Lavender@MIT: The Case for an All-Gender Restroom Paradigm on the MIT Campus

Abstract

It is obvious that transgender and gender non-conforming students experience MIT differently than cisgender students – what is less obvious is that one of the biggest differences in experiences stems from, ironically, something universally human: the need to use the restroom. In this thesis, we approach the issue of restroom equity (and inequity) on the MIT campus in three areas, offering a window into how nonbinary students experience MIT’s restroom infrastructure, documenting the history and recent progress around all-gender restrooms at MIT, and showing that MIT students have a vested interest in and thoughts about both all-gender restrooms and institutional restroom design in general. Parts I and II offer an account of my personal journey interacting with all-gender restrooms and all-gender restroom policy and activism on the MIT campus, and culminate with a series of proposed physical interventions and a single renovation to both increase the visibility of all-gender restrooms on campus and to act as a possible example for future single-gender to all-gender multi-stall restroom conversions. Part III widens in scope, and acts primarily as proof that the general student body truly does care about the existence of all-gender restrooms on campus, whether they are transgender/gender non-conforming or not.