For the sake of this article, I will use trans to mean trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse students and gender-neutral bathrooms to also mean all-gender bathrooms. 

CSUSM’s gender-neutral bathrooms are not doing their job because they’re difficult to find for the people they’re designed for: transgender and non-binary students. It’s strange, on the university’s website, specifically the Women and Gender Equity Center’s subpage, these bathrooms are specifically listed as ‘trans and non-binary resources’ yet most trans students can’t find them. This is a major issue! There’s over 30 (I found this by counting each one on CSUSM’s map) and each one is essential to a trans student’s safety on campus. However, trans students are unlikely to know about most of these bathrooms unless they know other trans people. 

WHY DOES CSUSM HAVE GENDER-NEUTRAL BATHROOMS? 

CSUSM has always tried, and let me highlight the word tried, to be inclusive and diverse, which has mainly been the result of student and faculty activism. Back in 2014, the USU housed some of CSUSM’s first gender neutral bathrooms meant for trans people. That was ten years ago, and we’ve seriously come a long way. Now, there’s gender neutral bathrooms in almost every building, yet they have been and continue to be included in the California Faculty Association’s demands to make the CSUs safer, more inclusive, and over all better. So clearly, there is still more work to be done.  

WHY ARE GENDER-NEUTRAL BATHROOMS IMPORTANT FOR TRANS PEOPLE? 

Some might argue that at least trans students have gender-neutral bathrooms. I disagree. Gender-neutral bathrooms are the bare minimum. They are essential because they mean safety to trans students. I talked to over a dozen on campus and the overwhelming majority prefer gender-neutral bathrooms to gendered ones. The reasons range from “I don’t get questioned/weird looks” to “I just feel safer” and so on. As a fellow trans person, I agree. I didn’t know about most of the gender-neutral bathrooms until this year, my second year at CSUSM. Honestly, sometimes I feel fine going to the men’s bathrooms, but I still occasionally get weird looks when I’m in there or when I leave because I don’t “pass” as what our society typically thinks of when they think of guys. In other words, I look pretty obviously queer and like many other trans people, every day I’m made aware, quite glaringly, of how I “look different,” even by well-meaning people.  

At the end of the day, gender-neutral bathrooms are just easier to use. I don’t have to worry if I’m going to see a cis classmate at the sinks or get a weird look as I’m drying my hands. I can take my time, look in the mirror without that nagging real anxiety of getting stared down. When you’re already having a stressful day, which most college students are, the last thing you want is to scramble trying to find the bathroom or to have someone questioning your basic identity. 

My point is that trans people and our lived experiences are why gender-neutral bathrooms are so important. No matter how high I might hold my chin and how steel I might turn my nerves, I’m only human, and the bravest of trans people are too. But we shouldn’t have to be brave, we shouldn’t have to do more work to find bathrooms meant for us. We deserve peace and to be respected. We deserve easy access to the bathroom.  

But if we don’t know where these bathrooms are on campus, how would that anxiety be relieved? How will we feel safe? How do we succeed?  

According to a 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, in that past year, 59% of trans people avoided using a public restroom, 32% limited what they ate to avoid using the restroom, and 24% had their presence questioned or challenged. While these statistics may be dated, we cannot ignore these numbers. The intensity of transphobia in America has only risen since 2016. We see it everywhere, popping up in legislation across the country.  

As of September 2024, there are over 100 active anti-trans bills in addition to the 40+ that have already passed. Anti-trans bills are essentially any bill trying to block trans people from receiving access to basic healthcare, legal recognition, and the right to publicly exist. With this rising hate, the university needs to stand by its values of diversity and equity more than ever by supporting trans students. But if we can’t find them, they’re not a resource, they’re an empty discarded gift box, shiny, disposable, and easily ignored.  

HOLD ON, HASN’T CSUSM GIVEN RESOURCES FOR THESE BATHROOMS?  

This is true! CSUSM’s website gives students a list of all the gender-neutral bathrooms, so why would they still be difficult to find? Plus, it’s easily accessible; anyone can do a quick Google search of ‘CSUSM gender-neutral bathrooms’ to find it. However, it’s dreadfully incomplete. 

• University Student Union – 4th Floor (Down the hallway from the WGEC)  

• Science Hall 1 – 1st Floor  

• Administrative Building – 4th Floor  

• Kellogg Library – 3rd Floor  

• Social & Behavioral Sciences Building – 4th Floor (Next to the Sociology Department) 

• Student Health & Counseling Services Building – 2nd Floor (Rooms 203 & 205)  

• Extended Learning Building – 2nd – 6th Floor (Located in the Same Location on Each Floor) 

• Sports Center – 1st Floor (Room 1006) 

• Public Safety Building – 1st Floor (Room 102)  

• University Services Building  

As you can see, the university lists ten, which is actually one-third of them, and only has directional instructions for two buildings–the USU and SBSB. This is beyond lazy, irresponsible, and completely disrespectful to trans students. I can’t see a single reason why there can’t be a complete list with clear instructions. Ridiculous! With all that we pay for facilities, you would think getting to the bathroom would be easy. Without students, there is no university! 

Wait! Okay, that was a lot. Let’s take a breather. I’m going to try and give the university the benefit of the doubt. The list sucks, but the university links you to a map of the school so you can find all of them and there’s details about the room numbers. (If you want to do this yourself, scroll down to restrooms, click all gender restrooms and you’ll find a list by each building.) Plus, maybe someone just genuinely forgot to update CSUSM’s communication team about the new bathrooms, or there was miscommunication on where they are. It’s possible that no one was even aware this was an issue. 

You know, CSUSM staff must deal with so much and it’s true the list is incomplete, but the map fills in the gaps! Well, dear reader, this is still an issue because now it puts the work on the students to hunt down the restrooms when this is not our job. Plus, think about the trans students new to the school e.g. freshman, transfer, international, they’re going to have a horrible time since the map doesn’t give any instructions. And of course, some might ask, why would you need instructions? No one gives instructions to find your classes. We need instructions because the gender-neutral bathrooms are in the corners and the depths of this university, that’s why! For example, the fourth floor Admin building restroom is at the end of an infinitely long, creepy hallway. You’ve practically got to answer the riddles three from whatever haunts the Admin building and pray to whatever you believe in that you make it back alive before the ground swallows you up. Not to mention the SBSB bathroom that’s all the way at the top floor and, I don’t know about you, but when I need to go after class, the last thing I want to do is wait in line for the elevator or climb three flights of stairs.  

Maybe I’m just frustrated, maybe this isn’t all that bad. Let’s talk about the gender-neutral bathrooms in the USU, the center of student life. The list tells students about gender-neutral bathrooms on the “fourth floor (Down the hallway from the WGEC)” but this isn’t true. The WGEC is on the third floor and when you go to the map, apparently there’s seven gender-neutral bathrooms in the USU, in rooms 1801, 1802, 4800, 4801 & 4802, in addition to the two on the 3rd floor.  

Enough complaining!! So, what if the list sucks and the map is confusing? We’re all adults, we’re all in college, we’re smart, what is the big deal?  Just read the map and use your reasoning skills, anyone can figure that out—okay, let me stop myself there. Again, all well and true, but again, it should not be this difficult just to pee! Look around, look at the buildings you walk into every day, every single one has gendered bathrooms that are extremely easy to find. From the Academic Hall, to Markstein, to Kellogg, there’s gendered bathrooms right when you enter on every floor.  

Cis students don’t have to worry about where they’re going to pee, they don’t have to worry about finding a list, and then a map and navigating that. They don’t even have to think about where to find a gendered bathroom because it’s right there. On the other hand, trans students do have to jump through the hoops of the website, to the map, and then, we wander around campus to find them; to use these bathrooms the university has listed as resources for us, for trans people.

OKAY, SO WHAT SHOULD THE UNIVERSITY DO? WHAT CAN STUDENTS DO? 

I remember being a freshman, barely making it to class most days, stressed out of my mind and what I really would’ve appreciated were more signs and guidance to where these bathrooms are. I asked students and staff alike, if they knew where the general neutral bathrooms are and they could, on average, only name three–and it’s usually just “third floor of the USU.” The people who really helped me, who took the time to show me where these bathrooms were, were my trans friends.   

Trans students have and will continue to make a difference on campus sharing information about trans resources. This needs to continue and spread! However, students shouldn’t be forced to make the campus resources more easily accessible and known. The campus should do that.  

Dear CSUSM, if you’re listening, we need signs. Way more signs!! A great example of signs to the bathroom can be found on the first floor of SBSB. There are bright pink papers in sheet protectors that point toward the gendered bathrooms. Helping us could be as easy as that. An example of this, again in SBSB, could be some signs on the first floor about the gender-neutral bathrooms on the fourth floor, or in the Arts building next door.   

We need an updated list too. Sacramento State has a great model with clear instructions, a list CSUSM should take inspiration from. Most of all, we just need more of these bathrooms, preferably in the Kellogg Library, where students spend most of their time while not in class.  

We should recognize the student and faculty activism that has pushed the university to address this issue over the years. However, we need to try harder, and I hope this article will serve as a launchpad. I hope that the university will put an effort into making gender-neutral bathrooms easier to find for trans students because if a resource is meant for trans students, trans students should be able to find them.  

CSUSM, let’s do better.