School opens two bathrooms as gender-neutral facilities open to students

Students walking past the engineering room or near the math quad may have recently noticed their peers entering what were once staff-only restrooms. These bathrooms, which opened this school year, are the newly designated gender-neutral bathrooms on campus, remodeled to be inclusive to those uncomfortable with using gender-segregated restrooms.

The two gender-neutral bathrooms on campus are located next to the engineering room and the 200 building between the ceramics and math classrooms. Administrators plan to install another gender-neutral bathroom in the 800 building when the building undergoes remodeling later in the year. The bathrooms are intended to be used by both staff and students, principal Paul Robinson said.

Over the past years, the global controversy surrounding gender identity has also become extremely relevant in politics, making its way into debates over transgender rights.

As a result, earlier in 2017, many states, including California, began enforcing anti-discrimination protections for gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual people. Movements made by California in order to be more inclusive of gender rights date back to 2011, when gender identity was added to the state’s anti-discrimination laws, and also to 2013 when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law allowing students to use any bathroom they identify with.

More recently, as of March 1, 2017, California requires for all businesses and schools to put non-specific gender signs on single-stall restrooms. Thus, many schools, including Saratoga High, converted their single stall restrooms into inclusive gender-neutral bathrooms.

“Schools needed gender-neutral bathrooms on their campuses not only because of the law, but because students needed to have gender-neutral bathrooms that were available to them,” Robinson said.

Administrators opened what were once staff-exclusive and lockable single-stall restrooms to all students and campus users.

Robinson said that so far, only former staff restrooms can be remodeled into gender-neutral ones since all other bathrooms are multi-use. Unless the school completely tears the multi-use bathrooms apart and re-fashions how they're built, converting the current restrooms to be gender neutral would be very difficult.

Math teacher Meghan Pickett said that though she is happy that gender-neutral bathrooms were installed, teachers often need to wait in line to use now staff-and-student restrooms. Having short and few breaks while working, all teachers are limited to the two restrooms. Because there was already a lack of staff-only restrooms, she and other teachers now find that many single-person bathrooms on campus are now being overused.

“We need gender-neutral bathrooms on our campus, so I’m stoked about that,” Pickett said. “We just need more bathrooms so everyone can get their needs met.”

However, many students are not aware that these restrooms are available to them.

“Many  students do not know that they are allowed to use these bathrooms, and they are often mistaken as staff-exclusive bathrooms,” sophomore vice president Emma Hsu said.

Senior Roy Ong also said that while he had heard that they were being installed, he, along with many of his friends, did not even know where they were going to be. To raise awareness, Ong suggested that the administration mention the bathrooms’ existence and locations in an announcement or in one of Robinson’s weekly emails.

But according to Robinson, this was exactly how the bathrooms were supposed to be designed — for those who are not comfortable using the gender-segregated restrooms, but also to any students who require them.

“Some students have learned about the bathrooms out of necessity, and that’s kind of the way it was meant to be,” Robinson said. “For students who do not feel that comfortable in a boys’ or a girls’ bathroom, they may have already talked to an adult or knew where these bathrooms were. That way, it has worked out the way it’s supposed to.”

This also helps with the possibility of there being inappropriate student activities occuring inside of the bathrooms. Being single-stalled and completely lockable, the bathrooms are a potential place for trouble, though Robinson said he knows of no major issues so far.

“From what we have been able to see, our students have been appropriate in there,” Robinson said. “My hope is that we can trust that everyone will use them appropriately and not have there be a problem.”

Even though the bathrooms are relatively new and unknown on campus, many believe that their presence creates a safer environment for students. Junior Sora Ebrahimi said that the bathrooms can help with privacy issues, people with social anxiety and non-binary and transgender students.

“Non-binaries aren’t put in an uncomfortable situation of choosing any more,” he said. “And it’s easier for trans students because there aren’t weird looks and you don’t have to explain why you’re in that bathroom.”