By Louis Wertheimer, Y10
At LGB, we live in a diverse, international environment, where everyone is accepted for who they are. Over the past few years, the LGBTQ+ movement has gained importance and more and more people are expressing themselves the way they feel is right. One topic that has been brought up is the role of bathrooms. Until a few years ago, for most of the modern world, two bathrooms were used: Male and Female. Until recently, this system didn’t pose any problems to the functionality of school, but with more and more people not identifying as male or female, it is time to take the proposal of gender-neutral bathrooms into consideration.
Gender-neutral bathrooms are an effective way to make sure everyone is included in their environment. They are becoming more and more common in public spaces such as restaurants, small businesses, and some supermarkets. Although they are starting to appear in other places, such as sporting stadiums and concert halls, these places often install a single stall, next to the male and female ones.
This is the system that LGB is considering implementing. Even though it is a great step for including everyone, a number of students still believe that the two bathrooms, male and female, should be replaced by a single gender-neutral bathroom. This proposal could work in a hypothetical world but would be almost impossible for a widespread implementation at school. If we take the time to analyze which places only have gender-neutral bathrooms, it is quickly apparent that they are locations with a low influx of people, who pay a rare visit to that bathroom. A good example is a restaurant, where it is rare for many people to go to the bathroom at once, so gender-neutral bathrooms can be used. But when we look at the places that only have male and female bathrooms, it is quickly apparent that these places have a very high and concentrated influx of people using the bathrooms. A good example is during a football game, where most of the stadium will go use the bathrooms in less than 15 minutes.
One reason to keep the male, female, and gender-neutral setup is the speed at which people are able to use them. For example, urinals are often reserved for men, as they offer a much faster alternative than a normal stall.
Fundamentally, this is why only having gender-neutral bathrooms would not work at school (at least for the coming years). It would be a logistical nightmare to have every student use a single bathroom at once. Just like during a sporting event, most students pay a visit to the bathrooms between two classes, giving them a time frame of fewer than 5 minutes.
Overall, gender-neutral bathrooms can work at school if they are an addition to the male and female bathrooms but would be a failure if they become the only type of bathroom available for students to use. The key problem we face in implementing these bathrooms is the overcrowding it could create.
