Photo by Corey Maher
CONNOR HOFFMAN
Assistant News Editor
Fredonia has decided this semester that it is going to make certain bathrooms on campus into all-gender bathrooms.
These sign changes are the result of a movement to raise awareness of transgender student rights on campus, which began about three years ago, according to history professor Dr. Jennifer Hildebrand.
“We got a gender inclusity committee together. We did some work,” said Hildebrand. “Part of the work we did then was to look into where the restrooms were. Did we have restrooms that could be made available for this?”
Dr. Bill Boerner, chief diversity officer, explained that transgender students sometimes do not feel comfortable using the traditional male or female bathrooms.
“I do know that there are some individuals who identify in the transgender community or gender nonconforming community who just don’t feel as comfortable going into a male or female space,” said Boerner. “Maybe they do not necessarily subscribe to the [gender] binary or they just don’t feel that comfortable in those types of spaces, and so they seek out a single occupant restroom.”
Hildebrand said that this entire project started last semester after there was a post on the Official Pride Alliance Group of SUNY Fredonia Facebook page from a company called My Door Sign that produces all gender door signs.
This company offered to donate all-gender signs to Fredonia if Fredonia agreed to advertise the company’s website. The link for this company’s website can be found on the Women and Gender Studies webpage.
Hildebrand said the biggest challenge with implementing this policy was making sure that everyone was given the chance to voice their opinions on the matter.
“We wanted to make sure that Pride was consulted and that they were on board and that they had a chance to weigh in,” said Hildebrand. “We wanted to make sure that Women and Gender’s Studies had a chance to weigh in and that they were on board… We had to check in with facilities management to make sure they had the staff to put the signs up.”
This policy means that the signs for most of the unisex bathrooms on campus will be replaced with a new all-gender bathroom sign. Some of these bathrooms are also handicap accessible, and part of the discussion was to make sure the new signs would reflect that.
This entire process will cost around $680 and is expected to be completely finished by the summer, according to Director of Facilities Services Kevin Cloos. He also explained the only modification that needed to be done was cut the size of the bathroom signs because they’re larger than the old signs were.
Boerner said the overall reactions he has received to these changes have been very positive.
“Personally I’ve received a handful of reactions, all positive,” said Boerner. “One of them was an alumni who wrote a really extensive, lengthy paragraph about their time here and [expressed] that this is another step towards supporting our gender nonconforming students here and the individuals that are connected to our community. And they were proud of their institution, Fredonia, for making this movement forward.”
Pride Alliance and other groups on campus are definitely happy about this recent policy, but they still believe that there is much more work to do.
“I feel like it was a long time coming. I know that there were certain people working on the project for a long time,” said Vice President of Pride Alliance and senior music industry and women’s and gender studies double major Deanna Buley. “I think that we need a better understanding on campus. I think people need to continue to become educated and learn about different communities that they’re not aware of … I think there’s a lot of other things to do.”