{"id":6187,"date":"2024-04-30T13:18:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T17:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/?p=6187"},"modified":"2024-04-30T13:18:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T17:18:00","slug":"queer-student-union-revives-gender-neutral-bathroom-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/2024\/04\/queer-student-union-revives-gender-neutral-bathroom-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"Queer Student Union Revives Gender Neutral Bathroom Dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The bathroom door on the third-floor of Thomas Hunter.<\/figcaption> Photo by Carol Bautista<\/span><\/figure>\n

For almost 11 years, Hunter students have advocated for all-gender bathroom access on campus and things may finally change, according to the Queer Student Union.<\/p>\n

At the start of 2024 spring semester, e-board members of the Queer Student Union began to release the locations of the all-gender bathrooms as more students began questioning their existence. According to Codes & Modes, Hunter College only has two gender-neutral bathrooms, both located on the second floor of the Hunter North building.<\/p>\n

The Union decided to speak with the Hunter Senate, in hopes, of adding more gender-neutral bathrooms.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Gaboury, a Hunter professor who teaches a course on race and sex segregation in bathroom politics, said she has seen groups of students get interested in this topic every few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about the 20th iteration that I\u2019ve seen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Since 2009, Gaboury has seen various cohorts of students trying to garner more attention from Hunter\u2019s administration and support from the student body and staff. However, there was little progress made each year.<\/p>\n

Members of the Queer Student Union plan to meet with Sarah Chinn, the chair of Hunter\u2019s Governance Committee, and Gaboury, to discuss a new plan that will build additional all gender-neutral bathrooms in every building on campus.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Some e-board members of the Queer Student Union posing for a picture during their open house: Savleen Kaur, Litzy Antonio, Dylan Bhigroog, Daniela Urbano (left to right)
Photo Credits: @hunterqsu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the past, a group of students was promised by former Hunter President Jennifer Raab that a task force would be created. But as these students started to graduate, they never got to see it come to fruition. In fact, the task force was never created, according to Gaboury.<\/p>\n

Since the QSU was revived in the fall of 2023, the club welcomed more freshmen and sophomores students. As the new students wondered, again, why there were few gender-neutral bathrooms, the e-board decided to tackle this need again.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first step is figuring out where they are [all gender bathrooms], making sure our club members know where they are\u2026 building that kind of network where everybody knows where to find one if they need one\u2026 is really important,\u201d said Annabel Savarese, the secretary for QSU and a sophomore studying Psychology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can figure out where would be easiest to implement one\u2026 if there\u2019s a few accessible ones in every building that would be fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Litzy Antonio, the QSU president, lamented that there were only five bathrooms suited for all-gender students. Three of them are located in the Thomas Hunter building, one in TH105, 117A and another on the third floor; two in the North Hunter building, on the second floor outside of the auditorium.<\/p>\n

Hunter College has a history of bathroom politics playing out in the open.<\/p>\n

Back in 2016, articles from online sites like The Tab, The Fempire NYC, WordPress and Tumbler, posted stories about the implications of the newly named gender-neutral bathroom on the third floor of the Thomas Hunter building.<\/p>\n

Some Hunter students have posted on Tumbler that they saw signs of the bathroom locations vandalized. Recently, some noticed its door has \u201cwomen\u201d written in black marker with the word scribbled out twice just below it, even though the restroom is gender-neutral.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in an email, Chinn stated she was made aware of the situation by Gaboury and knew of the student’s concerns. She hopes the student-led effort continues, since they\u2019re the ones being directly affected and it\u2019ll create a \u201cvaluable opportunity\u201d to teach the issue to the rest of the Hunter community.<\/p>\n

The next step in the process should also include the participation of the Senate\u2019s Master Plan Committee, Facilities and current Chief Operating Officer, Gustavo Ordo\u00f1ez, to make everything possible, she said.<\/p>\n

Chinn hopes the students will stay motivated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will only happen with organization and activism\u2026Students are going to have to make the issue visible in a way that it isn\u2019t yet, as well as educate the community about the benefits of all-gender restrooms. It\u2019s a challenging task, but one that\u2019s worth undertaking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For almost 11 years, Hunter students have advocated for all-gender bathroom access on campus and things may finally change, according to the Queer Student Union. At the start of 2024 spring semester, e-board members of the Queer Student Union began to release the locations of the all-gender bathrooms as more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":6189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1,324],"tags":[613,612,279,355],"class_list":["post-6187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-column","category-news","category-student-life","tag-bathroompolicy","tag-genderneutralbathrooms","tag-huntercollege-hunterstudents","tag-hunternews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6187"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6227,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6187\/revisions\/6227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}