SARASOTA -State and local governments prying into the personal lives of LGBTs is front page news, with a focus on where transgender people should be allowed to go to the bathroom.
This is an issue that baffles Raina Senae, a senior at New College in Sarasota and Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion in their Student Alliance.
“I think as you get older, you just get set in these ways that overcomplicate things,” Senae says. “For most young people, it is just common sense stuff for us. People have to go to the bathroom, they can’t help that, and they want to feel comfortable when doing it. Older generations get this all wrapped up in religion and their background and family relationships.”
New College is a small school with a little more than 800 students and is located in a traditionally conservative area of Florida, but it is known throughout the country as one of the most progressive and trans-inclusive schools out there.
“We have a school that is 10 percent trans students,” Senae says. “We figured if that’s how many people at New College are trans, then there is no reason that they should be ignored.”
The Student Alliance has worked to incorporate policies at New College that show that all of the students are accepted and welcome. Most of the bathrooms on New College’s campus are gender-neutral, and while many of them are single-stall, there is at least one open, all-gender bathroom on campus. Everyone uses the same bathroom, and life seems to continue just fine.
“New College kind of has a history of going rogue on things we think are right or appropriate,” Senae says. “So we never had any push back on making these changes, like converting the signage on the bathrooms. We have bathrooms and they should be for everybody. To us it was a no-brainer.”
New College’s trans-inclusiveness expands past bathroom policy. The students have a gender and diversity center where they can go and feel relaxed and safe. They are encouraged to learn about gender differences. While many schools argue over the acceptance of Gay/Straight Alliances, New College has campus clubs called the T-party and Queery, which deal with transgender and non-binary issues.
“Something that New College really tries to do is, instead of pointing out the differences, we try to normalize those identities because they have been ‘othered’ in the past, which is what made it easy for people to discriminate,” Senae says.
It is a pretty common practice for students to put identifying pronouns in their email signature blocks, especially among the student officials.
“Everyone uses email, so I don’t have to go through a whole process of explaining what pronouns to use and why I use them. They are just right there in front of you, easy and accessible,” Senae says. “Even our cis-gender students and some of the faculty do it as well. It’s just a common courtesy thing.”
According to Senae, one of the key reasons New College is able to be an open and inclusive school is because the students not only have an open dialogue with each other but with the faculty and staff.
“We have this place called the Forum where we are always taking about issues involving gender, race and more. We get together to make sure as students we are all on the same page about getting the most we can out of being here,” Sanae says. “We just recently had a ‘day of dialogue’ where we were talking about diversity issues and how to talk about them in a way that is sensitive and genuine and with integrity. Several members of the faculty and staff came to that. It shows their dedication.”
While New College is on the forefront of LGBT inclusiveness, Senae says there are still issues that need addressing and the Student Alliance is working on.
“One of the biggest things we are trying to do now is have trans-inclusive housing for people coming in straight out the gate,” Senae says. “There’s this archaic law on the Florida books that says that a biological male and a biological female cannot live in the same quarters together unless they are married, but the way that Florida law defines gender is by genitals, so trans people end up falling through the cracks.”
While public bathroom policies like New College’s can make trans students feel more comfortable throughout the day on campus, Senae says that a major victory in being seen as all inclusive would be to update the housing policy.
“We have students who are trying to create what they call a lavender dorm, a housing area of just queer-identifying students which would be voluntary,” Senae says. “Incoming queer-identifying students could go into those dorms if they choose to. We want to open up options and give choices to all the students here.”
Another project that they hope to have completed soon is the expansion of their network of all-gender bathrooms and converting the signage to reflect all-gender.
“We realized the signage for gender-neutral bathrooms can be a little problematic because there are people who identify as gender-neutral so we are in the process of changing all of our signage and in that it is in compliance with ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] guidelines,” Senae says.
Just outside of the progressive New College campus, the Sarasota County School Board continues to debate the bathroom policies within their K-12 public schools. Senae says that as grown adults debating this issue, they seem to have forgotten the key element in understanding the concerns of trans students.
“I think the key thing is education,” Senae says. “I recently had a conversation with my grandmother about me coming out. She is 71 years old. I talked to her for a bit and I was like, ‘OK grandma, this is why gender and sex are different, this is my identity,’ and she was like, ‘It’s something for me to mull over, but I think I get it.’ And I think if a 71-year-old southern woman can understand that, I think there is hope for everyone, but maybe I’m just an optimist.”
