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Student thoughts on transgender inclusivity, bathroom policies

App in development to map gender neutral bathrooms

<p>The University has no written document that specifies a policy, but provides some gender neutral bathrooms around Grounds.</p>

The University has no written document that specifies a policy, but provides some gender neutral bathrooms around Grounds.

Recent events have sparked conversation about inclusivity of transgender students on Grounds, specifically regarding access to gender neutral bathrooms.

On April 18, chalk messages targeting minority and transgender individuals appeared around Grounds. This comes three weeks after North Carolina state officials passed legislation to block local government from passing anti-discrimination laws to protect gay and transgender people.

The laws superceded efforts to allow individuals to use the bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

While there is no “bathroom policy,” the University does provide gender-neutral bathrooms throughout Grounds to ensure students a welcoming and comfortable environment, University Spokesperson Anthony de Bruyn said in an email statement.

The website of the Office of the Dean of Students also offers an interactive map to help individuals locate single-stall and gender-neutral bathrooms on and around Grounds.

University community members can help add bathrooms or correct the map by contacting the LGBTQ Center through the website.

Third-year College student A. Dai said that as someone who identifies as gender variant and who is dating someone who is transgender, they feel the University lacks gender-neutral bathroom options.

“Most places you go it’s gender specific, and you kind of forcibly pick the gender which can be problematic,” Dai said. “My partner, in the past, he’s been harassed in bathrooms because he didn’t look like he fit the gender. Otherwise there's like nowhere else for him to go.”

Dai is involved in the bathroom mapping project, and they are also working with their partner Khanh Tran, a third-year College student, on an app to allow people to access the map on the go.

The app is part of a project for a web and mobile development course and is still in developmental stages.

Dialogue about trans inclusivity has grown in past months as public interest has increased, Dai said.

“In general there have been efforts [to] convert [bathrooms] to gender-neutral which has more options, but these often get met with resistance,” Dai said. “It’s a conversation not many people have had to have at U.Va. so far but is slowly getting more attention as it becomes bigger in the national news.”

Natalie Snitzer, a first-year College student and incoming trans advocacy chair for the Queer Student Union, said she and other friends do not feel that the University was designed with transgender students in mind.

“I don’t think there’s any policy explicitly banning trans students, but I’ve been very disappointed in U.Va. to even acknowledge that trans students exist and make efforts to just help them just go to the bathroom,” Snitzer said.

Snitzer said efforts to include trans students should reach beyond bathroom policies.

“I think more efforts toward gender-neutral housing perhaps and not just agreeing that gender-neutral housing is a good thing but making an effort, seeing how to navigate the bureaucracy and actually achieve that and what does it look like,” Snitzer said.

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