Beginning Assessment

Beginning Assessment

Before jumping into construction I need to assess what I'm working with and what I need to do. I'm flooded with so many questions I don't even know if I'm asking the right questions.

A little 'stream of consciousness':

What will it cost? Who do I talk to? Will people care? How long will this take? Who will use it? Where in the building? Are there laws in the way? What did other people do? Is there enough room? Will I have enough time to do this? Is this the most effective use of my time? What is the meaning of the universe? What's for lunch?

Maybe there's a more effective way of breaking this down.  Let's go back to elementary school with the 5 questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why?

Who?

• Who does this help? 
• Trans* and Gender-Nonconforming Students, Faculty and Staff
• A gender-neutral bathroom is open to all. The building's current configuration places men's and women's restrooms at opposite ends making it inconvenient if you happen to be on the far side of a long building. 
• University Counseling Center
• Center for Student Wellness
• Admissions/Financial Aid
• Student Learning Center/Tutoring
• Who do I need to talk to?
• Building manager
• Counseling Center Director
• Who could help?
• LGBT Resource Center?
• Utah Pride Center
• TEA of Utah

What?

• Gender-Neutral Bathroom
• Gender Free?
• Unisex?
• Family
• All-Gender
• Single-Stall
• 2 Single-stall restrooms?
• What to accomplish?
• Social Justice
• Improved Access to Services

When?

• When can this happen?
• When do I have time to get this done?

Where?

• Where in the building?
• Next to the Counseling Center?
• On the main floor?
• Where do we serve the most people?
• Where do we serve the most Trans* people?

Why?

• Why is this important?
• Trans* are at risk
• Suicide
• Self - Harm
• Depression
• Substance Abuse
• Marginalized community
• The Counseling Center's mission is to serve a diverse population and respect differences.

Which leads to a sixth question: How?

This integrates the above questions and is perhaps the big question I hope to answer in this project. 

Beginning the Diversity Initiative

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Hello. My name is James Dinh and I am a Social Work Intern at the University of Utah Counseling Center (UCC). I identify as genderqueer and one of the things I experience as someone who doesn't feel at home in the binary of male and female is not feeling safe and welcome in a gendered restroom. It's been a strange sense of discomfort and anxiety that I can trace back since kindergarten when we lined up separately as boys and girls. Back when I interviewed for the internship here I thought about the possibility of advocating for a gender-neutral bathroom. There are more and more of them popping up on campus already. I quickly shut myself down, however, and told myself that I was a lowly intern, it's an expensive project, and no one else would really care. 

Today I was part of a team that decided to take a look at a proposed "Gender-Confirming Letter Provision Policy" and it was brought up that there were other ways we can work to make this a safer and more welcoming place for transgender and gender non-conforming clients such as having a gender-neutral bathroom. It was cisgender staff that brought this up and before I realized what was happening my eyes were watering and my voice was shaky. I thanked the group, which already knew that I am genderqueer; I thanked them for validating me -- my existence. It still sounds so silly to me to say it now but something as simple as a gender-neutral bathroom helps to acknowledge that I and many others like me exist. 

Each clinical intern here is tasked with working on a "Diversity Initiative" in which we find a way to meet the needs of an under-served population here at the UCC. I have taken on this project to not only fulfill my internship requirement, but to also reaffirm myself.

I exist. I am important. I am not alone. I am a human being and please... just let me pee.