Equal Restrooms for an Equal America

DEREK WU
Staff Writer

With a population of over seven billion people, there will always be diverse and unique groups in the world. One group that is frequently harassed and hurt is people who are transgender Transgender people have a high rate of being targeted in violent hate crimes, and according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, 344 transgender people were targeted for hate crimes in 2013. These situations and cases make it hard for transgender people to feel safe, which brings up the important issue of gender-neutral bathrooms.

Forcing transgender students to choose a gender-specific bathroom constantly excludes them and singles them out to the public; however, with gender-neutral restrooms, everyone is welcomed. Gender-neutral restrooms are an important implementation in every social setting as it will allow students to freely to choose a restroom which will make more students feel more equal. This will benefit not only their day-to-day life but also improves their self-confidence and relieves their anxiety and fear because they are not forced to come out as transgender.

Everyone in this society deserves to feel safe in their own community and nobody should feel excluded. Gender-neutral bathrooms have grown in popularity in recent years, but we should make this a national effort to for all Americans to feel safe. More than 150 Universities across the U.S. have gender-neutral restrooms, according to the Huffington Post. We, as a nation, should further this movement and require all public settings to have gender-neutral restrooms to be included with the average two gender restrooms in order to ensure a safer society for all Americans.