UH-Downtown SGA Unanimously Passes Gender Neutral Restrooms Resolution

Had the opportunity today to observe a little piece of history as UH-Downtown because the second school in the state of Texas and the first college in the Houston metro area to provide gender neutral restrooms on its campus.

Their first general assembly meeting of the 2014 spring semester was no ordinary one.  It had local media, news cameras and a certain blogger present as we watched student leaders debate the merits of Senate Resolution SR2014January10.

It was a proposal to convert six restrooms on the 14,400 student campus as family/gender neutral ones out of the 60 scattered throughout the three buildings that make up the UHD campus.    

It was authored by UHD VP Kristopher Sharp and UHD Senator John Locke (who was also a sponsor).   It had the sponsorship of UHD Senators LaTrina Carter, Michellee Gutierrez, Channalis Chea, Mohammed Mohsin, Kumail Mir, Michelle Gutierrez and Carlos Rodriguez.

It had the support of UHD SGA President Isaac Valdez, student body such as LaKeia Spady and Marie Angel Hernandez, faculty, staff, the administration and the community at large.

Many of the student leaders and student body members who approached the podium spoke in favor of the proposal. 

The authoring of Senate Resolution SR2014January10 was driven by an incident in which a trans student was harassed in a restroom.  In the wake of that incident troubling reports began to emerge that other trans and gender variant UHD students were so uncomfortable using on campus gendered bathrooms they either waited to go home to do so, waited until the restroom in question cleared out so they wouldn't be disturbed, used one at a nearby  area restaurant or didn't drink or eat anything while on campus. 

But it was the moving words of trans student Marie Angel Hernandez after she stepped to the podium that brought the room to its feet with a standing ovation for her when she was done.  
 

The resolution to designate two bathrooms (one male, one female) in each of UHD's three buildings as gender neutral restrooms open to anyone passed unanimously on a 7-0 vote. 

“This is an important step in UHD’s mission to include diversity and inclusion at the cornerstone of everything that we do,” said VP Kristopher Sharp. “With a unanimous passage by our Senate, this truly shows how important this issue is to the UHD community.”

The unanimously passed SGA proposal now goes to the UHD administration, which is expected to approve it.

Congratulations to the student leaders on the UHD campus for showing the community how solving problems is done.  Hopefully other Houston area colleges and our esteemed Houston City Council will follow your sterling example.   

UH-Downtown Gender Neutral Bathroom Proposal Up For Vote

If Kristopher Sharp and the students of UH-Downtown get their way on Friday, UHD will become the first school in the Houston area and the second in the state of Texas with gender neutral restrooms.

A proposal is being considered by the UHD student government association on January 10 that would designate two bathrooms (one male, one female) in each of UHD's three buildings as gender neutral restrooms open to anyone.

UHD student body Vice President Kristopher Sharp is pushing the initiative after hearing of trans and gender variant students being either harassed or made to feel so uncomfortable they refrain from using the on campus facilities.

Ever since Sharp's election as student body vice president last April, he has been busy addressing some of the groups that have felt marginalized on campus versus the rest of the student population.

Sharp helped create a GLBT resource center on the UH-Downtown campus, amend the nondiscrimination policy to include sexual orientation and gender identity in the student handbook, and create a diversity committee in the student government focused on finding underrepresented populations, such as international, veteran and LGBT students. A similar diversity committee was also created for administration for faculty, staff and students to look at diversity issues at the university.

"We began to see that, in many ways, our university was disproportionally leaving out the transgender population, which we have a sizable transgender population on campus,” Sharp said.

Sharp wrote up the proposal after hearing stories about a transfeminine student being confronted twice in the women's restroom.   It also has the advantage of being a quick and cheap solution since it requires only a new sign (and possibly instructions) on the door.

The proposal also affects only six of the 60 bathrooms on the UHD campus.

University officials have been working to address the problem by building lockable single stall restrooms of which the first is scheduled to open in February according to John Hudson, director of UHD's new Center for Student Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

"Others we hope would come on line later in the year," Hudson said in a Houston Chronicle interview.  The administration's plan calls for a total of five private restrooms - one in each main building, one near the auditorium and one at the sports center, he said.

Good luck and hope that proposal gets the unanimous vote and passage it deserves..

University Of Texas Installing Gender Neutral Restrooms

Y'all know as a proud University of Houston Cougar I have no love for burnt orange when it comes to the sports teams representing that school in Austin.  

But I have to give the University of Texas at Austin their props for their initiative to install gender neutral restrooms in all new and existing building on campus.

According to a July 25 story in the Daily Texan, Linda Millstone, the associate vice president for the Office of Institutional Equity and Workforce Diversity, is leading the effort to have at least one gender neutral restroom for every five floors of UT on campus buildings.

She went to the Building Advisory committee with the idea of having any newly constructed or future on campus buildings include gender neutral bathrooms in their design blueprints.   They not only agreed to do so, but Pat Clubb. the vice president for University Operations also agreed to fund the installation of gender neutral restrooms in all existing UT-Austin buildings as well. 

“Most buildings already have one or two single-stall restrooms, so it has been as easy as taking down the male or female sign and installing a lock on the door,” Millstone said.

Millstone said gender-neutral restrooms benefit a number of different people, including GLBT-identified persons, people with disabilities and people with medical conditions such as diabetes who need a private place to administer medication.

The list of gender neutral restrooms will be posted on the home page of UT's Gender And Sexuality Center webpage and according the article was supposed to be updated by the end of the summer.

Will check with my friends on the UT campus to confirm if the gender neutral bathroom list that is posted on their site is or has indeed been updated. 
 
As I keep telling you TBLG peeps who wanna reflexively hate on Texas, my home state is a little more complicated and more purple than the bright red hate on BTLG people narrative the GOP and others would like you to believe.

But major props to the University of Texas at Austin for this proactive move on gender neutral restrooms. parts.

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