EFBWashrooms on university campuses across Canada may be the latest frontier in the campaign to accommodate all sexualities. Student groups at the University of Manitoba, the University of Winnipeg, and Toronto's Ryerson University are lobbying for alternatives to conventional male and female washrooms to protect the safety and privacy of transgendered students.
The campaign comes despite student bodies and university authorities being unable to give any figures for how many transgendered students they need to accommodate. "I think it's important for a couple of reasons. There are individuals on campus who don't feel safe going into either the male or female washrooms, that whatever bathroom they go into they feel ostracized," said Vivian Belik, VP of student services for the University of Winnipeg Students' Association. "Gender-neutral washrooms are important because it deconstructs the idea of gender as a whole."
One could argue that is also damn good argument against the idea.
At the University of Winnipeg, the plan under discussion is to convert an existing, ground floor handicapped washroom into one designated for all-gender use. There would still be bathrooms for men and women. "We would like to create these bathrooms into 'all accessible' washrooms that would be accessible to wheelchairs, could have a baby-changing station, perhaps a foot-washing station for Muslim students, and would happen to be gender-neutral. The main idea being as inclusive/ sensitive as possible," said Ms. Belik.
Oh yeah…Mohammad will have no problem cleansing for prayers next to a six foot guy in a cocktail dress putting on his makeup. I hear Muslims are pretty “inclusive” about that stuff.
The washrooms are designed to meet the needs of people transitioning from one sex to the other, transvestites, transsexuals, and all others whose identities don't fit into conventional sexual norms. Such washrooms -- which advocates call "all-gender" or "gender- neutral" washrooms -- are already in place at McGill and Simon Fraser universities.
Mr. Wright, Rye Pride's education and campaigns coordinator, insists that the need for this should transcend politics and sexual orientation: "Most people can think of a time when they haven't felt safe in a public washroom." (Come to think of itÂ…there was that one time at a truck stop just outside of Detroit.) It isn't about who you are, it's about what you need to do, and everybody needs to go to the washroom."