This Thursday, Erasmus University College (EUC) will be opening gender-neutral toilets on the ground floor of its building on Nieuwemarkt. The men’s and women’s symbols will be replaced with a gender-neutral symbol and the urinals will be closed off.
The LGBT network Erasmus Pride recently argued for realising gender-neutral toilets at Woudestein Campus. An EUR spokesperson informed EM that the University presently wasn’t interested in taking this measure due to the limited demand for such facilities. But they take a different view at EUC. This Thursday evening, the University College will be converting the men’s and women’s toilets on the ground floor into gender-neutral facilities.
‘Everyone is welcome’
“The idea originated with our students and has been in the pipeline for some time,” says Iris Bos, who oversees various diversity projects at EUC. “It’s a coincidence that we’re opening the toilets so soon after Erasmus Pride’s call to action.”
The toilets aren’t specifically reserved for transgenders, but open to everyone. EUC wants to send a message or acceptance and inclusion with this measure. “The standard label of ‘male’ or ‘female’ doesn’t necessarily fit for some people. We want to show this minority that there’s a place for them here too,” says Bos. “That’s why we’ve located these toilets on the ground floor, rather than in the basement, for example. This clearly communicates that at EUC, everyone is welcome.”
Urinals
Bos isn’t sure whether the EUC student body actually includes people who would prefer to use the gender-neutral toilets in connection with their gender identity. They didn’t look into this. “And to be honest, it doesn’t really matter. We expect everyone will use the facilities like any other toilet. Which means that people who don’t feel secure enough to explicitly come out as gender-neutral won’t have to do so.”
While Erasmus Pride proposed simply replacing the symbols on the toilet doors, EUC has taken things a step further. “We won’t be tearing down walls,” explains Bos, “but we will be closing up the urinals on the ground floor so that they can no longer be used.”
The toilets will be officially opened on Thursday, around 19.30, during the elections of the Board of the College’s student association EUCSA.
And there we go! Who are these people who don’t fit into the male and female categories, in which way they don’t, how many are there in the campus roughly and why was it so crucial to accommodate them that you shut down part of the toilet services (the urinals)? Certainly not transgender people as stated in the article, who just want to be the other sex.
I bet they’re just ideologues that think that the sexes don’t exist except as an oppressive social construct (genitalia and hormonal differences must be the result of familial and societal pressures :D), or are administrative people just going with the flow who don’t know what they’re actually preaching or doing.
And they have the audacity of thinking that EUR doesn’t lean very heavily towards the left, just because they have a Business School which shifts the numbers a bit.
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