For most people, choosing between using a men’s bathroom or a women’s bathroom is an easy decision. They don’t have to consciously consider their own gender, comfort or safety. Most people don’t have to worry about potentially being beaten, harassed or intimidated while trying to use the restroom.

But an entire population of people struggle with these issues every day.

The Syracuse University LGBT Resource Center keeps a list of all gender-neutral, single-user bathrooms around the university. There are only 30 of these bathrooms on campus, including residence halls, according to the list. SU community members said they think the bathrooms are in inconvenient locations, making it hard for some to find a place to go when they need to use the restroom.

Minnie Bruce Pratt, a women’s and gender studies professor at SU, teaches WGS 438: ‘Trans Genders and Sexualities.’ She said she chose to teach the course in an effort to expand upon students’ knowledge of transgender issues.

‘I thought it was important to teach the class within women and gender studies because the critical examination of how one defines as male, female or multiply gendered really touches on some of the key questions raised by the modern women’s liberation movement that began in this country in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s,’ she said.

Transgender, as defined by the LGBT Resource Center, is a term of self-identification that may encompass transsexuals, cross-dressers, drag queens, drag kings and others who transgress the socially constructed gender binary system.

In her class, Pratt instructs students to spend one day using only single-sex, single-occupancy bathrooms, even on campus. Students then write a paper detailing their experience.

Pratt said she assigns this paper because it gives students an opportunity that merely reading theoretical texts would not. This exercise, she said, challenges students to connect to the daily issues transgender people may face.

‘That allows students to connect transgender experience to other moments in their life that are different, moments in their life where they had issues with their own gendering,’ she said. ‘It enables them to kind of connect the dots and see that we’re all trying to survive and thrive in a very gender-rigid system that does a lot of damage to a lot of people.’

People who identify as transgender face many different issues and complications when entering a space that is uncomfortable for them, Pratt said.

‘The primary issue, I believe … is the possibility of them experiencing violence,’ she said.

Pratt said cases of transgender people being physically harmed or harassed in bathrooms happens quite frequently. She said she and her partner, who is a female-bodied person but has a masculine gender expression, often face similar instances.

‘Every time we travel, something happens. It isn’t usually physical violence, but there are comments,’ Pratt said.

Men have followed Pratt’s partner out of the bathroom to verbally harass her, Pratt said.

‘The threat of violence is always there.’

Besides being physically harmed, there is also the threat of police intimidation for transgender people when entering a sex-designated bathroom, Pratt said.

Another major issue that transgender people face is being shamed. When this happens, many people choose not to use a sex-designated bathroom any longer, which can lead to medical issues such as bladder or kidney infections, Pratt said.

Julia McGovern, a senior advertising and classical civilization major, took Pratt’s class last semester. McGovern said she self-identifies as queer, or sometimes gender-queer. Although she does not identify as transgender, McGovern said people often question her in bathrooms because of her androgynous dress.

McGovern said she knows what it’s like to have people do a double-take or ask her if she’s in the ‘wrong bathroom.’

‘I’ve been called sir a lot in the bathrooms by girls,’ she said.

McGovern said she prefers to use gender-neutral bathrooms on campus because it is a safe place for her to go. When assigned the experiential paper in Pratt’s class, McGovern said she had already mapped out many of the gender-neutral bathrooms around the university.

The number of gender-neutral bathrooms on campus is scarce and many of them are tucked away in basements or behind main desks, McGovern said.

‘The few unisex bathrooms that do exist are inconvenient,’ she said.

Many buildings on campus, including the Hall of Languages, don’t have one single gender-neutral bathroom, according to the LGBT Resource Center’s list.

Danielle Sutton, a graduate assistant at the center, said she thinks this is because many people don’t have to think about their gender on a day-to-day basis.

‘Because of the way society is, things are only male or female,’ she said. ‘We grow up our whole lives thinking there’s the male restroom and the female restroom.’

But, Sutton said, there is an entire spectrum of genders and gender expressions. She said she believes there needs to be more gender-neutral bathrooms in more buildings around the university to cater to everyone’s human need.

SaQuota Reaves, a junior African-American studies and women’s and gender studies major, agreed and said although she does not personally identify as transgender, she believes there needs to be more gender-neutral bathrooms on campus, and they need to be in accessible areas.

Reaves also took Pratt’s WGS 438 class last semester. While completing Pratt’s assignment of using only single-sex, single-occupancy bathrooms on campus, Reaves said she had a hard time locating many of these bathrooms.

Reaves said the only gender-neutral bathroom she knew of was in the gym in Marshall Square Mall. She said she had to limit how much she drank throughout the day so she wouldn’t have to walk all the way to Marshall in between or during class.

When she asked people about the location of gender-neutral bathrooms, Reaves said many questioned her about wanting to use one. She said she took the opportunity to educate others on transgender issues and why gender-neutral bathrooms are so important.

‘Most people that I did come into contact with didn’t know that it was such an issue,’ she said.

Eric Beattie, director of the Office of Campus Planning, Design and Construction, said in an email his department worked with the LGBT Resource Center in 2007 to establish the gender-neutral bathrooms that are on campus today.

He said although the department and the university are trying to include gender-neutral, single-user bathrooms on campus, adding additional ones to buildings that have limited space is a challenge.

‘The New York State Building Code requires a certain number of bathroom fixtures to be designated for use by women, and a certain number of bathroom fixtures to be designated for use by men, so gender neutral bathrooms are a ‘beyond compliance’ measure that isn’t recognized by the NYS Building Code,’ he said.

Pratt acknowledged the challenge that might come with altering the design of buildings to incorporate gender-neutral bathrooms and said it would take a conscious decision by many people to add more of these bathrooms on campus.

‘It would take a real commitment to the idea of gender complexity and gender variation,’ she said, ‘a real monetary commitment.’

Pratt said she thinks more gender-neutral bathrooms would provide more comfort and privacy to everyone on campus, not just people who identify as transgender.

To enact any sort of change, Pratt said, people who are committed or concerned about these issues should organize and work toward creating a solution.

‘I’m always for grassroots-up solutions where people get together and talk about what they need and work with each other to make that happen,’ she said. ‘Those people getting together and thinking creatively about how to increase accessibility … that’s a good way to start.’

snbouvia@syr.edu 

Published on February 13, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Stephanie: snbouvia@syr.edu | @snbouvia