Putting gender-neutral over handicapped-accessible bathrooms in West Virginia

New blue signs going up on bathroom doors at West Virginia University (WVU) have traditional male and female figures but also the new transgender logo of a half male, half female character. They are state-of-the-art, gender-neutral bathrooms, but Amanda Hutchison, who gets around campus in a wheelchair, told Campus Reform that WVU’s response to her needs “is very slow compared to the gender neutral bathroom advocates.”

The Americans with Disabilities Act adopted by Congress in 1990 promoted development of handicapped-accessible bathrooms. Hutchison said “gender-neutral bathrooms are not a law but handicap bathrooms are, and I think that is something the university should worry about first. Someone with gender identification needs can at least get into a bathroom.”

Transgender bathrooms are becoming common at universities coast-to-coast—from the University of California-Berkeley to New York University and from Western Washington University to Harvard. Advocates maintain everyone needs to feel safe and free from harassment in the bathroom—not just transsexuals and non-binary people. Some disability rights activists also support gender-neutral bathrooms, saying those with disabilities may need assistance from someone of a different sex.

Sometimes the restrooms—formerly labeled “unisex” or “family”— have not changed, only the signage. Some universities and municipalities are budgeting hundreds of thousands of dollars to make more changes or build new restrooms to accommodate the gender-challenged but not the physically challenged. Cities such as West Hollywood, Calif., are also requiring all single-stall restrooms in businesses and public places to be gender-neutral.

Ryan T. Anderson of the Heritage Foundation says Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity laws “threaten Americans with liability for alleged ‘discrimination’ based on subjective identities, not objective traits.” He notes the Obama administration now includes gender identity in its definition of “sex” in Title IX, the federal law that forbids discrimination on the basis of sex.