SDSU Students Hold 'Sh*t-In' For Trans-Friendly Bathrooms On Campus
Students at San Diego State University (SDSU) are taking drastic steps to ensure transgender equality is not swept under the rug on their campus. This past Tuesday, SDSU’s Trans* Action and Advocacy Student Coalition organized a campus-wide “sh*t-in” “to raise awareness and advocacy for Gender-Neutral/Gender nonsegregated bathrooms,” Campus Reform reported.
“The challenge: Don’t use gendered bathrooms or change rooms for a week. Gendered bathrooms are designated for ‘men’ or ‘women’ by a sign,” read a post on the SDSU Sh*t-In Facebook page.
The SDSU campus has already installed over 10 gender-neutral bathrooms as part of the university’s “commitment to diversity and inclusions,” SDSU’s #TuesdayTrivia reported. “Gender-neutral bathrooms are a way to create a safer campus environment for trans* and gender nonconforming students, staff, faculty, and community members at SDSU,” TAASC FORCE – SDSU writes.
“For trans* and gender nonconforming individuals, gender-segregated bathrooms can be spaces where they are met with intimidation, harassment, run-ins with security, and/or violence," the Facebook post continues. "These occurrences happen when people using the restroom police the gender of others based on binary assumptions and expectations of who men and women are and what they look like.”
Gay and transgender activists at the University of Oregon also lobbied for transgender equality by launching a “Gender Inclusive Bathroom Challenge.” Students were asked to boycott university bathrooms from Oct. 14 to 24. Although the university already offers gender inclusive bathrooms and showers in the main buildings on campus, transgender equality activists hope to sway administrators into installing nonsegregated bathrooms in every building.
“Having non-gender-neutral bathrooms makes them (transgender and gender-fluid students) afraid and uncomfortable. It is not fair to that population of students to have to think about that on a daily basis,” UO student Kayla Caddell told the university’s student newspaper, the Daily Emerald. “It has checked my privilege in a way I didn’t expect it would.”