Bathrooms are an essential part of living for anyone everywhere. But all-gender bathrooms in today’s politics can be seen as a DEI issue. Especially on a college campus. However, the all-gender bathrooms are used by everyone and knowing where one can find them and have them in an areas frequented by community is providing an additional service.
A common problem people have with all-gender bathrooms is the lack of availability to the public, but Paige LeBlanc, a junior student and president of Trans Student Union, has a different issue with them.
WCU has released a list of all the gender-neutral bathrooms on campus, with 22 of them being open to the public. Currently, all-gender bathrooms are in newer buildings such as the Rocks residence halls and Apodaca, the Belk Arts Complex and the Ramsey Activity Center.
The biggest issue for LeBlanc is the general knowledge where these bathrooms are on the campus.
“Their centeredness on campus, their ease of access, and the general knowledge about where they are is not super prevalent,” LeBlanc said.
LeBlanc mainly wants the university to focus on spreading knowledge about the all-gender bathrooms on campus.
“There is no way to go on the school’s website and find it on them,” LeBlanc said. “There’s no way to search gender-neutral restrooms on the interactive map on the school’s website.”
The interactive map is on the Southern Appalachian Digital Collections website. LeBlanc feels like the all-gender bathrooms need to be labeled on the map since they are “an essential element of accessibility for trans and gender diverse students.”
LeBlanc is working on her own list of gender-neutral bathrooms on campus to be open to transgender students.
“I know some individuals have been working on compiling a list of all the accessible gender-neutral facilities around campus, and right now we do have a rough list that we’re working on thanks to those individuals,” LeBlanc said.
The general knowledge is not the only problem. LeBlanc has been trying to get this issue addressed by WCU and that there should be more that are available to the public.
“I would say that there could be more on campus, and that there should be more on campus,” LeBlanc said.
Buildings like Reid, where the pool is, and the Campus Recreation Center don’t have any. University Center also doesn’t have one. LeBlanc has an idea for those buildings that will create more availability and access.
“I understand it’s difficult to implement them into these older buildings,” LeBlanc said. “However, the idea of retrograding some of the current bathrooms into gender-neutral facilities should be considered more seriously.”
The estimate is that to do this it will cost around $250,000 to add such facilities in older buildings.
Even though there are ways that WCU’s campus could help create more availability and access to all-gender bathrooms, they have already taken multiple steps towards helping students.
“The most recent building on campus features gender-neutral facilities in Apodaca, which is a great start,” LeBlanc said.
