In May 2016, The Obama administration announced that transgender students would be allowed to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. This decision caused controversy across the country. North Carolina decided to enforce a law that states a person had to use the bathroom of the sex stated on their birth certificate. Eleven other states followed North Carolina and sued the Obama administration.

Last year, Curtis’ Pride Club started a petition for the creation of a gender neutral bathroom. Their petition collected over two hundred signatures on it’s first day, and the club considered it a great start to their cause.

There are several reasons that the club is pushing to get the bathroom, but their cause is primarily based on bathroom rights for transgender students in public schools. Transgender students need a place to use the bathroom like any other cisgender person (cisgender being a term used when a person has a gender identity that matches the sex they were assigned at birth). It’s a place of privacy, which is very important to many people, especially those who don’t identify with the sex they were assigned at birth.

The club already has a bathroom in mind, the one across from the dance room located on the second floor. Many people support this idea, but there could be some drawbacks, namely that it could be misused. However, in an unofficial survey, 4/6 Curtis students said that they support the implementation of a gender neutral bathroom.