Gender-neutral bathrooms on campus: a multicampus study of cisgender and transgender and gender diverse college students

Abstract

Objective: This study examined cisgender and transgender and gender diverse (TGD) college students’ perceptions of gender-neutral bathroom availability across eight U.S. campuses, TGD students’ fear of harassment related to (lack of) availability of gender-neutral bathrooms, and the relation between fear of harassment and TGD students’ psychological distress. Methods: Participants were 4,328 college students (4,195 cisgender, 30 binary transgender, 103 gender diverse) from eight U.S. institutions of higher education. Results: The majority (84.2%) of TGD students and 34.6% of cisgender students perceived there were too few gender-neutral bathrooms on their campus. Further, TGD students’ fear of harassment related to a lack of availability of gender-neutral bathrooms on campus was positively associated with psychological distress (i.e., symptoms of depression and anxiety). Conclusion: This study highlights the significance of increasing accessibility of gender-neutral bathrooms on campuses to help mitigate TGD students’ fear of harassment and psychological distress.

Keywords:

• college students
• gender diverse
• gender-neutral bathroom
• psychological distress
• transgender

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the invaluable contributions of Laura Siller and Jania Marshall on this research project.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the East Carolina University and University of Nebraska-Lincoln Institutional Review Boards.

Notes

1 Although the terminology transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) is still widely used within the research literature, the phrasing implicitly combines both gender identity and expression. Therefore, the authors have decided to utilize the term transgender and gender diverse (TGD) throughout this document, which we believe more accurately captures and inclusively identifies the gender identity experiences of this population.

2 Price-Feeney et al report exact percentages with no decimals.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant #1823879. The findings and implications presented in this paper do not represent the official views of the NSF.