Thousand Oaks high school has a very diverse student body with many identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community. For many members of that community, using a gender-specific restroom can be a terrifying ordeal with risks of harassment, threats, and more. Along with that, forcing genderqueer, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming students to choose a gender-specific restroom can affect their mental health and quality of life at Thousand Oaks high school by denying their gender identity. Also, transgender students who don’t feel comfortable or safe using a gender-segregated restroom should have the right to feel safe going to the restroom at their high school campus. I think that it’s important that Thousand Oaks high develops and normalizes these gender-neutral restrooms to be inclusionary to all of their students and create a safer place for students to get an education.

According to The Trevor Project, “at least 1.2 million LGBTQ+ youth aged between 13 and 18 in the US seriously consider suicide” (thetrevorproject.org). One may ask, how does this connect with the absence of a gender-neutral restroom. Basically, providing a gender-neutral bathroom would improve the quality of life for LGBTQ+ students by eliminating the anxiety of using a gender-conforming restroom due to the risk of harassment and threats, it would normalize gender nonconformity, and it would create a more open and inclusive campus life for these students; This would therefore drastically improve the livelihood of such students. Thousand Oaks high school, as an educator, is duty-bound to protect these students and help them feel comfortable receiving an important education.

In an article outlining their experience as a nonbinary student in their school, Keress Weidner explains that “making restrooms trans-accessible means not only allowing binary trans students to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity, but also providing an alternative for those who identify outside the gender binary.” Providing these restrooms will allow for trans and nonbinary students to be comfortable without having the pressure of making a choice put on them. If you are interested in learning more about Keress’ experience, here is their article: https://www.glsen.org/blog/im-non-binary-and-trans-accessible-restrooms-should-include-me-too​

https://www.thetrevorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Estimating-Number-of-LGBTQ-Youth-Who-Consider-Suicide-In-the-Past-Year-Final.pdf