Taylor Hanigosky
tmh004@marietta.edu
This semester marks the first that gender-neutral restrooms have appeared on campus, the result of a Student Government Association initiative to make Marietta College a more gender-inclusive environment.
Signage went up this summer to designate at least one gender-neutral bathroom in most residence halls and several academic buildings. The restrooms are all single bathrooms with one toilet and no showing facilities, according to Joe Hohman, a community coordinator and liaison to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the LGBT task force. SGA and the Alliance are working with various building supervisors to continue adding gender-neutral restrooms.
While many students on campus appear to embrace the new restrooms, others are confused about their function and use, Hohman said.
“A gender-neutral bathroom is one in which any person can use, regardless of sex, gender, gender identity or expression, or perceived gender identity or expression,” Hohman said. “Think of your own bathroom at home as gender-neutral. This gets people more likely to understand that they have actually used a gender-neutral bathroom before.”
Hohman believes we can no longer look at bathrooms and living spaces as gender binary, which is a classification of gender into two distinct and opposite forms of masculine and feminine.
“We are no longer putting people in a box and making decisions for them,” Hohman said. “Just like there is a scale for sexual orientation; gender has a scale as well and not everyone falls into gay or straight or male or female.”
The Alliance had a significant hand in the implementation of the restrooms, according to Alliance President Lacey Caparanis. Members of the student organization spoke at SGA meetings and sat on committees to discuss LGBT issues on campus.
“Many transgender issues are kept hush-hush in public,” Caparanis said. “Many people do not think about the everyday struggles of transgender and non-binary people. In today ‘s society I don’t think it even occurs to [most of us] that transgender and non-binary people have to make meticulous plans every time they go out, right down to where they can and cannot use the bathroom.”
Hohman and Caparanis hope the restrooms are the first of many changes to come to make campus more inclusive for everyone. Hohman has been working with Dean of Students Bruce Peterson to implement gender-inclusive housing for the 2015-2016 school year. This housing option enables students to live in the same room with any other student, regardless of sex, gender, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation, Hohman said.
