The ongoing disunity in American culture over the issue of gender identity has found its way into the bathrooms of Yale University.
After much grief and multiple complaints from students of there being a shortage of gender-neutral restrooms present on their campus, Yale law school submitted a construction request to modify their single-user or gender specific restrooms into gender neutral restrooms.
In order to meet the state of Connecticut building code, however, the school must have a specific number of lavatories relegated by sex.
Connecticut building regulations indicate that the concept of “gender neutral” does not meet qualification that count toward the amount of restrooms required by the state. In other words, the restrooms have to be specified as either “Male” or “Female” in order to meet code.
The Ivy League’s law school has filed a lawsuit against its home state of Connecticut in response to the denial by the state building inspectors office.
Yale submitted an administrative waiver in response to the original contradiction from the building inspectors office. Part of the appeal states:
“During the 2015-16 school year, Law School students and others in the Law School community had expressed strong support to shift the two subject multiple fixture restrooms from gender specific to gender neutral. Some of the student proponents of the shift had reported being made to feel uncomfortable when using gender specific bathrooms. The proposed shift in designation of the two multi-fixture restrooms to gender neutral and associated Code modification would facilitate quick access to a bathroom within the building for persons of all gender identities, eliminate discomfort expressed by trans and gender non-conforming Law School students in using gender specific restrooms and promote the equal treatment of trans and gender non-conforming students. The University supported moving forward with a request for Code modification.”
In regards to buildings already erected on campus, the state building code has forbid the University from diluting the current quantity of lavatories below minimal requirement. In an article published by the New Haven Register, Yale has given two counterarguments for this regulation.
The first is that they’re physically unable to construct anymore restrooms due to “programming and space constraints.” Their second argument is “the negative impact construction of more restrooms would have on the ‘architecturally significant interior spaces’ of the Sterling Law Building at 127 Wall St. which was built in the 1920s.”
The column goes on to state that their has been a push for progression at the graduate school on the grounds that a vast majority of the present gender-neutral restrooms in the vicinity are “inconvenient” for individuals with a minute amount of time to spend in between classes.
According to the The Yale Daily News, certain law students at Yale have stated “most of the existing gender-neutral bathrooms in the law building are positioned too “out-of-the-way” to accommodate short breaks between classes, and there is always a line for the one centrally-located single-stall bathroom.”
The article goes on to take a more cultural approach on the restroom issue on campus.
Interviewing multiple members of the LGBTQ community, complaints have included:
“…the transgender and gender-nonconforming people in the broader Connecticut community are more afraid to use bathrooms than law students.”
“…a presumption of heterosexuality in support of gender-specific bathrooms have made her uncomfortable to use the female bathroom in the past.”
“Although this doesn’t happen much anymore, I’ve been told I was in the wrong bathroom before, which makes it hard to feel like there’s a right bathroom,”
The paramount concern at the law school is that there is a paucity of restrooms on campus available to students. The institution has had the opportunity to increase the number of restrooms on campus and still does, however they will have to decide if they are looking to make a political statement or provide basic accommodations for students. Just because the solution doesn’t specifically fit the interests of left-wing advocates doesn’t mean there isn’t a solution. Irregardless of the seemingly myriad number of concerns restrooms have given the #1 ranked law school in the country, the Office of the State Building Inspector will be their primary obstacle to overcome.
