Dear Students and Staff of Jordan High School, 

In plain speaking, we, the Queer Students among you, are requesting a conversion of a student-accessible bathroom to being gender neutral. This would provide more accessibility to queer students and comfort for cisgender students.

Whether you know this fact or not, Jordan High School currently has one Gender Neutral Bathroom. It’s a single stall tucked away in the teacher's lounge on the Center 1st floor and is so disguised that many people don’t even know it exists. Special permission is needed for students to be allowed to use it. 

With such a bathroom being heavily hidden, that has caused misplaced emotions about the use of other bathrooms around the school. Both to our experiences, and perhaps yours too. There have been multiple times when our nonbinary and trans peers have experienced discomfort while attempting to use the bathroom that they most identify with. Cisgender students have stated similar claims when speaking up about their own distress when seeing a gender nonconforming individual using a particular bathroom. From both sides, we realize that there is a commonality of discomfort when it comes to what bathroom our Queer peers use. 

Along with that uneasiness, genderqueer students have been statistically proven to be in greater danger when it comes to using gendered bathrooms. In a study of 3,700 transgender teenagers, 36% reported being sexually assaulted in the past twelve months while using the bathroom (Harvard.edu). In direct correlation, many Queer students hence avoid using the school bathrooms altogether, which predictably leads to a hoard of health issues (I.E. Bladder Infections, Bladder Rupture, Diseases, etc;). 

In a total sum, the inaccessibility and obscureness of the singular gender-neutral bathroom on campus not only puts students at a risk for various mental, physical, and psychological challenges; but increases the likelihood of violence against our Queer peers. So, as a humble request, this is why us—the Queer Students at C E Jordan High School—politely ask for an expansion of the bathroom facilities made to be accessible to us. If you agree with any of what we’ve said here, please consider signing this petition.

         Thank you, 

           Queer Alliance Club