Students in Namao, Alberta, Canada are calling for more separate boys’ and girls’ gender-specific restrooms in their school, asserting the gender-neutral bathrooms are making them feel “uncomfortable.”
While the new gender ideology says governments should force individuals to accept other people’s choice of apparent gender, comments from students at Sturgeon Composite High School in Alberta show that, intuitively, young people want privacy from the opposite biological sex in public restrooms, locker rooms, etc.
“I find it uncomfortable,” student Jacey Taylor told Global News. “I have other things to do than boys, in there,” she said, referring to using feminine hygiene products. “You can hear it.”
At Sturgeon Composite, students are not happy with the fact their school converted the majority of bathrooms to gender-neutral stalls.
“The first day of school, when we all walked in and saw the bathrooms were gender neutral and everybody could go into the other gender’s bathroom, it was bizarre,” 11th grade student Graeme Gibson said. “First, it was a shock, then everybody was like, ‘Why is this happening? What the heck is going on?’”
At Sturgeon Composite, the new gender-neutral bathrooms have no outer doors from the hallway, and only partially enclosed multiple stalls, some with toilets and others with urinals.
“The number of gender-neutral washrooms is very high,” said 11th-grader Evan Gabbey. “They sent two whole sets as well as two individual stalls to gender neutral and there’s one set for male and female and that does not at all represent the population of people who require the gender-neutral bathrooms.”
Gabbey launched a petition that requests more separate boys’ and girls’ restrooms, and was stunned by the number of students asking to sign.
“I alone had 112 signatures,” he said. “The only reason I couldn’t get more was I ran out of forms, I couldn’t get enough.”
About 330 of 680 students have signed the petition, which urges additional separate rest rooms for males and females.
Gabbey said someone assumed it was acceptable to place gender-neutral multiple stalls in schools.
“You don’t see those in restaurants, you don’t see them in government offices, you don’t see them anywhere, yet we throw them into our schools and assume it’s just fine,” he said. “I don’t know whose idea this was but it wasn’t a very good one.”
Some students are so uncomfortable with the lack of privacy in the gender-neutral restrooms that they have avoided going to the bathroom.
“The first time I saw them I was nervous and I was like, “Okay I’m just going to not use the washroom today,” grade 11 student Austin Kirk said. “I have a chemistry class on one side of the school next to the gender-neutral washroom but there’s a washroom in the lobby that is just a boys washroom and I walk there every time I need to use the washroom.”
Gabbey told CBC News, “You can peek both over and under, so that’s a privacy issue right there.”
Another student reported having heard complaints that someone had taken photos of students in the stalls.
According to CBC News, principal John Baldassarre is defending the number of gender-neutral bathrooms. Gabbey said he brought students’ concerns to him, but Baldassarre said no changes would be made.
“He didn’t indicate any changes are coming — that it was just going to stay the way it is,” said Gabbey.
According to Global News, Education Minister David Eggen said about the situation, “Sturgeon, clearly they have to make sure that they accommodate everybody, make sure everybody’s needs are met. I hope that they can sort this out as soon as they can.”
Students say the lines can be long at the gender-specific boys’ and girls’ rooms, a situation that often leads to lateness in getting to classes.
Sturgeon parents have launched a Facebook group called “SCHS Washroom Fiasco” to help all parents become aware of what is happening at the school.
“Even today there’s a lot of parents that have no idea on what’s going on in the school regarding the bathroom policy,” Annette Gabbey told Global News.
Similarly, parent Amber Harris said, “To make arbitrary decisions like this and not involve the parents is a gross injustice.”
“It’s getting pretty big now,” Harris added about the bathroom issue. “People are starting to perk up because our school is not the only school that’s implementing policies like this.”
Gibson objects to the fact that most of the bathrooms were changed despite the fact that gender-confused individuals constitute a small minority of the population.
“It needs to reflect the population of the student body,” Gibson said. “There are absolutely some people that need to be accommodated with the gender-neutral washrooms and that’s totally cool. But that is a minority.”
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