Due to my coming out to some faculty members, one of whom is on the equity committee for the university, something is hopefully going to be proposed to make the place better for transgender people vis-a-vis the bathroom issue. Right now the advocacy is in the direction of gender neutral bathrooms. While that's one solution, I think that it avoids the broader issue (and possibly creates the "separate but not equal" stigma of not being allowed in the bathroom for the gender one is presenting oneself as). Moreover, some buildings are decades old, and the cost to construct gender neutral bathrooms (new, or retrofitted) is often prohibitive. So the gender neutral bathroom initiative doesn't help people who work in these older buildings (I'm one of them).

So I asked if the university has a policy on the matter (the bathroom question). I was told that the university doesn't like using "policies" (they're numbered and it takes a lot to get something made into a policy) for something as specific as this. My concern is that there needs to be something public expressing the university's position on the matter.

Now, at my university, it's relatively easy for a student to have their name and gender changed for his/her records. This is great, and it shows a sensitivity to T issues. So the member of the equity committee suggested that one could infer from this that the university should take the desired stance on the bathroom issue: students and staff should use the bathroom for the gender that they're presenting themselves as. However, short of an explicit statement of this, I'm wary.

There's a further concern, of course: even if the university has the desired stance on the issue, it's not widely known. So having such a stance won't decrease the probability that there will be harassment charges, screams, or bullying by people ignorant of the policy, when confronted by a T person using the bathroom. This is something we want to avoid, if possible, and a publicly presented "policy" (even if it's not a policy #) can go a long way.

So here's what I suggested, and what will be presented to the committee: A sign in each bathroom (just a paper 8.5"x11" poster) expressing the university's position on people's rights to use bathrooms. This way, if an altercation happens, the T person can merely point to the poster and say, "Take it up with the university." This is MUCH better than, for example, having to carry around a piece of paper that expresses the university's stance (just yet another form of carry letters, which we don't need). Part of my argument was that the university should be a leader on these sorts of issues, and that it needs to do something publicly recognizable, in order to fill that leadership role.

The committee member thinks that this has a high probability of going through, and I'm very hopeful. It's good to be persuasive and have reason on your side .

It's also really nice to feel that I'm already making a positive difference at a level greater than in my teaching.