Residential Advisers (RAs) organized a transgender awareness program by transforming one of the bathrooms in Centennial Halls’ lobby to a transgender bathroom for a few days last week, all aiming to spread awareness to first-year residents.
“Everyone has a different identity, and it’s not just racial,” Lauren Johnson, one of the Residential Advisers that helped put on the program, said. “It’s age, gender, social economic class, it’s everything. We want to build a community that says, ‘Hey, it’s okay.'”
The temporary change occurred in one bathroom in Halls’ lobby, which was opened to both male and female residents for the duration of the program.
Signs were also posted around the building to advertise the experiment and to inform students of its purpose.
Overall, Johnson said, the program was well-received by both students and faculty.
“I was bracing myself to just be torn apart, but everything I heard was really positive,” said Johnson.
Several organizations on campus, including the Queer-Straight Alliance (QSA,) contacted the advisers in charge of the program to express support for their actions.
While the change was not permanent, Johnson said she is working with QSA to make some permanent inclusiveness changes around DU. Currently, she and QSA are working on proposals for gender-neutral housing at DU as well as gender-neutral bathrooms in Sturm Hall.
If the proposals are accepted, the bathrooms would be open for all people regardless of gender orientation – men, women and those who have undergone any sort of gender change.
“In the long run, we would love to see transgender bathrooms become permanent,” said Johnson. “This was kind of the first step.”
First-year Centennial Halls resident Hannah Young said she wishes the bathrooms were permanent.
“I think it’s interesting that there is so much awareness for gay rights, but none really for transgender rights,” said Young.
The program was aimed specifically to combat this problem. Initially, RAs wanted the bathrooms to be called “Gender Neutral” instead of “Mixed Gender” because the term “Mixed Gender” still identifies with specific genders and gender identity.
Johnson said the term “mixed gender” is not acknowledging enough of those who may have undergone or wish to undergo a gender change, or those who identify more with the opposite gender.
“We wanted people to kind of consider why we use certain words,” said Johnson. “We were trying to stay away from boundary labels because any terms we use should be inclusive to all pieces and parts.”
To get approval for the program, the RAs conducted meetings with the director of housing to prove the change would really make an impact in diversity and inclusiveness.
“It did so much more to raise awareness than just putting up signs,” said Johnson. “And it’s especially important in a first year building to open those horizons.”
Though the transgender bathrooms were not a permanent installment in Centennial Halls, Johnson said she hopes other buildings will follow suit to keep raising awareness across campus so that one day, transgender bathrooms can be a permanent fixture.
“It was a strong first step,” she said. “It’s just very hard to change the status quo.”
