Student Senate passes motion for gender-neutral bathrooms, sanitary products
Winona State University’s Student Senate recently passed two motions in an effort to support its LGBTQIA+ and transgender student population. On Oct. 5, Student Senate officially recommended the university place sanitary trash cans and menstrual products in all restrooms across campus. Currently, there are several gender-neutral restrooms already in place, including in Kryzsko Commons, but Student Senate has also recommended placing more in the academic buildings where there are not any available.
November 3, 2021
On Oct. 5, Student Senate and its Equity and Inclusive Excellence Committee passed a motion to officially recommend Winona State University install sanitary trash cans and menstrual products in all, including men’s, restrooms across campus.
The motion detailed its recommendation that these installations be completed by the end of the 2021-2022 school year.
Student Senate also moved to make more gender-neutral bathrooms available in several academic buildings.
According to Student Senate’s Oct. 5 meeting records, publicly available on the university’s website, several Student Senators were cited for pointing out why this addition was necessary and important.
Anasia Phillips, a multi-year serving Student Senate member and chairperson of Student Sen- ate’s Equity and Inclusive Excellence Committee, wrote the motion along with the committee to present these ideas.
“We passed a motion to get menstrual products and sanitary trash cans in all men’s bathrooms on campus to keep our transgender community safe,” Philips said. “We just passed a motion to recommend putting gender-neutral or all-gender bathrooms in Minné, Phelps and [the] SLC by Fall 2022. Now it is up to the university to follow through with this.”
Phillips pointed out, as marked in the meeting’s notes, that even if the transgender community is smaller than other communities on campus, they should be “heard and valued.”
President of Full Spectrum, Winona State’s gender and sexuality alliance club, Mayme Nelson, said Phillips specifically met with the club’s members to hear feedback regarding gender-neutral bathrooms and the potential widening accessibility to menstrual products in bathrooms on campus.
“We appreciate Anasia’s hard work and effort to making the campus a more inclusive environment,” Nelson said.
Nelson also specified how all academic buildings on campus should be recommended to install new gender-neutral bathrooms and house menstrual products in all bathrooms.
College of Science and Engineering Student Senate Representative, Kathryn Senchea, said the university has “only cared about cisgender people for a long time.”
“[Winona State should] want to be known as an inclusive campus. There are definite economic shortcomings in a lot of the trans community, so having menstrual products available [in all bathrooms] is good,” Senchea said.
Hunter Jones, a Student Senate member and representative of the College of Education, further explained what the motion regarding sanitary products in bathrooms entailed.
“Essentially the motion says, ‘We will install sanitary trash cans in men’s rooms. We will provide sanitary napkins in men’s rooms as well as better access to them overall. These menstrual products will be placed in a spot out of view in order to not out anyone,’” Jones said.
Jones is in full support of this motion and Student Senate’s motion to create more gender-neutral bathrooms on campus, she said.
“This motion is for the safety and comfort of our transgender and gender-nonconforming students; It will hopefully make them feel like they are safe from outing themselves,” Jones explained. “I am in full support of this motion. The goal of Student Senate is to make our campus safer and more comfortable for all students.”
The motion was passed unanimously according to Jones, although there was a roughly 10–20-minute discussion prior to its passing. Most Student Senators were explaining why they were in favor of the motion, Jones said.
Senior Class Student Senate Representative, Josie Groebner, also pointed out having the wider availability to menstrual products in a more private space, such as bathrooms, also addresses “safety issue[s]” regarding transgender students’ identities.
According to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS) conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality, recognized as the largest survey done surveying experiences of transgender people in the U.S. with more than 27,000 respondents, “the majority of respondents who were out or perceived as transgender while in school (K-12) experienced some form of mistreatment, including being verbally harassed (54%), physically attacked (24%) and sexually assaulted (13%) because they were transgender. Further, 17% experienced such severe mistreatment that they left school as a result.”
Of the respondents to the 2015 survey, nearly 700 were Minnesota residents. About 80% of those who were out or perceived as transgender sometime in their K-12 education said they experienced some form of mistreatment and harassment during school.
Among the Minnesota respondents who were out or perceived as transgender while in college, 24% reported being assaulted due to being transgender.
In regard to restroom access, the survey found 64% of Minnesota respondents reported avoiding public restrooms during the past year, “because they were afraid of confrontations or other problems they might experience.” 33% of Minnesota respondents reportedly limited their food and liquid intake to avoid using restrooms altogether due to similar fears.
Nearly 100 of the 2015 Minnesota respondents said they had been verbally harassed when using a restroom.
On Winona State’s official website, one area in which student demographics are examined is by gender. Currently, under “Fall Undergraduate Gender Counts,” the university offers two categories for students: female and male.
It is currently unknown exactly how many transgender students are enrolled at Winona State University.
Several events and topics discussed during the last several weeks at Winona State have heightened tensions within the student community, leading some to feel “unsafe,” as mentioned by Jones.
“I know a lot of our LGBTQ students are feeling unsafe right now due to the campus climate,” Jones said. “As a queer student myself, I am happy to see these types of motions passed. I am hoping to see resources made more available to our LGBTQ students and more importantly, that they know these resources are currently available.”
Jones further explained, saying she hopes certain recent events on campus are met with “some action.”
One such incident included last week’s campus chalking. The Warriors for Life, a Winona State club which centers around its pro-life beliefs regarding abortion and reproductive rights topics, chalked pro-life messages across campus on Monday, Oct. 25.
By midday on Tuesday, Oct. 26, many other students chalked their own messages as well, most regarding the pro-life and pro-choice conversation. There have been several student accounts of individuals dousing others’ messages with water in an effort to erase them and tense verbal exchanges over the chalking.
Some of the messages done by the Warriors for Life, which they posted on their public social medias, included: “The 70’s called they want their ruling back, #ReverseRoe”; “Pro-life… because everyone deserves a chance”; “Billion-dollar industries don’t care about choices they can’t profit from” and more.
However, on Oct. 26, the Warriors for Life Instagram account created a post titled, “An open letter to LGBTQIA+ pro-choice students of Winona State University” which sparked conversation in its comments, with more than 20 comments and replies made.
The post’s text began with, “Dear students” and detailed an LGBTQIA+ identifying student’s feelings towards those who erased their chalking messages and the repercussions, or lack thereof, for the one(s) who did the erasing.
“The Warriors for Life group has multiple members of the LGBTQIA+ community. I am one of them and my identity should not be denied or censored based on your opinion on the terms I
use or whether or not you want something you identify with to be associated with what I stand for,” part of the post said. “LGBTQ+ people have been and will be anti-abortion no matter how much you don’t like that.”
The post originally tagged many Winona State clubs, offices and departments directly on the post’s photos, which have since been reduced to only Winona State’s official Instagram account and the Students for Life of America organization’s account.
In the comments of the post, the Warriors for Life account tagged the Students for Reproductive Justice club, the College Democrats club, the Office of Equity and Inclusive Excellence and KEAP Center, The Winonan, the Full Spectrum club, Student Senate and others.
The only account of those tagged that commented on the post was the College Democrats club’s Instagram, which commented saying their club had “no involvement in any defacing of your chalk,” continuing to say, “Students can make choices without our club being involved and tagging us seems to be a low way to place blame.”
The Warriors for Life account did not reply to this although other accounts and individuals did.
President Scott Olson has not issued a statement directly mentioning the chalking incident but did send out what seems to be an all-student email, its subject being “A Call To Our Mission.”
The email, signed by Olson, spoke of student athletes’ leadership on campus and their commitment to “treat everyone with respect and dignity.” Olson continued, stating he has sensed “growing disrespect and discord” on campus, requesting each member of Winona State’s community to support the pledge to “create a positive, respectful learning environment and workplace for all.”
The email also listed several resources for students to speak with about any experiences they may have had involving discrimination, disrespect, exclusion or indignity, including the Director of Student Conduct and Citizenship, Alex Kromminga, the equity and inclusion office and others.
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