A high school in Pennsylvania installed a window in its gender-inclusive restroom, making the interior visible from the school hallway.
The window was built at Emory H. Markle Middle School in Hanover, Pennsylvania, about five miles north of the Maryland border. Gender-inclusive bathrooms are often used by transgender and non-binary people for privacy and safety reasons.
South Western School District Board Chairman Matthew Gelazela said the district decided to add the window because it is “in the process of renovating multi-user restroom facilities.”
“There is an interest in taking a look at the non-private realm of these facilities in a manner similar to what has existed for years in our elementary schools,” Gelazela said in a statement to NBC affiliate WGAL in Lancaster. “By making the area outside stalls more visible, we can better monitor a wide range of prohibited activities, including potential vaping, drug use, bullying or absenteeism.”
Gelazela added that the window does not provide “insight into those private stall spaces from outside the restrooms.”
The district did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for additional comment.
The installation of the window raised concerns among some of the students’ parents, who said windows had not been added to the school’s multi-user restrooms.
Jennifer Holahan, whose son attends school in the district, said the new window is a “deterrent” to keep students from using the restrooms and a way to select LGBTQ students who are more likely to use a gender -inclusive provision.
“I understand the need for supervision of secondary school students, especially in the toilets. I was a teenager once; I know it’s a tough place,” Holahan told WGAL. “But I also think that windows are not a solution. I think if it were a real problem it wouldn’t just be about gender-inclusive toilets.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania condemned the window’s installation, calling it “discriminatory.”
“Schools should be welcoming and safe environments that nurture students’ curiosity and well-being,” a spokesperson for the group said in an email. “Discriminatory policies like this not only undermine those goals, but also make students less safe.”
The question of whether transgender people should be able to use a toilet that matches their gender has been going on in the US for about ten years. A transgender “bathroom ban” in North Carolina — which prohibited transgender people from using restrooms and changing areas that matched their gender identity in most public spaces — caused a national outcry in 2016. (North Carolina’s law, HB 2, was partially repealed in 2016. However, similar laws have rebounded in recent years, with legislative success and more muted opposition.
Thirteen states across the country have laws banning transgender people from using bathrooms and facilities consistent with their gender identity in K-12 schools, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Some of these state laws – known as “bathroom bans” – also prohibit transgender people from using restrooms that correspond with their gender identity in some or all government buildings.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
