El Paso school district provides unisex bathrooms for LGBTQ+ students upon request
EL PASO, Texas - A school in northeast El Paso now has a third bathroom type: unisex.
In addition to the men's and women's bathrooms, the unisex bathroom at Canyon Hills Middle School is one that anyone can use, whether they are male, female, gender fluid, or transitioning from one gender to another.
Canyon Hills Middle School is part of the El Paso Independent School District. If requested, the district will install a unisex bathroom at a school. If you want to request a unisex bathroom, you'd have to talk to the school's principal. Canyon Hills MS is not the only EPISD school with a unisex bathroom, district spokesman Gustavo Reveles told ABC-7. But Reveles did not give the names of the other schools with those types of bathrooms.
Opinions on the new option were mixed.
"I guess that would be proper because we all tend to have our own ways. So yeah that'd be ok with me," said Annie Garcia. Michael Mangan said, "Oh no, I wouldn't like that. Just a regular bathroom for boys and girls...It's just better...that's how I feel about it."
For members of the LGBTQ+ community, the addition of a unisex bathroom at the school is a huge success for students. Dr. Brenda Risch, who is the executive director at the Borderland Rainbow Center, shared with ABC-7 the reasons why having the option of a unisex bathroom is so important for students both physically, and psychologically.
"On the physical side, we know that both anecdotally and scientifically, that students will often restrict how much liquid they are drinking or whether they are eating at school or not to avoid using the restroom if they feel unsafe using the restroom," Dr. Risch said. "In a hot and desert environment, that could lead to things like heat stroke, kidney stones, urinary tract infections and other medical complications that are damaging the child," said Dr. Risch.
Psychological issues are also a factor.
The American Academy of Pediatrics published a study warning LGBTQ+ teens in their sample of more than 3,000 transgender and nonbinary middle and high school students experienced sexual assault at troubling rates compared to nontransgender adolescents.
"Besides avoiding restrictive policies, schools should strongly consider designating “all-gender restrooms, along with additional adult supervision in locations where harassment is most likely to occur, training staff to intervene in anti-LGBTQ bullying, and offering privacy options (eg, curtains) in locker rooms," the study recommended.
"When you are unable to use the bathroom where you are comfortable, means that it's part of an element of a hostile environment...you may or may not be also experiencing bullying or lack of acceptance or support, there may be nobody represented in the curriculum that looks like you or identifies the way you do so you have no role models, so there could be lots of ways either actively or passively, school could be a very negative and intimidating environment," Dr. Risch explained.
Dr. Risch also stated, not being able to use the bathroom of the child's choice, is the denial of a basic human right.
ABC-7 asked Dr. Risch if she thought the unisex bathroom at a middle school campus is too young of an age to be given the option. She explained that transgender children come about their identity much earlier than children who may have different sexual orientations due to children not being sexually attracted to others at an early age.
