Every January, gyms all over the country fill up as millions of Americans lift, run, spin and stretch in keeping with their New Year’s resolutions. But within weeks, many of them will be gone, never to break a sweat until the sun is back in Capricorn.
According to a 2005 National Center for Health Statistics study, 62 percent of Americans don’t exercise regularly and up until recently, Jazz McGinnis was one of those people.
For McGinnis, a University senior studying sociology, skipping workouts wasn’t an act of laziness. As a transgender male, he avoided the gym to avoid the locker room.
Transgender is an umbrella term that refers to individuals who identify in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.
“I stopped going to the gym for a long time because I felt uncomfortable undressing in front of people whose gender I don’t match,” he said.
With the possibility of stares, verbal taunts or simply making others uncomfortable, McGinnis doesn’t like using men’s or women’s restrooms. At the University’s Student Recreation Center, he no longer has to choose.
The rec center has two new gender-neutral changing areas with wheelchair-accessible showers. The single-use facilities are for anyone who would prefer not to shower and change in front of other people.
Located just steps from the existing locker rooms, the new changing areas replaced a group of day lockers, which have since been disbursed throughout the rec center.
“We had no place for an individual who feels more comfortable in a private space than a large gender-separated space,” said Physical Education and Recreation Services Director Dennis Munroe, who added that there was also no place for someone who needs assistance.
“I think it’s wonderful because a lot of our students need someone to assist them in getting ready, changing clothes, that kind of thing,” said Steve Pickett, director of Disability Services. “Sometimes the attendant could be someone of the opposite sex.”
Pickett said that with the new facility, a hypothetical student with a prosthetic leg can change without the possibly of being gawked at. He added that a hypothetical faculty member with small children would also greatly benefit from the privacy.
“It makes it more community-friendly,” Pickett said.
The new changing area was initially proposed by the nontraditional student representative from the rec center’s Student Advisory Board.
In addition to transgender students and those with disabilities, nontraditional students include older students, students with children and anyone else who didn’t go to college straight from high school, such as military service members and professional athletes.
Funded by the Student Building Fee, for which every University student pays $45 per term, the $101,000 project was completed at the end of the spring term.
“This is the first time it’s available to students who are non-summer school students,” Munroe said.
While construction was coming to a close at the University, controversy arose at Boise State University in Idaho over a similar situation.
“All buildings in the state of Idaho are required to have a bathroom that’s unisex in nature,” explained Boise State Student Union Director Leah Barrett.
She said that when she announced plans for a unisex restroom in the student center, she listed some potential groups of people – such as transgender students – to whom the facility would particularly appeal, and that’s what sparked the controversy.
“Our view is gender is assigned at birth. There’s no third, fourth or fifth option,” Idaho Values Alliance Leader Bryan Fischer told The Oregonian in May.
Idaho Values Alliance is a conservative non-profit group that aims to make Idaho “the friendliest place on earth to raise a family” through the promotion and defense of religious liberty, as well as the sanctity of both life and marriage.
Unisex restrooms also exist at UCLA, San Francisco State University, the University of Chicago, the University of Georgia in Athens, New York University and the University of Southern Maine, among others.
McGinnis, for one, is glad to be at a school that takes everyone into account.
“The U of O is pretty progressive,” he said. “It’s really great to see that the rec center has taken steps to be more open or accessible to different students.”