With the new fiscal year, University of Massachusetts has published its new policies and procedures including a policy it adopted in the spring 2015 semester. Here's the announcement from The Stonewall Center which serves UMass as its LGBTQIA+ Resource Center:

UMass now officially has a policy on the rights of trans people in campus bathrooms. The policy enables trans and gender-nonconforming people to use the gendered bathrooms in which they feel safer and more comfortable. 
The specific wording of the policy is: "The University of Massachusetts, Amherst strives to create and sustain a campus environment that supports and values all members of our community. One aspect of creating a supportive environment is providing safe, accessible, and convenient bathroom facilities. Students, staff, faculty, and campus guests should use the bathroom facilities that correspond to their sex or gender identity, or utilize bathrooms that are designated gender-neutral or gender-inclusive." 

Simple, clear, and with a strong focus on equality for all members of our community.

Stories - Q Daily, New York City, New York.

Q Daily, nine years old, pictured in the center. NPR.org

This story comes from NPR and the full story can be read here. I really enjoy this particular story because it shows that if kids are prompted well that there doesn't have to be major drama over a social gender transition. There are questions and kids tend to keep things very simple.

Meet 9-year-old Q Daily, who recently finished third grade at the Brooklyn New School in New York City. Q, who was born a girl, just spent his first full school year as a boy.

And to him, that's liberating. Really, he explains, it's everything: "It feels like — instead of a dead flower — a growing flower."

It might be a feeling his peers don't totally understand, but it seems like they really don't care, either.

Billy Griffith is one of Q's closest buddies. They were friends when Q was a girl, too, and they have a lot in common. "We both like Michael Jackson a lot," Billy says. "We're both obsessed with him a lot."

They love to dance, and performed in the school extravaganza two years in a row. They talk. They get along, and Q's transition doesn't affect how they play.

Billy says he probably asked Q at one point why he wanted to be a boy instead of a girl: "I think I forgot what the answer was. I don't know." Billy adds that it doesn't really matter, anyway.

Q transitioned from girl to boy gradually during second grade. That's when he started to dress in boy clothes, dropped his given name, Qwanaia, and wanted to go by "he."
Q's teacher, Katherine Sorel, says the third-grade students have adapted. "Occasionally, there are still kids that will say 'Qwanaia,' " Sorel says. "And still occasionally, they'll say, 'She ... I mean he.' " But it's rare.

 And of course. In keeping with the theme of this blog here's the piece about restrooms:

The big question at school, though, was the bathroom. Q started using the boys' room on his own in second grade, and says he was told by at least one adult not to. 

So Principal Anna Allanbrook did her homework. "And in fact, it is not the place of the school to tell the child which bathroom to use," she says. 

Allanbrook learned students should be allowed to use the bathroom of their gender identity. That's backed up by guidelines on transgender students that New York City issued last year. Not all schools in the city follow them; this one does.

The link above to New York City Schools guidelines on transgender students has a specific reference to Restrooms and Locker Room Accessibility:

Restroom and Locker Room Accessibility

The DOE aims to support transgender students while also ensuring the safety and comfort of all students. The use of restrooms and locker rooms by transgender students requires schools to consider numerous factors, including, but not limited to: the transgender student’s preference; protecting student privacy; maximizing social integration of the transgender student; minimizing stigmatization of the student; ensuring equal opportunity to participate; the student’s age; and protecting the safety of the students involved.

A transgender student who expresses a need or desire for increased privacy should be provided with reasonable alternative arrangements. Reasonable alternative arrangements may include the use of a private area, or a separate changing schedule, or use of a single stall restroom. Any alternative arrangement should be provided in a way that protects the student’s ability to keep his or her transgender status confidential.

A transgender student should not be required to use a locker room or restroom that conflicts with the student’s gender identity.

The rest of the the guidelines are well written and I'll be adding it to the resources page.

New York State Education Department issues Guidelines to become more inclusive for Trans* and Gender Nonconforming Students

The New York State Education Department (NYSED) this month has issued guidelines for all of their school districts to become more inclusive and safer for Transgender and Nonconforming students.

The full document can be found here:
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/dignityact/documents/Transg_GNCGuidanceFINAL.pdf

The document does a good job at providing education as to definitions of common terminology, why these policies are important, examples of situations a school may encounter, and how these policies will affect students in meaningful ways. It's one of the more impressive documents I've encountered.

Here are the well worded definitions they use for terminology used throughout the document:

Assigned Sex at Birth: the sex designation, usually “male” or “female,” assigned to a person when they are born.

Cisgender: an adjective describing a person whose gender identity corresponds to their assigned sex at birth. 

Gender expression: the manner in which a person represents or expresses gender to others, often through behavior, clothing, hairstyles, activities, voice, or mannerisms. 

Gender identity: a person’s gender-related identity, appearance or behavior, whether or not that gender-related identity, appearance or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the person’s physiology or assigned sex at birth. Everyone has a gender identity. 

Gender nonconforming (GNC): a term used to describe people whose gender expression differs from stereotypic expectations. The terms “gender variant” or “gender atypical” are also used. Gender nonconforming individuals may identify as male, female, some combination of both, or neither. 

Sexual Orientation: a person’s emotional and sexual attraction to other people based on the gender of the other person. Sexual orientation is not the same as gender identity. Not all transgender youth identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, and not all gay, lesbian and bisexual youth display gender-nonconforming characteristics. 

Transgender: an adjective describing a person whose gender identity does not correspond to their assigned sex at birth. 

Transition: the process by which a person socially and/or physically aligns their gender expression more closely to their actual gender identity and away from that associated with their assigned sex at birth. 

Here is the section specific to restroom use:

School districts, as well as students and their families, may find the use of restrooms, changing facilities, and participation in extracurricular activities to be among the more important issues in this area. The United States Departments of Education and Justice have stated that: 

[u]nder Title IX, discrimination based on a person’s gender identity, a person’s transgender status, or a person’s nonconformity to sex stereotypes constitutes discrimination based on sex. As such, prohibiting a student from accessing the restrooms that match his gender identity is prohibited sex discrimination under Title IX. There is a public interest in ensuring that all students, including transgender students, have the opportunity to learn in an environment free of sex discrimination.  

Alternative accommodations, such as a single “unisex” bathroom or private changing space, should be made available to students who request them, but should never be forced upon students, nor presented as the only option. The following are examples of ways in which school officials have responded to situations involving gender-segregated activities or spaces: 

EXAMPLES: 

In one elementary school, a transgender second-grader socially transitioned from female to male. After consultation with the student’s family and in accordance with the student’s wishes, the principal informed the staff: In order to foster an inclusive and supportive learning environment, the student will begin using male restrooms, in accordance with the student’s male gender identity and expression. 

In one high school, a transgender female student was given access to the female changing facility, but the student was uncomfortable using the female changing facility with other female students because there were no private changing areas within the facility. The principal examined the changing facility and determined that curtains could easily be put up along one side of a row of benches near the group lockers, providing private changing areas for any students who wished to use them. After the school put up the curtains, the student was comfortable using the changing facility.

OSHA issues a Guide to Restroom Access for Transgender Workers

The Department of Labor's (DOL) Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is influential in creating workplace standards across the nation. They have recently issued a document called "Best Practices: A Guide to Restroom access for Transgender Workers" The full document can be found here. For a list of other documents relating to LGBT Policy check out this link. 

This document focuses on a single simple core principle: "All employees, including transgender employees, should have access to restrooms that correspond to their gender identity."

Why is OSHA involved in a social issue? OSHA recognizes this is a health and safety matter: 

Gender identity is an intrinsic part of each person’s identity and everyday life. Accordingly, authorities on gender issues counsel that it is essential for employees to be able to work in a manner consistent with how they live the rest of their daily lives, based on their gender identity. Restricting employees to using only restrooms that are not consistent with their gender identity, or segregating them from other workers by requiring them to use gender-neutral or other specific restrooms, singles those employees out and may make them fear for their physical safety. Bathroom restrictions can result in employees avoiding using restrooms entirely while at work, which can lead to potentially serious physical injury or illness.

Now let's get into more specific practices and policies:

Many companies have implemented written policies to ensure that all employees—including transgender employees—have prompt access to appropriate sanitary facilities. The core belief underlying these policies is that all employees should be permitted to use the facilities that correspond with their gender identity. For example, a person who identifies as a man should be permitted to use men’s restrooms, and a person who identifies as a woman should be permitted to use women’s restrooms. The employee should determine the most appropriate and safest option for him- or herself.

The best policies also provide additional options, which employees may choose, but are not required, to use. These include: • Single-occupancy gender-neutral (unisex) facilities; and • Use of multiple-occupant, gender-neutral restroom facilities with lockable single occupant stalls. 

Regardless of the physical layout of a worksite, all employers need to find solutions that are safe and convenient and respect transgender employees.

Under these best practices, employees are not asked to provide any medical or legal documentation of their gender identity in order to have access to gender-appropriate facilities. In addition, no employee should be required to use a segregated facility apart from other employees because of their gender identity or transgender status. Under OSHA standards, employees generally may not be limited to using facilities that are an unreasonable distance or travel time from the employee’s worksite.

The document includes an important disclaimer: 

"This document is not a standard or regulation, and it creates no new legal obligations. It contains recommendations as well as descriptions of mandatory safety and health standards. The recommendations are advisory in nature, informational in content, and are intended to assist employers in providing a safe and healthful workplace. The Occupational Safety and Health Act requires employers to comply with safety and health standards and regulations promulgated by OSHA or by a state with an OSHA-approved state plan. In addition, the Act’s General Duty Clause, Section 5(a)(1), requires employers to provide their employees with a workplace free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm."

While OSHA does not create laws, rules, or regulations it does pay attention to them:

 Employers should be aware of specific laws, rules, or regulations regarding restroom access in their states and/or municipalities, as well as the potential application of federal antidiscrimination laws. 

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Justice (DOJ), DOL, and several other federal agencies, following several court rulings, have interpreted prohibitions on sex discrimination, including those contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to prohibit employment discrimination based on gender identity or transgender status. In April 2015, the DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) announced it would require federal contractors subject to Executive Order 11246, as amended, which prohibits discrimination based on both sex and gender identity, to allow transgender employees to use the restrooms and other facilities consistent with their gender identity. Also in April 2015, the EEOC ruled that a transgender employee cannot be denied access to the common restrooms used by other employees of the same gender identity, regardless of whether that employee has had any medical procedure or whether other employees’ may have negative reactions to allowing the employee to do so. The EEOC held that such a denial of access constituted direct evidence of sex discrimination under Title VII.

The document goes on to sample laws from Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Iowa, Vermont, and Washington with links to each as well as other resources and references. I'll be going through these and adding them to the resource page as appropriate.

Stories - Brenda Way, co-founder of WiTCoN in Wichita

I have decided to begin sharing stories I find in the news and blogosphere relating to Trans* advocacy. I think a major part of advocacy is simply getting those stories out there and perhaps it can help people to remember that trans* people are humans with struggles and stories. The fight for restroom use is simply a small sub-set of trans* stories.

Brenda Way (left) and Elle Boatman (right) co-founders of WiTCoN

The first story comes from The Wichita Eagle and the full article can be found here.

Brenda Way was out of coffee creamer. She ran into a local grocery store but needed to use the restroom, and as she came out of the stall, a woman confronted her.

Way, who began her transition from male to female less than a year ago, is unemployed, fired from her job as a dishwasher, she said, when a male co-worker was offended that she called him “sweetie.” Her then-wife threw her out of the house when her transition started, and for about six weeks she lived under a bridge near Maple Street. She wears blue eyeshadow and short skirts with wedge heels, but she hasn’t yet begun the long and uncertain process of changing her gender on her driver’s license, which makes finding another job difficult.

The woman told Way she was in the wrong restroom and to get out.

“I basically shrugged her off and went and got my creamer,” Way said. “I was standing in the coffee aisle with one of those baskets trying to pick out what I wanted, and all the sudden, she comes running up the aisle with the security guard going, ‘That’s him! That’s him! That’s the man who was in the woman’s restroom!’”

Jenner’s recent coming-out party was a good sign for transgender people, say local members of the transgender community and the experts who serve them. But Jenner’s experience – and the experiences of other high-profile transgender people like Laverne Cox, Jazz Jennings and Chaz Bono – is not typical, they say. Most transgender people are poor. Many are struggling with issues ranging from homelessness to joblessness to suicide. Many avoid going out in public for fear of being ridiculed or worse. And very few of them will ever be able to afford the expensive surgeries that would make their transformations complete.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article26505787.html#storylink=cpy

The article continues on with statistics relating to persecution and suicides in the transgender community and then comes back to Way's story:

She grew up in Minneapolis, and said she recently found out she was born intersex, with underdeveloped female genitalia that was eliminated through surgery when she was a baby.

When she hit puberty, she began to develop breasts, and her father insisted she begin taking testosterone. But she still never felt like she was a boy. She’d never heard the word transgender and guessed that the bullies at school were right – maybe her effeminate characteristics meant she was gay.

She joined the Army when she was 17 but was discharged four years later. Way has been married to three women. During her last marriage, the feelings she’d had her whole life became too hard to fight. Way had attempted suicide five times when she finally found a therapist who helped her recognize that she wasn’t confused about her sexuality. She was transgender.

“I was miserable, and there was this wonderful, confident woman that was screaming to come out of me,” she said. “I felt more comfortable, more confident when I was in women’s clothes. When I was in men’s clothes I was always uptight and anxious and really uncomfortable. I felt like I wanted to just crawl out of my own skin.”

In September of last year, Way threw out all of her men’s clothes, started hormone replacement therapy and began her life as a woman. Her wife asked her to leave the house.

She was homeless and slept on friends’ couches for a while before living under the bridge. Her entire family disowned her, she said, and she had to give up two of her beloved hobbies – riding motorcycles and playing disc golf. The first group no longer accepted her. The second one doesn’t allow transgender people to compete in sanctioned events, she said.

The past eight months have been marked with loneliness and despair and more suicide attempts, Way said.

“It’s been really tough. Now, even though I’m a happier person on the inside with myself and with who I am, now I’m realizing there are a lot of different struggles – with dysphoria, with how you feel about your looks, your progress on your feminization. You have to fight loneliness and you have to fight the struggles of not having a job, and it’s miserable because there’s nothing out there for us, and you basically feel like you’re on this journey completely by yourself.”

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article26505787.html#storylink=cpy

Logo art made by Brenda Way for WiTCoN, a Trans* Community Network and Support Group

Brenda Way has helped to start the Wichita Transgender Community Network or "WiTCoN" They can be found on their website www.witcon.org or their Facebook page here. Something that's nice is that they include meetings that connect with community resources that want to better serve the transgender community. Here in Salt Lake City, Utah there is now an annual mini-conference each November for community professionals to meet, share, coordinate, and learn how to better serve the trans* community both as trans* professionals and as those seeking to be allies. More of these kinds of community networks need to happen.

The work at UNC Charlotte

www.uncc.edu 

Ashley Oliver, Graduate assistant at UNC Charlotte's Division for Student Affairs wrote in January about their university's Gender-Neutral Restrooms. I found the quick news story great for seeing the sort of language used to pitch the idea in terms of accessibility:

“The addition of more accessible and gender-neutral spaces will make the campus more inclusive and safer for all its students, faculty and staff,” said Josh Burford, assistant director for sexual and gender diversity with the Multicultural Resource Center and chair of the Trans* Committee.

“The goal of the new FSAURs on campus is to provide greater restroom accessibility, privacy and safety for everyone on campus, regardless of gender or physical abilities,” said Burford. 

I think I've been calling them "FSUARs" since that was how it was written in the AUCCCO Outreach Conference but I see it's just a little flipped around. I actually kind of like saying my version better, "eff-swars" or "fah-swars" but I guess "fah-sowrs" works too. Or perhaps it's "fah-sar" like Dinosaur.

Hmmm...

Okay. I like it.

The article also helps to identify the sort of committees you might want to partner up with to make FSAUR or similar restroom a reality:

The Campus Accessibility Advisory Committee, a 15-member group appointed by the chancellor, recently recommended that students be able to use any gender restroom on campus to which they self-identify. In response, the Trans* Committee and the Office of Disability Services have partnered in a joint effort to establish accessible and gender-neutral restroom facilities in every academic building on campus.

I'll be adding something like "Committees and Student Groups" to the resource list to check out when you're trying to advocate for trans-friendly spaces.

Networking

A colleague of mine recently forwarded an email from a graduate student at University of South Dakota. I've removed names for the sake of privacy just in case: 

My name is [Name Removed] and I am a graduate student in the clinical psychology program at the University of South Dakota. The university’s Diversity Committee is looking for information about establishing gender-neutral restroom facilities. We are specifically interested in learning about how these initiatives have been rolled out at other universities with respect to policy implementation, as well as any need for psychoeducation/student reception. Any insights, articles, ideas, or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Please backchannel to [email removed]. 

Here's my response:

Figure out what level of change you want to implement. Are you trying to create a university-wide policy or advocate building by building? Some of the work was done already here at the University of Utah and it’s been made University Policy that all new buildings include at least one gender neutral restroom. This doesn’t fix old buildings, however, and it can still be a bit of a hunt for a Trans* or Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) individual such as myself to find one. Each building should hopefully have a Building or Facility Manager that you can contact and coordinates with the larger Campus Planning and Development Office which should be familiar with University, City/County, State, and Federal building standards and regulations.

Figure out what state regulations exist regarding “potty parity”. For example here in Utah it’s required that a building have a certain number and particular ratio of male and female-designated toilet fixtures per building occupant. I discovered that the building our counseling center is in is actually low on the number of toilet fixtures it is supposed to have. I thought that this would work to my advantage but it actually worked against me. The building is grandfathered in by being older than the new regulation and exempt from catching up to the new code. I was trying to start small by advocating to convert one restroom into a set of single-stall restrooms. Unfortunately since single-stall restrooms take up more space my project would reduce the total number of fixtures by converting one of our restrooms with 4 toilet fixtures down to two single-stall restrooms. Using the argument, “Let’s bring our building up to code” turned it into a massive expense that was simply out of the budget. As a result the project for this counseling center’s gender neutral restroom has been stalled (pardon the pun).

I started to see that arguing on the basis of gender was less persuasive than I would have hoped. Even though there’s the social justice advocate in me that wants to put TGNC rights at the forefront of the conversation I thought perhaps there was another approach. I recently attended a conference where Erica Lennon (EricaLennon@uncc.edu) from UNC Charlotte spoke about their efforts to help TGNC students and she found similar resistance. However, when she and other advocates pitched the idea of renovating or converting restrooms for increased accessibility overall administrators were much more inclined to agree. She advocated for Family Style Unisex Accessible Restrooms (FSUAR). These are ADA accessible restrooms that allow room for people who need assistance either as small children or are physically disabled, privacy for such assistance or for those who need to administer their own medical injections such as diabetics, and aren’t limited to sex or gender identity. Any single-stall male/female-designated restroom can be converted into a FSUAR by changing the signage (if there aren’t other laws blocking it like parity). Where some people may be squeamish about helping someone who is trans* advocating for “Family Style” gets around that. Plenty of single fathers and mothers have to bring their children into the “wrong” bathroom and appreciate having a unisex restroom available.

Hopefully you found this information helpful. Please keep in touch and let me know how your efforts go at University of South Dakota.