The Pointer UW-Stevens Point Student Newspaper
On campus there are currently three residence halls providing students with access to gender neutral bathrooms: Smith, Steiner and Watson. Having gender neutral bathrooms on campus helps transgender or genderqueer students feel comfortable in the residence halls.
Tiffany Koeshall, Knutzen Hall director, said that all of the residence halls on campus will eventually have gender neutral bathrooms if it is what the students want.
About 1,000 students at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point participated in a survey about gender neutral bathrooms.
“As administrators and a housing department, we see benefits to having all gender bathrooms, but we don’t want to further promote it if students don’t want it. We know that not all students identify as male or female and we want our residence halls to be welcoming to students with all different identities,” Koeshall said.
The expansion of gender neutral bathrooms on campus is contingent on the results of the survey, which has yet to be analyzed. Koeshall believes that the expansion of gender neutral bathrooms on campus will make for a more inclusive environment.
“Last year we discussed what we could do to have gender inclusivity in the rest of our buildings. We have the ability to have some say in what our bathrooms are labeled as, so that’s the route we went with to promote inclusivity,” Koeshall said.
Brian Faust, director of residential living, said he has not heard of student opposition towards the gender neutral bathrooms that are currently on campus.
“We need to be helping out all of our students and make our residence halls feel like home for them. Providing gender neutral bathrooms is one of the opportunities that we can take to help them out. When we initially did this, all of the feedback was supportive,” Faust said.
Malia Xiong, junior dietetics major, does not feel that having gender neutral bathrooms in the residence halls will affect her because she lives off campus.
“I think transgender people should feel welcome in the residence halls. The bathroom part is just a tough thing to talk about, I don’t really know where I stand,” Xiong said
Xiong did admit that if she were living on campus the situation might make her uncomfortable.
“I do think that it’s good that the university is trying to make people feel welcome on campus by being inclusive,” Xiong said.
Caroline Chalk
Reporter
cchal845@uwsp.edu
