, followed by a list of room numbers for the bathrooms.?

Ryan Cloutier, a third-year in math education and president of Pride OSU, said he is often asked where to find the locations of these bathrooms.?

“There are, every year, freshmen who are asking, ‘Is this a thing that exists in the university and how can I find them?’” Cloutier said.

Isaacs said there is currently no complete list of all gender-inclusive bathrooms on campus. However, the mobile app offers a rundown of some of the locations.

For some students living off campus, locating gender-inclusive bathrooms has been a struggle because of inconsistencies on the app.

Charlie Keohane, a third-year in psychology and women’s studies and president of Trans*Mission, said the app has a few bathrooms listed that are only accessible to employees and faculty, and it is not clear on the app that they are not open to students.?

“If they want to put gender-inclusive restrooms on the app, that’s great. But I feel like they should follow all the way through and do all of their homework,” Keohane said. “It shouldn’t be the students’ responsibilities to figure out on their own if they can actually use that bathroom or not.”

Isaacs said that Ohio State is looking to support as many people as possible with these changes.

“We’re committed to providing a physical environment where students, faculty, staff and visitors can live, learn, teach, research and be successful in their daily business,” Isaacs said.

Joyce Smith, a fourth-year in aerospace engineering and the national sorority delegate for the Ohio State chapter of Gamma Rho Lambda, a sorority that creates a space within Greek life for all queer identities, said that even though she is cisgender — meaning her gender idenitity matches the sex she was assigned at birth — she thinks gender-inclusive bathrooms are important.?

“There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be gender-neutral bathrooms everywhere,” Smith said. “I definitely think it’s convenient because it’s just a bathroom. You just go in and use it. You don’t have to deal with the politics of women or men.”

Ohio State offers gender-inclusive housing with gender-inclusive bathrooms and allows students with differing gender identities to room together at the most expensive housing rate, according to the housing website.?

Issacs said that beginning this semester, dorms with a pod of four restrooms — a bathroom with common sink areas but separately locking restroom facilities — will have one of the four designated as gender-neutral. He said that there has not been any pushback against the gender-inclusive bathrooms and that because all bathrooms are designed similarly, only signage needed to be changed.?

“Our building design standards are that we include at least one gender-neutral restroom in all new buildings,” Isaacs said.

He said that having gender neutral bathrooms is a convenience for all students and not just those of a particular population.

Keohane said he feels anxious any time he goes to a bathroom that is not gender-inclusive and though he has been on testosterone for a year, he still doesn’t feel comfortable in the men’s restroom.

“I spend a lot of my time just not going to the bathroom just because it is a whole experience,” Keohane said. “If I were to come back here as an alumni, I would like to see at least one gender-neutral bathroom in every building.”