New all-gender restroom a first at GHS
Photo from the Facebook page of the The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network — New York Capital Region Chapter
Gender-free: A new sign — illustrated with symbols for men, women, and the handicapped — goes up on a former faculty bathroom at Guilderland High School, marking it as available to anyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or disability. Putting up the sign are, from left, Julia Crooks, who prefers to be known as JC; Ryka Sweeney, and Clifford Nooney, the district’s director of physical plant management.
GUILDERLAND — Ryka Sweeney, a senior at Guilderland High School, fought for establishing gender-neutral bathrooms in the school, but never expected to see them.
On Dec. 1, Sweeney helped place the first-ever sign at the high school clearly marking a single-stall restroom as free to be used by anyone, regardless of gender.
“I am thrilled about it,” said Sweeney. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited in my life than the day we hung up the sign.”
The State Education Department released guidelines in July similar to federal directives obligating schools to protect students’ privacy, provide access to appropriate bathrooms and locker rooms, and use the names and pronouns students choose for themselves. New York’s Dignity for All Students Act already prohibits discrimination against a student on the basis of gender identity or expression.
Nine states filed suit challenging the federal guidelines, which were based on Title IX.
Sweeney prefers to be referred to with the pronoun “they” rather than “she” or “he”; The Enterprise is following that preference here.
They cried, Sweeney said, when they found out that the sign was going up this year. “I put forth a lot of effort last year doing it, and I pretty much had accepted that it wasn’t going to happen this year,” Sweeney added.
Sweeney said that, in the past, they have “had comments from students or from hall monitors” when walking into a bathroom marked for use by either gender, “since I don’t fit under the category ‘girl’ or ‘boy.’”
Sweeney reported being very moved when someone from Alliance — a high-school club for the LGBT community and their supporters — pointed out to Sweeney, ‘Think of all the kids that are going to come through Guilderland High School in the future and they’ll feel safe here, without even having to fight for it.”
“We have a number of students who feel strongly about having a place that’s theirs,” said Marie Wiles, superintendent of the Guilderland school district.
The newly labeled bathroom, located in the West Building’s Foreign Language wing, is one of four dedicated all-gender bathrooms in the high school, according to Wiles, who noted that there is also one in the middle school.
The bathrooms being marked as all-gender were not constructed for this purpose, which could have been costly. Wiles said they are repurposed faculty bathrooms.
