For many students on campus, going to the bathroom is a casual and trouble-free affair that takes little time away from their education. Oftentimes, going to the restroom requires little forethought, with a toilet to be found around every corner. However, for transgender and gender-nonconforming members of the WSU Vancouver community, going to the bathroom can be an inconvenient and troublesome endeavor. With only five all-gender restrooms on campus, these students and staff members are forced to track down bathrooms and sometimes travel across campus to use them.
“It’s not anything that they are doing, but it’s just that experience of being like ‘I am in a very gendered space right now.’ And I feel like that is all they are seeing, even though that’s more internal. It’s just a moment of panic every time.” – Sam Buechler
Gender-inclusive restrooms are bathrooms that are accessible to everyone, but are particularly important to transgender and gender-nonconforming students. They are single-stall restrooms providing a non-gendered space where anyone can enjoy privacy — including parents with children, caregivers and individuals with personal attendants.
The lack of inclusive bathrooms on campus has physical and emotional impacts on many students, staff and faculty. Sam Buechler, student support librarian and faculty adviser to the Cougar Pride club at WSU Vancouver, said that although they feel comfortable on campus as a trans nonbinary person, they still face hardships related to misgendering and the lack of accessible gender-inclusive restrooms.
“In the library, there isn’t a gender-inclusive restroom, obviously,” Buechler said. “The hardest thing for me as a faculty member is sharing that space with my colleagues … and it’s not anything that they are doing, but it’s just that experience of being like ‘I am in a very gendered space right now.’ And I feel like that is all they are seeing, even though that’s more internal. It’s just a moment of panic every time.”
As the adviser to the Cougar Pride club, Buechler has a unique opportunity to meet with transgender and gender-nonconforming students, and discuss these issues with them.
“The bathrooms are not accessible at all whatsoever…none of them are centrally located.” – Ash DeBuse
“I have had several students in the club approach me and we’ve had meetings with some of the administration on this campus to talk about [the lack of gender-inclusive bathrooms] more, and make them aware of the real harms of this issue … we have heard a little bit about what the plan is moving forward. WSU just instated that any time they do any kind of new construction that there will be a requirement to have at least one gender-inclusive bathroom within a building, but that requires a new building. … We have all of these other buildings around that don’t have them. So what can we do about what currently exists?” Buechler said.
In an email to The VanCougar, Vice Chancellor Obie Ford III addressed WSU Vancouver’s plans and strategies to address this issue, and highlighted the university’s response to expand the presence of gender-inclusive restrooms on its campus.
“WSU Vancouver is having continued equity-minded discussion and moving these discussions into action to improve visibility of gender inclusive restrooms on campus. … An example of such action is, WSU Vancouver is applying an equity lens to ensure clarity of information and visibility about gender-inclusive restrooms to facilitate students, staff, faculty and guests accessing the locations,” Ford said.
According to Ford, the new Sciences Building, currently under construction, will have gender-inclusive restrooms. The university is exploring other potential locations for these restrooms within existing buildings on campus. Additionally, Ford said the university wants to receive student feedback regarding gender-inclusive bathrooms in general.
As of now, WSU Vancouver falls behind in addressing this issue when compared to other schools of higher education in the area. For example, according to the following institutions, Clark College has at least 28 gender-inclusive bathrooms. WSU Spokane, a university with almost half as many students as WSU Vancouver, has nine all-gender bathrooms. WSU Pullman has at least one gender-inclusive bathroom in nearly every building. However WSU Everett and WSU Tri-Cities fare lesser, with one and two gender-inclusive bathrooms respectively.
Ash DeBuse, junior mechanical engineering student, said they struggled locating accurate information on the WSU Vancouver website regarding inclusive bathrooms and were frustrated with what they found out.
“The bathrooms are not accessible at all whatsoever … none of them are centrally located,” DeBuse said.
Not only can gendered spaces such as bathrooms cause emotional distress for gender-nonconforming people, they also can be dangerous. According to DeBuse, the gender-inclusive bathrooms on campus are too inaccessible, and they are sometimes forced to use the gendered bathrooms. DeBuse worries that the way they look will subject them to scrutiny within the bathroom.
“I’m constantly having to wonder, ‘when is someone going to say something to me while I’m using the women’s restroom?’” DeBuse said. “It’s inexcusable, completely.”
DeBuse encourages the university to implement at least one gender-inclusive bathroom into every building on campus — until then, gender-nonconforming individuals on campus will continue to struggle with tasks as simple as going to the bathroom.
Gender-inclusive bathrooms on the WSU Vancouver campus can be found here:
– McClaskey Building, Room 221
– Undergraduate Building, Room 005
– Central Physical Plant Building, Rooms
030D and 030E
– Annex Building, Room 104
Sawyer is a senior studying anthropology at WSU Vancouver.