Wilde Lake has a bathroom problem. For a school of over 1000 students, we have 40 gendered stalls, but only two gender neutral. Three, if you count the nurse’s bathroom.
There simply aren’t enough gender neutral stalls. If even just one stall is out of order due to routine maintenance, an entire third of the school’s gender neutral capacity is gone, with no good alternative available.
For students who need to use the gender neutral stalls, the inaccessibility isn’t just an inconvenience. It’s a safety issue.
Trans and non-binary students don’t know how people will react to them using the gendered restrooms. Even when they use the bathroom for their assigned sex at birth, attacks have occurred. For example, Minnesota high schooler Cobalt Sovereign, a trans woman, was assaulted in 2024 for using the men’s room when the gender neutral bathroom wasn’t available.
History has shown it’s safest for trans and non-binary students to use the gender neutral bathrooms. But when you’ve been waiting fifteen minutes for a gender neutral stall to open, what choice do you have?
Howard County policy 1020 says the Board of Education “prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression.” It later defines sexual discrimination in section VI, subsection G as “any act or omission due to an individual’s… gender expression (including transgender or gender nonconforming) that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working or educational environment.”
A trans or non-binary student at Wilde Lake only has 3 stalls in the entire school, but often these bathrooms are locked or have long waits. Undoubtedly, being unable to safely use the bathroom creates a hostile and intimidating educational environment. A precedent has been set that gendered bathrooms are risky for trans people to use, but the gender neutral bathroom situation at Wilde Lake often forces them to enter the gendered bathrooms anyways. This is a clear violation of policy 1020.
Wilde Lake admin has placed monitors outside of gendered bathrooms, so it could very easily do the same for gender neutral bathrooms. They must be fair and also ensure the gender neutral stalls are used correctly through monitoring. They can keep gender neutral bathrooms unlocked this way so trans and non-binary students can safely use an accessible bathroom.
Trans and non-binary students deserve to use the bathroom safely and comfortably. At Wilde Lake, we need to start acknowledging these students who simply want to use the bathroom in peace.
