Recently, students may have noticed that the girl’s bathroom on the second floor, across the hall from Mr. Firman, Mr, Z, Ms. Young, and Mr. Lovre’s rooms now has a gender-neutral sign on it. Students and admin hope that with some changes this attempt at a gender-neutral bathroom will go better than previous attempts.

Garfield has had quite a history with gender-neutral bathrooms. The 2021-2022 school year was the first full year the school ever had a public gender-neutral bathroom, and it was quickly taken away. Students would host raves in the bathroom during lunchtime, use it as a popular vaping spot, and throw things into occupied stalls, among other inappropriate uses of a public bathroom. Unable to regulate it, Garfield’s administration shut down the bathroom the following year. During this time, students were told that if they needed a gender-neutral restroom, they could go to the Teen Health Center or main office and would have access there. 

Garfield’s Gender Sexuality Alliance has been working to create a safe space for queer students to talk about issues like this. Ollie Mazner, one of the senior officers, has been a major advocate for gender-neutral bathrooms in schools since his days at Washington Middle School. “I was one of the people who was forced by admin to fight for the right for a gender-neutral bathroom, and we were forced to raise almost $2,000 so that they could pay the district to fund the renovation of the bathroom,” he recalled. Mazner feels that Garfield has had an extreme lack of effort toward making the community a safe place for the queer student body. “We have advisory, why don’t we utilize it? We have assemblies, why not utilize [them]? We have these social-emotional learning breaks that aren’t used for anything social or emotional,” he said. “There’s so much unutilized time and so many empty promises of tolerance and acceptance and working on making a community.” Mazner points out the issue of having the only gender-neutral restroom being the main office or Teen Health Center. “It was kept under real lock. I know someone who was turned away from that bathroom several times,” he said, “You can’t locate the only available bathroom in a place where students are allowed to be turned away.”

Cyrus Edwards is a senior and a member of GSA. They are gender fluid and use any pronouns. Edwards does not feel comfortable in either single-gendered bathroom and has stopped drinking water at school to avoid using the restroom, “It’s not great but for me better than the awkwardness of using the gender-neutral bathroom [in the Teen Health Center] or the dysphoria of using either of the gendered ones.” Before Edwards started using this solution, they used the bathroom in the Teen Health Center, but they didn’t feel it was very welcoming. “It’s very inconvenient to get to and also just very exposing to go in and be like ‘Hi can I please use the bathroom’ and it’s sort of implied that you’re outing yourself as queer.” Like others, Edwards believes that Garfield should have more than one gender-neutral bathroom. “I really like Nova [High School’s] system of having all gender-neutral bathrooms–some of them with urinals and some of them without,” they said. “ I understand that that’s not necessarily possible… Some people do want a bathroom that’s just for girls because it makes them feel safer and that’s totally valid.” Edwards hopes that the future gender-neutral bathrooms at Garfield can be an accessible and comfortable place for people of any and all genders. “I hope that the gender-neutral bathrooms can be bathrooms and not places for people to just mess around in because that’s what gets them closed. I hope they can just be places for people to pee and not worry about dysphoria or social stress.”

There has been a long-running debate within the administrative team regarding the gender-neutral restroom. “There were many incidents that led to urgent response and/or discipline that occurred in the all gender restroom [during the 2021-22] school year, and it was frequently closed due to vandalism.” Ms. Acton said, one of two remaining administrators who were present at the beginning of the conflict. “Many genderqueer (queer, trans and non-binary) identifying students reported feeling unsafe in the restroom.” Acton stated that initially, there were hopes to relocate the bathroom rather than removing it altogether. “The goal at the time was to establish an alternate, publicly available all gender restroom, but no viable solution could be agreed upon.” Despite outreach to students, staff, and community members, district involvement became necessary to resolve the longstanding issue. “When it comes to ensuring both identity and physical safety for students at Garfield, this is something that happens through culture change, community responsibility and reciprocal care,” Acton continued, “The Admin Team will continue to support the process and be responsive to student needs and concerns” 

Blake Saunders has been the choir and drumline teacher at Garfield for 5 years now. During the 2021-2022 school year, the gender-neutral restroom was next door to his room, so he took partial responsibility for it. “I have no qualms or issues, defending the spaces as best I can. That’s how I generally tried to help–by being a vocal and obvious presence,” he said. “I’m a proponent that we should reduce single-gender bathrooms to one of each in the building and everything else should be gender neutral,” Saunders said. While the restroom has faced its fair share of past conflict, there are hopes among students and staff alike that the gender-neutral bathroom will be just that: a bathroom.