IMAGINE that you can't walk into either a men's or women's washroom without feeling uncomfortable and unwelcome.
Imagine that you're a person who prefers to be called "they", because neither "he" nor "she" really defines you.
Student activists at the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba are working to establish gender neutral washrooms on campus that would accommodate transgendered students and staff.
"It's something we would like to refer to as an all-accessible washroom," U of W Students Association vice-president Vivian Belik said yesterday.
Belik said the issue was first raised last summer by a transgendered student at U of W.
They -- not he or she, but they -- could not be reached yesterday.
Since then, UWSA has been working with the university's physical staff and administration to find washroom facilities which all students and staff can be comfortable using, Belik said.
The ideal facility would be a single-stall washroom with a locked door, she said. U of W has a few, but they're a priority for wheelchair users.
"There's already a lack of space for wheelchair accessibility" without having able-bodied people use those few spaces, Belik said.
Switching multi-stall washrooms to accommodate both men and women "was seen to be neither safe nor desirable. A lot of women wouldn't feel safe" in a washroom also used by men, Belik said.
At U of M, advocates are researching what other universities have done, and looking for campus-wide solutions that don't require costly physical changes, said Jason Van Rooy, U of M Student Union's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirited representative.
"We're looking at signage" as one solution, Van Rooy said.
U of W communications director Robin Alford said that protecting each person's dignity will be the priority for U of W.
U of W will be able to design its new $30-million science complex with gender neutral washrooms, Alford pointed out.
Belik said that one solution might be single-stall washrooms that could accommodate wheelchairs, a mother breast-feeding, a transgendered person, or a family with a baby or toddler.
But it is vital that no person be "outed" by being seen to use such facilities, Belik said.
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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