Lack of gender neutral bathrooms causes anxiety

Sophomore Faeren Converse stands in between the men’s and the women’s restroom, filling with nerves and anxiety as students rush past on the way to class. No one knows about the internal struggle Converse is having over which bathroom to choose.

Converse is gender fluid, and does not identify with either gender. Converse prefers to use gender neutral pronouns such as “they” and “them.” They are left in between the bathrooms almost daily, debating over which one to use. And every day, Converse ends up pushing through the anxiety and entering the girl’s restroom.

”It’s really uncomfortable for me to go to the women’s bathroom because I don’t identify as a woman,” Converse said. “I don’t identify as a man either, so it feels uncomfortable going into both restrooms, although I would rather go into the guy’s restroom than the girl’s.”

The problem is, Converse does not use the men’s restroom because they don’t have anyone to with them to make them feel more comfortable.

“I’ve never been inside a men’s restroom, and I’m afraid of how people are going to react if I do, because I’m clearly a female even though I don’t identify with my sex,” Converse said. “It’s terrifying to not know how people are going to react or if people are going to be supportive of you, because clearly I can’t use a urinal. So I would have to sit down to go to the bathroom and honestly I don’t need to be harassed for using the bathroom.”

According to Converse, a solution to this problem would be for the school to create single-stall, gender neutral bathrooms. This would eliminate the need to make a choice between two bathrooms.

For Converse and others in similar situations, the school offers the option of using the single-stall staff bathrooms located in the center of each pod or in student services and the main office, although Converse feels that would be inconvenient.

The director of community engagement at the Kalamazoo Gay Lesbian Resource Center (KGLRC), Meg Bauer, agrees that using break room bathrooms can make things difficult for students.

“I think it’s important to make sure that bathroom is accessible to the entire student body as opposed to using like a break room bathroom because that does still segregate the student,” Bauer said. “However, if there are no bathrooms that the whole student body can access that can be designated as gender neutral, then the next best option is to have a bathroom in a staff break room or in the office.”

According to Bauer, there are no laws that specifically dictate how schools must provide bathroom accessibility for gender-queer individuals.

Social worker Emily Berry works closely with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) students. Along with granting students permission to use staff bathrooms, student services will also notify teachers if students would like to be referred by a different name, although they cannot change the name on school records.

“Legally we can’t do anything in the system until they legally change their name,” Berry said. “However, the staff is very willing to work with students so if students ask to be called by a different name or to have different pronouns used, the staff abides by that.”

Converse came out last summer to friends and family. They asked to be called by a different name and to use different pronouns.

“My friends have all been very accepting,” Converse said. “My parents, they aren’t really approving of the name change, but my dad says as long as I’m still his child he’ll support me all the way.”

Converse hopes to legally change their name with parental permission when they turn 16, otherwise they will wait until they’re 18.

Berry and other staff members have gone through extensive training to educate themselves on how to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ students.

“We’re definitely doing what we can to try and accommodate students with some of those issues, but it’s not perfect because we’re all still learning too,” Berry said.