Over the past month, posters designating bathrooms as gender-neutral were taped over bathroom doors in many public buildings on campus. A number of gender-neutral bathrooms exist across campus, but many remain that are not officially designated as such. Erin Collins ’19, a transgender woman and student at the College, led the initiative and said she hoped to call attention to the remaining gendered bathrooms on campus.

On Wednesday, March 6, Collins taped “Gender-Neutral” signs to the bathroom entrances in Christian-Johnson, Kirner-Johnson, List Art Center, and Taylor Science Center. In List, multiple signs were hung on the men’s bathroom doors. Collins says the project has been in the works for some time.

“The signs were hung over every single gendered bathroom sign on campus, and we put 15 on the door of the all gender bathroom in list that still has the word Men written on it,” said Collins. “They’ve all been taken down now, either by cleaning staff because it is their job or torn down by people who get mad about it.”

Those involved said that the feedback from the community has been positive, with many believing it to be a necessary action.

“I’m hoping [the initiative will] call attention to the significant lack of gender-neutral bathrooms in academic buildings — and where they are converted they only convert men’s bathrooms, so the ‘all gender’ doesn’t function as an all-gender bathroom so much as just a men’s bathroom,” said Collins. “That doesn’t help any of the trans people on this campus, or anyone for that matter.”

Gender-neutral bathrooms were first introduced to the Hamilton campus in the spring of 2014. Then-Dean of Students, Nancy Thompson put together a committee comprised of faculty, students, and members of the Queer Student Union (QSU, then known as the Rainbow Alliance) to discuss the idea of All-Gender bathrooms.

“Many of our residence halls had what were then known as ‘co-ed’ bathrooms that had been in place for decades,” said Travis Hill, Assistant Dean for Student Engagement. “We quickly agreed that each building on campus should have All-Gender bathrooms and anything functioning as a ‘co-ed’ bathroom should get signage indicating the more inclusive term of All-Gender bathroom.” Residence halls also had at least one bathroom on a floor designated as “All-Gender.”

“We did discuss shifting all bathrooms on campus to All-Gender at that time,” said Hill. “We opted not to do so given our campus is open to the public and [we wanted] to see how the community responded [to the newness of All Gender bathrooms on the Hill.]”

Prior to Collins’s initiative, a committee was also formed to revisit the number of All-Gender bathrooms around campus, as Collins argues the topic has not been readdressed since 2014.

“I’m hoping at the very least [the administration] deals with the ‘men’ sign on the gender-neutral door in List,” said Collins. “This has been something we as a community have tried a few tactics with so they most assuredly know it’s a thing.”