Administration Addresses All-gender Restrooms on Campus
Near the end of September, the Sarah Lawrence community received an email with the subject line “Campus all gender restrooms.” This mass email addressed the removal of the gender-designation signs outside of the multi-stall bathrooms on the ground floor of the Barbara Walters Campus Center and was signed by three administrators: Dean of Studies Danny Trujillo, Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Special Assistant to the President Fatiah Touray and Vice President for Finance and Operations Stephen Schafer.
The email aimed to provide the Sarah Lawrence community with information about the College’s designation of campus restrooms as all-gender. It cited two recent incidents: the aforementioned removal of signs in the BWCC, as well as the placement of paper signs with question marks on them over gender-designation signs on other campus restrooms. They asked students with concerns about the gender-designation signs to reach out to administration rather than damage campus property.
Currently, the gender-designation signs outside the BWCC bathrooms are taped-up sheets of paper labeled “men’s restroom” and “women’s restroom. These are temporary replacements for the original plastic signs, which were installed directly on the wall, and described as “semi-permanent” by Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Joshua Luce. The original signs were ripped out of the wall one night after they were installed, and the email went out that same week.
Although the removal of the original signs prompted the email, similar activities have occurred since then. As one might have noticed, the paper signs have changed in appearance from time to time, because they have been both written on and removed on several occasions. Luce said that his staff has been monitoring and replacing the signs. According to Luce, new, non-paper signs have already been ordered for these restrooms, and one point of focus in the design of the new signs is to prevent them from being torn down again.
All-gender restrooms are certainly not new to Sarah Lawrence. One can find them scattered all around campus, typically as single-stall restrooms. However, this has its exceptions, such as the three-stall all-gender restroom in the library basement. Several years ago, the college began to increase the amount of all-gender restrooms on campus.
One alum, Lexy, (‘15), remembers when the College began to implement all-gender restrooms. She recalls, “I was a dancer and we learned that the ones in Mac[Cracken] downstairs were going to become gender neutral almost immediately. That must have been 2013 or 2014. The ones in the Pub at the time were already neutral singles. The ones in the library downstairs came after that.” In reference to student opinions about the incoming all-gender bathrooms, Lexy recalled, “we [students] were certainly in support of it.” Administration has been working on establishing all-gender restrooms for years prior to the BWCC’s arrival, and will continue to do so going forward.
Danny Trujillo emphasized the importance of student participation and input in discussions surrounding the construction of the BWCC: “There were opportunities for students, faculty and staff to become involved around specific pieces of the work; for example, the restrooms were one of those.” Trujillo distinguished that student participation was “absolutely crucial” in the process.
But many current students may not be aware of why the College included gendered bathrooms in the BWCC because the relevant conversations occurred prior to their matriculation at Sarah Lawrence. According to the email, after consultation with various student groups in 2017, administration came to the agreement that all restrooms in the new campus center would be designated as all-gender. However, after receiving the College’s petition for all-gender restrooms, the City of Yonkers informed the College that their building code required the existence of at least two gendered bathrooms. The College therefore included the required gendered restrooms in their final building plan, along with four single-stall all-gender restrooms.
While the email sent out to students cited the Yonkers code as the reason for the BWCC’s gendered restrooms, it did not include specifics beyond the simple fact that it requires gendered restrooms to exist somewhere in the building. However, the text of the Yonkers city code is available online via the City of Yonkers’ website.
Despite the existence of the City of Yonkers building code, the College is continuing to establish all-gender restrooms. The multi-stall bathrooms in the BWCC were constructed with the possibility to be converted to all-gender restrooms in the event that the City of Yonkers changes their building code. This manifested itself in the restroom’s stall width and absence of urinals in the restroom designated for men.
In an effort to increase student awareness of the currently available all-gender restrooms, the Diversity Committee is in the process of constructing a map of the existing all-gender facilities on campus. Fatiah Touray encouraged students who want to get involved in this process and dialogue to reach out to her or Dean Trujillo. “Their voices are important,” Touray said, “and we want to hear from them and we want them to be a part of this.”
Zoe Patterson ‘20