A Case Study of Expanding Access to Gender Neutral Bathrooms on a College Campus

In recent years, the awareness of transgender individual’s challenges in the space of the public restroom have become an increasing area of advocation and activism. With multiple laws coming into place since 2013, especially in the state of California, we have also see an increase in single-use bathroom signage transition from the gender binary to that of gender neutral, or unisex. Single-use bathrooms are those which have a single toilet and a lock on the door rather than a multi-stall restroom which only has locks on the stall doors. Gender neutral restrooms are typically single-use restrooms and may also be referred to as unisex or family bathrooms. The public college systems, both Universities of California (UC’s) and California State Universities (CSU’s), have developed a plan of action in relation to gender neutral restrooms in order to promote safety and support for their transgender students on campus by adding gender neutral bathrooms or changing signage on single-use bathrooms. However, no specific plan of action has been formally set in private universities. In this study, I focus on University of the Pacific’s Stockton campus and their efforts to promote safety, inclusion, and support of their transgender students through the accessibility of gender neutral restrooms. Within this study, I have conducted qualitative interviews with individuals within administrative and staff positions to develop a coherent history of the advocation and installation of gender neutral restrooms on the University of the Pacific’s (UOP’s) Stockton campus. I have also surveyed all single-use restrooms on campus, identifying those bathrooms that need signage changes in order to be considered gender neutral as well as those that are already gender neutral, which assisted in the development of both an inventory and map of all gender neutral bathrooms on UOP’s Stockton campus. The development of the inventory and map will aid in providing transgender students the specific location of gender neutral restrooms in order to provide safety and support