Chapel Hill High School students call for gender neutral bathrooms

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this story incorrectly stated where the first gender-neutral bathrooms on UNC’s campus were located. The Campus Y created gender-neutral bathrooms in January, but the LGBTQ Center has kept a list of the gender-neutral bathrooms on campus since 2010. The story has been updated to reflect this change. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.

Student leaders of the Campus Y made waves when they designated four gender-neutral bathrooms in the building in January, and, just a few years younger, students at Chapel Hill High School are pushing their school to take a similarly inclusive step.

Members of the Chapel Hill High School Queer/Straight Alliance are looking to support LGBTQ students by petitioning officials in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district to include gender identity in the district’s anti-discrimination policy and to create gender-neutral bathrooms in the high school.

In addition to being a cesspool of germs and graffiti, high school bathrooms are scenes of bullying and harassment. Bathrooms are away from the watchful eyes of teachers, who say bullies often take advantage of that freedom.

For LGBTQ students, there is an added risk for harassment and discrimination based on their gender or sexual identities, especially in private areas like a bathroom.

According to a recent report by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, only 8 percent of N.C. students attended a school with an anti-bullying policy that included both gender identity and sexual orientation. While the CHCCS district does include sexual orientation and gender in its anti-discrimination policy, there is not yet a component for gender identity.

Mark DeVito, a Chapel Hill High School senior, said if the policy is changed, the next goal will be to create gender-neutral bathrooms at the school.

“Once the policy is changed, we would have more leverage to advocate for gender-neutral bathrooms,” DeVito said. “The plan can’t be created until the policy is changed and we have something to base it off of.”

Danielle Cohen, a Chapel Hill High School teacher and co-adviser for the QSA, said the group isn’t attempting to remove men’s and women’s restrooms, but rather to create another option.

“The gender-neutral bathroom would just be a place where people can do what they have to do without worrying about negotiating harassment,” she said.

Members of the QSA met with the CHCCS Board of Education in the spring to present a petition to change the school district’s policy to include gender identity and gender expression. In November, they also met with CHCCS Superintendent Thomas Forcella for a follow-up meeting.

“It is important to students — not only at Chapel Hill, but queer and transgender students across America,” Cohen said. “It is an important issue throughout the U.S., and it is important to lend our support.”

Cameron Pittman, a Chapel Hill High senior, said both the school board and Forcella seemed supportive and open to the students’ suggestions.

“They took it really well,” Pittman said. “We gave them a lot of information in packets about gender identity. We got right to why gender identity and gender expression is important for safety and to help make the school more inclusive.”

Jeffrey Nash, spokesman for CHCCS, said there have not been any changes in the policies yet.

“Changing policy is a big deal and a process,” Nash said of the issue. “It goes to the board for approval, so it takes time to change.”

Terri Phoenix, director of the LGBTQ Center at UNC, said gender-neutral bathrooms benefit a variety of people, including parents with children of a different gender than the parent and people with disabilities who have peer assistants of another gender.

“Not everyone identifies within the binary system of male and female,” Phoenix said. “There are people who don’t match the societal ?expectations of male and female, and they can get harassed in a gender segregated bathroom.”

The LGBTQ Center’s website has a list of 55 gender-neutral bathrooms that are available on UNC’s campus. Phoenix said that in 2010, the center’s staff created a list of gender-neutral bathrooms on campus that is continually updated with community feedback and a list of bathrooms kept by UNC Facilities Services.

“We also work with UNC Facilities Services to have all single-stall locking bathrooms converted to gender nonspecific bathrooms,” Phoenix said.

In addition to looking toward creating new policies and bathrooms, the Chapel Hill High School QSA also works to raise awareness of issues LGBTQ students face at their school.

Cohen said members of the QSA go to freshman English classes to talk about resources for LGBTQ students.

“They addressed how language can be a form of discrimination and harassment and a continuum of abuse, which tied into why they were speaking to English classes,” she said.

Chapel Hill High also promoted inclusion and equality by celebrating Spirit Day on Oct. 16, a day to support LGBTQ victims of bullying, by wearing purple.

Cohen said on Spirit Day, the QSA created purple shirts that said, “Everyone Matters,” and almost everyone in the school — including students, teachers and custodians — wore purple to show their support.

“It can be very challenging for people who grew up in the ’80s with ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and the AIDS crisis to understand,” Cohen said.

“These kids have issues just as important as ours were, and it is important not to be complacent. The younger generation has something to teach us, but we just have to listen.”?

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