An abundance of bathrooms

Re: No safe space on campus to debate bathroom politics. Barbara Kay, March 7

I’m a Trent University student and I read the article about the debate for bathrooms by Barbara Kay.

I don’t know if you know this but Trent primarily has single- stall gender neutral bathrooms alongside gender- specific f ull size bathrooms in every building. Only one building, the student centre, has the standard full- sized bathroom that is gender-neutral.

Having been a woman in the bathroom I can understand the position girls can feel when men enter. As a victim of gender- based violence, I am very uncomfortable around men when I feel vulnerable, i. e. in the bathroom.

However, I did get used to it. That being said, if I hadn’t I could choose not to use that bathroom, as there is one immediately next to it that is single-person style. Or if I just went into any of the buildings that house all our dorms, classrooms, and cafeterias, or our student services buildings ( where students spend t he l argest portion of their time) I would have my choice of single- person gender neutral bathrooms as well as an abundance of old school bathrooms.

This is why people are opposed to Brown’s stance on the bathroom — not because people disagree with her or because it is a place of “tyranny” or “oppression,” but because she is protesting one bathroom out of the dozens upon dozens everywhere else.

Additionally, the opposing voices at the Politics and Pints event were actually colleagues of mine and I can confirm that Brown did not leave the debate without hurting quite a few feelings. It was not a pleasant ordeal.

Chloe Todd Bachelder, student at Trent University