Penn students meet with admin to demand even more 'all-gender' restrooms
The University of Pennsylvania is constructing several new genderless bathrooms and already has nearly 100 on campus.
Students in a gender equality club want the university to build more.
Students at the University of Pennsylvania are pushing the school to build additional “all-gender” restrooms — even though there are already dozens of such restrooms across campus, and counting.
According to student newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian, several construction projects are creating new all-gender restroom facilities in residence halls and academic buildings. As of January 2020, Penn had 89 all-gender restrooms, according to LGBT Center director Erin Cross.
However, Penn Association for Gender Equity — a student group that seeks to “support women and strive for gender equity” — says that the current facilities are insufficient.
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“The pace of the University changes are much slower than the lifetime of students,” PAGE chair Sam Pancoe told The Daily Pennsylvanian. “It’s happening. It’s not happening at a pace as quickly as we would like it to. But things are moving.”
PAGE conducted an anonymous survey of “non-cisgender” students and presented their findings to University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann — who President Biden recently tapped to serve as United States Ambassador to Germany.
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“I think the most impactful quotes centered around the fact that non-cis students are basically dehydrating themselves during the day, or holding their bladder for extended periods of time because there are only so many gender-neutral bathrooms on campus,” Pancoe told The Daily Pennsylvanian about the survey.
Beyond its all-gender bathroom project, PAGE has held several events pertaining to LGBTQ ideology — including “Palestine 101 Through the Lens of a Queer Palestinian,” “The Intersectional Politics of Gender Representation Across Asia,” and “Self Love & Masturbation.”
Campus Reform reached out to the University of Pennsylvania and PAGE for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.
