The bathrooms in Tilton Hall were modified this summer to better accommodate transgender students. The bathrooms are now neither exclusively for men or women.
The changes were proposed by Dona Yarbrough, the director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Center, as part of a series of issues relating to transgender students. The new bathrooms are now similar to the ones in South and Bush Halls.
"The University has been looking at ways to make restrooms more accommodating to a number of groups, including transgender people, people with disabilities and families," Yarbrough said.
The bathrooms are designed to provide a more secure environment for transgender students, who consider themselves members of the opposite sex.
The bathrooms are now divided into two rooms. When students enter the bathroom from the hallway, they see a sink and a stall with a toilet. A second door in this room opens to a shower. The door to the shower locks, but the outside door from the hallway does not lock. The outside doors in South and Bush Halls lock.
Yarbrough said the renovations are partially in response to the discrimination transgender students face around the country. "[Transgender people] have been harassed, arrested and beaten by people who think they are using the 'wrong' bathroom," she said.
According to the University's Bias Intervention Team, there were two reported gender incidents and eight incidents regarding sexual orientation last year.
In addition to being more comfortable for transgender students, Yarbrough said the unisex bathrooms will help parents accompany their small children to the bathroom. People with disabilities will now be able to receive help more easily by someone of the other gender.
Yarbrough said she also expects the unisex bathrooms to cut down on waiting time. "How many times have you seen a line of women waiting to get into a women's restroom while the men's restroom remains empty?" she asked.
Freshman Ted McMahan, who lives in Tilton Hall, said he is comfortable sharing individual bathrooms with female students. Students of the opposite sex can be in the sink section of the bathroom while another student is in the shower.
McMahan said he was sometimes embarrassed to groom himself in front of female students, but this was outweighed by the ease of not having male or female-only bathrooms.
He said when walking into a bathroom, he did not want to have to be concerned with whether someone of the opposite gender was inside. "You don't want to have to worry about whether that stick figure is wearing a dress or not," he said.
But McMahan is not uncomfortable sharing the restroom with the females in his dorm. "I grew up in a house where people walked in on each other in the bathroom," he said.
No more unisex dorm bathrooms are expected in the near future. According to Yarbrough, there are also no plans for coed, multi-stall dorm bathroooms.
