Gender binary washrooms as a means of gender policing in schools: a Canadian perspective

ABSTRACT

Schools are often sites of surveillance for students as behaviors are governed and regulated by gendered norms and sexed expectations. For transgender and gender non-conforming students, school environments can produce anxiety as students are categorized into gender binaries. This article draws from Canadian policy in public schools and higher education, interview data, as well as transgender teen narratives, to analyze gender policing in schools through gender binary washrooms. Building upon prior research and writing on gender binary washrooms [Cavanagh, S. L. 2010. Queering Bathrooms: Gender, Sexuality, and the Hygienic Imagination. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; Ingrey, J. C. 2012. “The Public School Washroom as Analytic Space for Troubling Gender: Investigating the Spatiality of Gender Through Students’ Self-Knowledge.” Gender and Education 24 (7): 799-817; Ingrey, J. C. 2013a. “Shadows and Light: Pursuing Gender Justice Through Students’ Photovoice Projects of the Washroom Space.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing 29 (2): 174-190; Ingrey, J. C. 2013b. “The Public School Washroom as Heterotopia: Gendered Spatiality and Subjectification.” PhD diss., University of Western Ontario. http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3175&context=etd], we argue that through advocacy, policy implementation, and the creation of gender-neutral washrooms, safe(r) and more positive school environments can be created for transgender and gender non-conforming students.

KEYWORDS:

• Post-structural theory
• secondary education
• higher education
• embodiment
• identities
• education policy

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr Wayne Martino, Dr Tara Goldstein, and Dr Allison Burgess for their comments and thoughts towards this manuscript, as well as all our colleagues who offered kind feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Adam W. J. Davies is a doctoral student in Curriculum Studies and Teacher Development and Sexual Diversity Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Adam holds a Master of Arts in Child Study and Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, as well as an Honours Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada.

Evan Vipond is a doctoral student in Gender, Feminist, and Women's Studies at York University and currently holds an SSHRC Joseph-Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarship. Evan obtained a Master's in Women and Gender Studies in collaboration with Sexual Diversity Studies from the University of Toronto.

Ariana King holds a Master of Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, as well as a Master of Arts in Public Policy and Administration from Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada.

ORCID

Adam Davies http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9169-4997

Evan Vipond http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0378-8038

Notes

1 Transgender is an umbrella term, which refers to people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. Gender non-conforming refers to persons whose gender identity and/or presentation does not appear to align with the sex-equals-gender binary.

2 This paper focuses on the institutional and social barriers that transgender and gender non-conforming students face when using gender-segregated washrooms. Gender-neutral washrooms can be used by all students – cisgender, transgender, and gender non-conforming – and may help in minimizing gender policing in schools. It is important to note that policing gender affects all students, irrespective of gender identity or sexual orientation, as anyone perceived as deviating from gender norms and expectations may be targeted, particularly within gender binary washrooms and other gender-segregated spaces (California Safe Schools Coalition and the 4-H Center for Youth Development 2004; Greytak, Kosciw, and Diaz 2009; Halberstam 1998; Human Rights Watch 2001; Renold 2002; Toomey, Card, and Casper 2014; Wyss 2004).

3 It is important to note that not all trans persons are able or desire to pass. We are critical of the emphasis that is placed on passing, which is often used to assess the validity or ‘realness’ of transgender and gender non-conforming persons’ identities.

4 Interview data from Allison Burgess collected from informal electronic communication on 12 June 2015. Allison Burgess, PhD, is the Sexual & Gender Diversity Officer of the University of Toronto Sexual & Gender Diversity Office in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

5 Biological sex refers to the dimorphic classification of sexual organs, hormones and chromosomes. It is an entirely scientific representation.

6 Cisgender refers to people whose gender identity aligns with their sex assigned at birth.

7 Cisnormativity refers to the normalization of cisgender bodies and identities, which is based on the sex-equals-gender binary and traditional gender norms.

8 Butler (1990) argues that ‘“persons” only become intelligible through becoming gendered in conformity with recognizable standards of gender intelligibility’ (22).

9 Namaste (2000) uses the term ‘erasure’ to refer ‘to the conceptual and institutional relations through which transsexual and transgendered individuals disappear from view’ (137).

10 Namaste (2000) refers to gender-based violence as ‘genderbashing’ (135–156). While transgender and gender non-conforming students experience higher rates of genderbashing than their cisgender counterparts, cisgender students who are seen to deviate from gender norms and expectations may, too, be targeted (California Safe Schools Coalition and the 4-H Center for Youth Development 2004; Greytak, Kosciw, and Diaz 2009; Human Rights Watch 2001; Renold 2002; Toomey, Card, and Casper 2014; Wyss 2004).

11 Cissexism refers to the institutional and social privileging of cisgender bodies and identities over transgender and gender non-conforming bodies and identities.

12 Throughout this paper, we use the term ‘safe(r)’ instead of ‘safe’ in many instances to recognize that while complete safety is difficult to guarantee for all students, school climates must be altered, including bathrooms, to promote more inclusive and safe(r) environments.

13 We employ Butler’s (1990) notion of performativity, which argues gender is constituted through the continual process of doing. However, in doing so, we maintain that this does not negate gender identity, which is an internal sense of self. Our argument is outside of the nature/nurture debate, which reinforces a dualism between socialization and biology. Over the last decade, the ‘born this way’ movement, which attributes homosexuality and transgenderism to genetic predisposition, has gained momentum as it offers queer and transgender people a validating and sympathetic argument in the fight for equal rights and antidiscrimination protection. However, this argument is ultimately limiting as it reinscribes rights on the basis of biological essentialism and opens the door to eugenic practices, including diagnostic criteria, genetic testing, and/or searching for a ‘cure’ (see Vipond 2015a, 2015b; Walters 2014; Warner 2000).

14 Halberstam (1998) argues that the etiquette is different in men’s and women’s washrooms and thus ‘the perils for [trans men] passing in the men’s room are very different from the perils of [trans women] passing in the women’s room’ (25). Halberstam argues that while trans men are less likely to face scrutiny in men’s washrooms than trans women face in women’s washrooms, trans men may experience heightened physical and sexual violence if their gender is deemed suspect (25). However, it is important to note that public panic surrounding trans persons using gendered washrooms, as exemplified by the notorious ‘bathroom bills’ (see Vipond 2015b), specifically target and exclude trans women from women-only spaces (i.e. washrooms and change rooms).

15 Protections for transgender students’ right to use the washroom of their choice has been met with hostility by right-wing politicians, lawmakers, and parents. In 2014 a group of parents in Vancouver attempted to sue the Vancouver School Board over the introduction of a new policy that allows transgender students to use the washroom they feel most comfortable in (Proctor 2014). While legal protections for transgender students are being passed – for example, in 2013 California passed the School Success and Opportunity Act, which requires public schools in the state to ‘respect students’ gender identity and ensure that students can fully participate in all school activities, sports teams, programs, and facilities that match their gender identity’ (cited in Vipond 2015b) – anti-trans ‘bathroom bills,’ which consign transgender and gender non-conforming persons to a particular washroom based on their sex assigned at birth, continue to be introduced by US state legislatures (Vipond 2015b). Furthermore, in May 2016, under the Obama Administration, the US Departments of Education and Justice announced that transgender students are granted protection under Title IX (a federal that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions) and must be allowed to use the washroom of their choice (Davis and Apuzzo 2016). This policy was met with opposition from a number of states, which filed lawsuits against the federal government (Emma 2016). These protections were rescinded in February 2017, under the Trump Administration (Peters, Becker, and Davis 2017).

16 ‘All-gender’ washrooms can be used by anyone regardless of one’s gender identity.