California university adds more gender-neutral restrooms. Some are not happy about it | Opinion
The email writer went by the name “One Unashamed Mama Bear” and judging by her tone, she was livid.
Her daughter, a Cal Poly student, found herself in the position of having to “poop” in an all-gender bathroom while the man in the next stall was urinating. It made her uncomfortable.
“I am a frustrated, concerned parent, with a fearful daughter, and I need to be heard,” Mama Bear wrote in an email she fired off to the president of the San Luis Obispo university, the dean of students, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office and several journalists at The San Luis Obispo Tribune, among others.
She also telephoned the governors office, where a man answered the phone, and according to the email, had no empathy for her daughter’s situation. And he hung up on her.
To be clear, Mama Bear was under the mistaken impression that all multi-stall restrooms at Cal Poly have been converted to gender-neutral facilities.
That’s not the case.
According to Cal Poly spokesman Matt Lazier, there are only 24 all-gender, multi-stall restrooms on campus, compared to 145 men’s restrooms and 143 women’s restrooms, in addition to 114 single-occupancy restrooms. (Those numbers are for state-owned buildings only, and do not include university housing or auxiliary facilities like ASI or the Cal Poly Corp.)
Drilling down even further, only 4% of actual fixtures — meaning toilets and urinals — are in all-gender restrooms
Still, Mama Bear was skeptical, even after receiving a response from Cal Poly.
“I have spoken with many of my daughter’s friends male and female about this, and the consensus is they were blindsided, uninformed and unprepared for this change,” she wrote in a followup email.
This was not a conspiracy
Actually, Cal Poly’s Inclusive Restroom Committee invited input from all students before it identified locations for gender-neutral facilities.
“Cal Poly is committed to ensuring that everyone on campus has access to safe and inclusive restrooms. We acknowledge that gendered restrooms (i.e., restrooms labeled ‘women’s’ or ‘men’s’) can exacerbate stress, discomfort, and lack of safety for people who are transgender, nonbinary, and/or gender non-conforming,” the committee wrote in a statement.
The university’s student-run news organization, Mustang News, ran an article June 2 with this headline: “Cal Poly plans to increase the accessibility of all-gender restrooms on campus.”
In other words, this was not some dark conspiracy to force all students to use gender-neutral restrooms.
There are still plenty of bathroom choices on campus.
“I don’t know why the restrooms would be controversial,” noted Tribune photographer David Middlecamp, who has spent untold hours photographing the campus. “In the Admin Building if you wanted a gendered bathroom, they had them, if you wanted neutral they had them. Maybe not both on the same floor, but it wasn’t far away.”
Gender-neutral restrooms are now mandatory on K-12 campuses
Gender-neutral restrooms will become a more common sight on all public school campuses.
Gov. Newsom recently signed a bill that requires all K-12 schools to have at least one gender-netural bathroom by July 2026. California is the first state in the nation to pass such a mandate.
Good for us. This issue should be taken out of the hands of individual school districts, since some school board members seem incapable of handling it in an adult manner.
No student should be bullied or threatened for using the restroom, and providing some gender-neutral facilities is a way to ensure that.
As for colleges and universities, many, if not most, already have policies or guidelines in place requiring gender-neutral facilities.
“The goal is that no individual would need to leave their current building to locate a (gender-neutral) restroom, shower, or changing facility,” the University of California’s policy states.
Again, this does not mean the end of gendered bathrooms, nor should it. No one should be forced into situations that makes them uncomfortable.
As more gender-neutral restrooms become available, let’s hope this stops becoming a big deal.
In the meantime, mama and papa bears should try to relax.
Their cubs will find their way to the restroom of their choice.
This story was originally published October 4, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
