An Irish university has created dozens of gender-neutral bathrooms, and everything is fine
An Irish university has opened 54 gender-neutral bathrooms to encourage “a sense of community” among students.
Dublin City University has followed its students’ wishes in introducing the toilets on all three of its campuses, all at once.
Bathroom signs now feature stock images of a man, a woman, a person wearing half a dress and a disabled symbol, according to the Irish Times.
DCU welfare and equality officer Cody Byrne said the university, in the north of the capital, found the shift to gender-neutral facilities relatively simple.
“A lot of other colleges in the country have it already done, so we sort of just followed their model of modifying the disability access bathrooms,” he said.
“We decided to change the signage on them rather than remodelling all the bathrooms entirely. It was just a bit more cost efficient.”
That’s right – all it took was a signage change.
And he said that looking forward, the future was gender-neutral.
“Every other future development with regards to construction will take into account the gender neutral bathrooms,” stated Byrne.
“For example, at the Glasnevin campus there will be a three-storey hub being completed in February 2018, so they will also have gender neutral bathrooms.”
He said the bathrooms would strengthen the “sense of community” among students.
No catastrophes, protests or apocalyptic incidents have been reported at the university as yet, despite the bathroom signs having been in place for two weeks now.
This is despite gender-neutral bathrooms causing a huge stir in the UK and the US.
The latest fight over the issue, which has somehow become a major political battleground, is in Texas.
Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon – among other tech companies – have urged the state’s governor to not adopt an anti-trans bathroom bill which they have called “discriminatory”.
On the plus side, earlier this week, the federal court of appeals destroyed a school’s reasons for keeping a transgender child from using his bathroom of choice.
The opinion, issued by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, told Kenosha Unified School District in Wisconsin that it had negatively affected student Ash Whitaker, 17, with its policy.
The case is now likely to move to the US Supreme Court, which earlier this year told another trans teen, Gavin Grimm, that he would not secure a hearing before he graduates.
Grimm, who lives in Virginia, is also seeking legal recognition of his right to use a gender-appropriate bathroom.
