By Autumn Proietti and Harrison Terry

My name is Autumn Proietti and I am a junior here at Centennial. I have interviewed 4 trans and gender non conforming people about their thoughts on the gender neutral bathrooms being closed. This way everyone could hear from the actual students that it affects, instead of making a decision based on what they think they want. 

This is the first person I interviewed over text, they are a non binary student at centennial.

I- Do you think that it’s important to have gender neutral bathrooms?

Interviewee 1- “For sure, first of all, the bathrooms smell like vaping, plus the hallways. So it’s not like they’re encouraging it or something. Second of all, I don’t wanna generalize but like have you seen this school? A quarter of people I know are gender non-comforming or just not cis. Quite literally a lot of the school would benefit from them being back. Plus as someone who identifies that way it would make me feel good!!”

I- What do you think would end up happening if they kept them closed?

Interviewee 1- “it’s not some sort of major earth shattering event I’m aware of, but I hypothesize that 1. People aren’t going to stop vaping in parts of the school or vandalizing bathrooms, duh it’d be dumb to think the bathroom would stop anything. And 2. I just think the overall vibe (yes as cheesy as it sounds) would just be kinda off. I think the gender neutral bathrooms made a lot of people happy and I could vouch for that (I lost count of the number of times I was having an awful time and went to one of those bathrooms just to chill for a bit by myself and felt so much better after).”

I- Do you think it’s dangerous for trans people to go into the restroom of their chosen gender?

Interviewee 1- “Honestly yes, from what I’ve seen (take that with a grain of salt) this school isn’t like the most transphobic in terms of how the students treat each other so it isn’t too outward, but then again maybe a whole bunch of students are getting bullied in bathrooms and whatever and we don’t even know that. But here’s the other context: this can be extremely damaging to students in terms of mental health. Imagine for example being transgender, always having this uncomfortable feeling and gender  dysphoria whenever you enter the bathroom of your assigned gender, but feel so much better in an area for everybody to use. Now imagine that your coping mechanism immediately gets taken away when it did not harm beforehand. See how that goes?”

I-Do you ever feel uncomfortable going into the bathroom of your gender assigned at birth?

Interviewee 1- “YES yes yes that’s literally the exact point I was attempting to make with my previous paragraph (which may or may not have used myself as an example). It’s the sole reason why it felt GREAT to just be gender neutral after a random burst of anxiety. I barely have any control over my appearance or how I want to express myself and neither do I have the time, but if anything the bare minimum makes me feel great. Going into the “assigned gender role bathroom” or whatever you wanna call it just feels like this big weight that I can’t describe everytime I enter. Sometimes I forget and just go in as normal, but I can’t be in there for longer than a minute without having extreme gender dysphoric thoughts afterwards that mess up my whole day. Not only that but being aware that everybody passing by me and immediately perceiving me as that gender because I’m in that bathroom. That sucks the most.”

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This next interview I did was another student at centennial. This was also over text.

I- Why do you think the gender neutral bathrooms should stay open? 

Interviewee 2- “They’re more easily accessible for disabled students, you can’t inhale other kids’ vape dust when you’re in a single person bathroom, and ofc the obvious reason of dysphoric kids having issues with other bathrooms.”

I- What do you think would happen if they stayed closed?

Interviewee 2- “Nothing on the legislative level, but a whole lot of students sure would be inconvenienced. Some areas of the school only have gender neutral bathrooms near them, and when you have only 5 minutes with 5 star to use the restroom, you might be caught “‘tardy’” when you were really just trying to pee.”

I- do you have any personal experiences that you would like to share regarding the topic?

Interviewee 2- “I have seen drug exchanges and have had countless instances of people vaping in the girls’ bathroom and taking up all the stalls just to chat. Having another option of where to go would really help. In addition, I like to not have carcinogens from vape in my lungs.”

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This third interview was also over text with a new student at centennial.

I- Do you think that the gender neutral bathrooms should stay open, and if so why?

Interviewee 3- “Yes. Not only are they much more comfortable for trans kids anywhere under the umbrella, it’s also the easier bathroom for the disabled kids to use. On top of that, the one near the gym is sometimes used as a changing room for the trans kids if they don’t know what to do with them.”

I- What do you think would happen if they stay closed?

Interviewee 3- “If they closed disabled kids would have a harder time with bathrooms and in turn take longer, and the trans kids would be incredibly uncomfortable going to the bathroom. Eventually this might lead to both groups avoiding going to the bathroom.”

I- Do you have any personal experiences or opinions you would like to share?

Interviewee 3- “I don’t have any personal experiences in the school, but in public I tend to stay away from gendered bathrooms because of me being under the umbrella myself.”

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This last interview was from an incoming next year freshman for centennial. It is a shorter one compared to the others since I only asked one question. But I think that it is also important to take our future students into consideration as well. 

I- What are your experiences with gendered bathrooms and do you think having a gender neutral bathrooms is important?

Interviewee 4- “I always feel really uncomfortable going into gendered bathrooms. And there’s a lot of good people out there but there are a lot of people that are… kind of hateful. Having somewhere where people can be safe when they go to the bathroom is important. For me, since I’m a trans male, I usually go in the female bathrooms because like I don’t feel safe in the male bathrooms.”