Right now at South, there is one gender neutral restroom.  It is located in the hallway by the nurses office.  Because of it’s location, the one gender neutral bathroom is not as effective as it would be if it were, say, on the second floor by the media center.

The Gender Equity Club recognized the situation and brought it to the attention of the Administration, a.k.a. Principal Ray Aponte. Representing the Gender Equity Club was juniors Chris Mann and Sidonia Zinkey.

Zinkey explained the beginning of the endeavor, “This project started as a project about protests for our government class. A lot of kids did theoretical protests they would take part in, but I wanted to do a real one. Originally, it was a petition to the Minneapolis School Board to incorporate gender-neutral restrooms in all MPS. While I was gathering student support signatures, Chris offered to help the project. Around this time, we figured out focusing on South would have a higher chance of success. We began writing and meeting with Mr. Aponte and vocalising our efforts in the school.”

Mann and Zinkey “joined forces” in November 2014.  “It took a long while. A lot of the time was spent waiting for responses from various people, but things didn’t really start moving until we asked people to get involved. It only took two or three weeks of widespread student involvement to see some concrete change. The power that we students have when we advocate for ourselves is incredible.” said Mann.

Mr. Aponte described that he wasn’t the only person who needed to be consulted: “I started writing our general council to find out if theres anything I need to worry about in terms of school law. He was researching that for me and then I did my own research to find who was out there having gender neutral bathroom discussions… a lot of universities have started having that conversation in the last six months to a year.”

Mr. Aponte juggled the positive and negative responses to the introduction of gender neutral restrooms. He brought in someone to assist their hunt for a location for our new bathrooms and last week, Mann, Aponte and the “professional” took a walk around the school.

“I understand the need for it but somebodys habits are going to have to change.  We’re still exploring where the bathroom is going to be and the other piece that concerns me is that I want it to be in a location where its not hidden, in the middle of nowhere, because I’d like for it to be a bit more mainstream. So its not over, it feels like its in the middle.”

“Our old bathroom system provided only two options. This conveyed a message that non-binary genders were abnormal or wrong. We dismantled that.This message was so constant in our community that it could be seen in the physical layout of the building. By changing the messages in our environment, we’re changing how people interact,” Mann described of his hopes for the final product.

In the end, Zinkey said, “Honestly, one of my biggest goals with this is to normalise non-binary genders. I want non-binary genders to stop being some sort of hazy, liberal political discussion point, and instead become unquestioned genders.”