Careliz

My name is Careliz and I am a junior in high school.

I want to talk about the importance of gender neutral bathrooms in order to create a supportive learning environment for my peers and I.

This topic is important to me because students have a right to a bathroom they feel comfortable in and it defeats the whole purpose of student safety if they can’t use a bathroom they identify with. Currently, it takes time out of my education to find a bathroom that I can use. If we have gender neutral bathrooms, students will feel safer to express their gender identity. There are other schools that have gender neutral bathrooms and they trust and prioritize their students enough to create these safe spaces.

Recently, I have been forced to come out to random people in order to use a bathroom I should already have a right to. My teachers will secretly open up a faculty gender neutral bathroom for me to use which puts their job at risk. One time, I timed myself on how long it took me to find a bathroom to use. It took over ten minutes. I was on the fourth floor and had to go all the way down to the main office which is on the first floor. I had to cross over the entire school to get from the red to blue side and then walk down to the first floor. I then had to ask the women at the front desk if there were any office bathrooms available. If I can’t use the office bathrooms I often ask the nurses who are more lenient about allowing me to use their bathroom. However, I have to come out to them to do so. Sometimes, I don’t even feel like going through this long process and wait to use the bathroom until I get home, which is a health threat.

I’ve always been someone who believed in the power of student advocacy. During my sophomore year, I led a walk out at my school for gun violence. We had signs with the names of students who had been killed by gun violence. The acting principal at the time came out and told us we could protest on campus, but not go out in the street. I had to follow his rules in order for everyone to stay safe but it was nice to know that we had his support.

I think student advocacy is super important as it allows students to have a say in what is occurring within their schools. However, there is a big LGBTQI community at my high school and it feels like the administration could care less about our demands. They don’t hear us students out. When the administration is outdated and does not seem invested in listening to us, it becomes very discouraging. They don’t ever ask for the opinions of us high school queer students. It makes me upset because I believe every student has a voice.

During Pride month there is no way of celebrating and welcoming queer students and the school doesn’t provide a safe environment for us. When we don’t get a voice, it shuts down our sexuality and shuts down who we are. Queer students deserve to be celebrated in the same way we celebrate students from other minority groups. However, currently there is a disconnect. The administration feels very outdated as they don’t think about the new ways that students are presenting and identifying. For example, we should not have to fight for pronouns or an updated dress code. It’s super annoying because it should’ve been addressed much earlier than it has been.

Last week, I assisted with our town’s 10th Annual Black History event. Every year I read a poem entitled, I Care and I’m Willing to Serve by Marian Wright Edelman. The poem means a lot to me. It says that you may not be a strong leader like Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou, Harriet Tubman, and Archbishop Tutu; however, if you care and you’re willing to serve, that makes all the difference. You may not be them but it matters if you’re willing to fight like them.

Having access to a gender neutral bathroom is a right. Everyone should have a right to the things that they deserve and I’m willing to continue to use my voice to fight for this right.

Thank you and please support the Safe and Supportive Schools Line Item.