At Las Lomas, Everyone Gets a Place to Pee

Last spring, the Gay-Straight Alliance circulated a petition to request a gender-neutral restroom on campus.

This year, there is one, although many students don’t know it exists. To get there, students have to go through the Attendance Office and down the hallway of teacher mailboxes into the main office. And indeed, there is a gender neutral sign on the door of a single-stall bathroom.

Principal Matt Campbell said the administration chose that location because it is a single stall with a lock.

“Other schools have experimented with putting gender neutral bathrooms out around on campus, and they’ve experienced a lot of issues associated with it,” he said.

Campbell said that this restroom can be supervised easily.

“I felt like that would be the best place it could be so people can feel safe,” he said.

Only recently have people started looking at gender identity as a spectrum, rather than simply as male or female.

These include people who identify as bi-gender, gender fluid, gender-queer, intersex, and transsexual. Single-sex restrooms don’t cater to everyone,

Junior Andy Westhafer, one of the GSA presidents, was surprised to hear about the new bathroom. Westhafer, who is transgender male, said that the new bathroom eliminates some of the stress in using a bathroom at school.

“Gender neutral bathrooms are important to me personally because it’s often really uncomfortable using multi-stall gendered restrooms because I never know who is going to call me out or harass me for being there,” he said. “It creates a safer environment to not worry about violence, and can be really validating to use a bathroom congruent with their gender identity.”

GSA co-president junior Bo Leach wants to ensure that the news of a gender neutral bathroom should be spread, yet also respected.

“I think we should try to make sure we let people know it’s here,” Leach said.