Correction: An initial version of the caption of the photo of Rene Hoyo stated he was professor, but he is an instructional assistant. It had been corrected.
People need to pee.
It is one of the immutable facts of life: everyone uses the bathroom.
For many students, entering the men’s or women’s restroom while attending classes on LBCC campus is something they barely spare a second thought to, but for students who don’t feel safe entering either bathroom, tracking down a bathroom the students can use can be a hassle.
LAC, like most other colleges, has single stall, gender neutral bathrooms for students to use. The issue is, many of these bathrooms are out of the way, difficult to find, or in buildings with low foot traffic.
“When I have to use the bathroom during a class in a building with no gender neutral bathrooms, I just hold it. It’s such a dysphoric experience when I have to go into the women’s restroom, especially when I’m presenting more masculine,” Payne West, a LBCC student said.
West is one of several students and faculty who regularly use the few single stall, gender neutral bathrooms available on campus. 12 single stall bathrooms are available to students at the Liberal Arts Campus (LAC), compared to 44 men’s and 44 women’s multi stall restrooms.
“It’s infuriating because it can pose a health risk, having to hold it when I don’t feel safe going into the men’s or women’s restroom,” West said.
West is nonbinary, not aligning with either category of man or woman. Prior to attending LBCC, West went to a community college near Bakersfield, where they said it was much harder to find any gender neutral bathrooms at all.
“There were probably no gender neutral bathrooms in that whole town. Yes, it’s better (at LBCC) than other places, but it’s like they just don’t want to get better,” West said.
Ross Trujillo, another nonbinary student, has been attending LBCC for five years, but only started to use the single stall bathrooms after they began identifying as nonbinary and returning to school after the COVID-19 quarantine.
For Trujillo, going to the bathroom is something they have to plan in advance, ensuring they can go to a gender neutral bathroom to relieve themselves before attending class in a building with only men’s or women’s bathrooms.
“I don’t want to make people uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s important to put other people’s needs above our own, but I have to pee too,” Trujillo said.
If Trujillo has to go during class, they have to decide between getting gawked at in the men’s room, questioned in the women’s room or walking to an entirely different building to find a gender neutral bathroom, eating away at valuable class time.
“One time someone asked me if I was in the right bathroom. It was the women’s restroom and I’m biologically female, so it was a little surprising. I just said ‘yes’ in a pitched up voice, even though my voice isn’t that masculine just to make sure they wouldn’t get scared,” Trujillo said.
LBCC has attempted to address the lack of single stall bathrooms by ensuring that all newly constructed buildings include at least one gender neutral bathroom per floor, according to Business Services Vice President Raymond West.
Currently, the only buildings with gender neutral bathrooms are those that have been renovated within the last decade, meaning the P, M, W, V and J buildings all have single stall bathrooms.
The outlier is the A building, where the student health services offices have a single occupancy bathroom students can use upon request.
“The challenge we have in old buildings is that you can’t take a pre-existing bathroom and convert it to a single occupancy bathroom,” West said. “but how can we say you belong, when you can’t even find a place to (use the bathroom)?”
While the push for the construction of more single stall, gender neutral bathrooms continues, there are options LBCC can consider to further help students and increase the number of gender neutral bathrooms accessible to them.
Currently, the LAC P building houses three gender neutral bathrooms, but two have been locked and designated as ‘staff only’ bathrooms. On the second floor of the V building, single stall bathrooms exist behind lock and key, also designated to be staff only.
When asked about this distinction, Vice President West said it was likely enforced at the discretion of the buildings’ department dean, and could not give a further answer as to why these bathrooms are inaccessible to students.
LBCC could also push to expedite the reconstruction of old campus buildings that do not house single stall bathrooms. As the percentage of nonbinary and transgender students increases, so will the need for bathrooms they feel comfortable using.
Rene Hoyo, an instructional assistant that works in the computer and office studies department lab, said he felt more comfortable using the single occupancy stalls for privacy and cleanliness.
“I always come back here to use this bathroom. If I’m by the B building I might use the bathroom they have there, but otherwise if I have to go, I come back to the M building to use these bathrooms,” Hoyo said.
Hoyo talked at length about the struggle gender non-conforming and transgender people face when using public restrooms.
“I work a lot with members of the LGBT community. A lot of the time we go to places with no gender neutral bathrooms and people feel awkward going into the bathroom. They worry they might make others uncomfortable. They might not worry as much in a gender neutral bathroom,” Hoyo said.
“There just needs to be more. What we have now is not enough,” Trujillo said.