On a 12-hour car ride from his college in Iowa to Texas, Erin Duran did not make any stops to use the bathroom in order to avoid hearing disparaging comments or having people follow him on the road.

“I was absolutely compromising my health. I wouldn’t drink for 12 hours to avoid using bathrooms even if I had to go,” said Duran, the associate director of the LGBT Resource Center at Syracuse University.

As a transgender individual, Duran has experienced firsthand the types of discrimination and ridicule transgender people face.

When North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed a bill last month prohibiting transgender individuals from using public restrooms of the gender they identify with, Duran was not surprised. He said 2016 has been one of the most dangerous years to be transgender. More than 175 anti-LGBT bills have been filed across 32 different states this year, according to a report by the Human Rights Campaign.

Soon after, nearly 80 companies, including Apple and Microsoft, signed a letter insisting McCrory repeal the law. PayPal canceled its plans to create a global operations center in North Carolina that would have employed more than 400 people.

“People’s human rights and people’s dignity trumps money being made,” said Tre Wentling, a Ph.D. student in SU’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and a teaching assistant in the women’s and gender studies department.

Wentling said he sees the bill as an opportunity for big corporations to motivate social movements.

“I think this is a great example of the ways that financial capital is important,” he said. “So what you see is different pockets of agents in the industry that are working together, not intentionally, but it looks this way.”

Duran said he is hoping the controversy surrounding this bill will create a positive change for the transgender community.

“It’s raised conversations about transgender identities and bathroom access for trans people,” Duran said. “It’s raised that to the mainstream consciousness in ways that I think could be really positive as long as we can take this really negative narrative and turn it on its head.”

When Matt Steriti, a sophomore drama major at SU, found out about the bill, he said he was disappointed.

“People are always talking about how far we’ve come and how far forward we’re coming with this stuff and then you take five big steps back and it’s just really frustrating,” Steriti said.

Steriti said he has recently been struggling with his sexual identity and is thankful the SU campus has been open to gender-inclusive bathrooms.

“Seeing places accepting it makes me feel like I don’t have to question it because of how other people will perceive me,” he said.

SU has consistently been ranked over the years as one of the most LGBT-friendly campuses. In 2014, SU was among the top 50 most LGBT-friendly campuses in the country, according to the Campus Pride Index. Although it did not break the top 25 in 2015, SU ranks the highest in LGBTQ student life and LGBTQ campus safety, according to the Campus Pride Index.

As of October 2015, Bea González, dean of University College and a member of the Chancellor’s Workgroup on Diversity and Inclusion, said the campus has more than 600 all-gender bathrooms — an increase from 2012, when only eight out of 137 bathrooms in SU’s 17 most-trafficked buildings were all-gender.

“The university has been very aggressively moving toward gender-neutral bathrooms — building them at every opportunity as they rehab the resident halls,” González said.

Currently, there are only three resident and dining halls and 21 academic buildings without any access to all-gender bathrooms, González said. The LGBT Resource Center recently created an online map that indicates where all of these restrooms are located on campus.

González is directly involved with discussions surrounding gender-neutral bathrooms and is currently working with SU’s Athletics Department and facilities to create more awareness on the importance of these bathrooms as safe places for transgender students.

“The university is really trying to understand the needs of our multiple communities and finding ways to be responsive and respectful,” González said.

The workgroup is also actively figuring out the best way to approach creating the gender-neutral signs on the bathrooms because there are multiple variations to signify these facilities, González said.

Steriti said he is also hoping the topic surrounding the transgender community and all-gender bathrooms will eventually become normalized.

“If it’s only in some buildings, it kind of feels weird and different,” Steriti said. “But to put them in every building and to make all the dorm rooms (co-gendered) and little steps like that will just make it feel less abnormal.”

Without all-gender bathrooms in every building and resident hall on campus, some students only have the option of using a restroom that’s five or 10 minutes away, Duran said.

González said she recognizes that there is still progress to be made and added that the university is actively working with the community to make the campus climate as inviting as possible.

“Compared to Mississippi and North Carolina, we’re lightyears ahead in terms of our thinking,” González said.

Published on May 1, 2016 at 11:46 pm

Contact Caroline: caschagr@syr.edu