Waterloo opens 60+ inclusive washrooms on campus

Staff, faculty, students and visitors to the University of Waterloo will have access to more than 60 inclusive washrooms as part of an initiative launched to foster inclusion for diverse community members.

“Access to public washrooms is a key concern for transgender persons” said Waterloo’s Director of Equity Mahejabeen Ebrahim. “At Waterloo we are committed to promoting equitable environments –  that are safe, respectful and include everybody.”

Some of the new washrooms will be fully inclusive - single-user facilities that are both gender neutral and accessible to persons with disabilities. These washrooms will also have features like sharps containers for needle disposal and change tables for infants. Others will be single-user gender inclusive washrooms. Both fully inclusive and inclusive washrooms will be marked with a tactile and braille sign that reads - Washroom.

“Our new washrooms do not require you to identify where you are on the gender spectrum before using them,” added Ebrahim. “People of all genders and those who are gender non-conforming can use these washrooms.”

This is the first phase of the Inclusive Washroom Initiative, which was spearheaded by Waterloo’s Working Group on Sexual and Gender Diversity, a working group of the Provost’s Advisory Committee on Equity. Next fall more inclusive washrooms will be opened. In the future, some of them will also include bidet showers that are commonly used in countries around the world.

“At Waterloo we foster a welcoming environment for all community members. Inclusive washrooms are a basic necessity, said Ian Orchard, vice-president academic and provost. “We are committed to increasing the number of fully inclusive washrooms available across campus.”

Find locations for inclusive washrooms online

The new washrooms are available in 15 campus buildings so far including Health Services, Engineering 2 and 3, the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre and the Centre for Environmental and Information Technology. A list showing the locations of inclusive washrooms on campus is on the Equity Office website. People can also find them using Waterloo’s online campus map.

“A number of students have had difficulties finding washrooms they feel comfortable in,” said Judy Liu, external director of Waterloo’s Glow Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity. “We believe this project will greatly improve the lives and university experiences for those students. They are a step in the right direction for the LGBTQ+ community.”

Waterloo’s Equity Office held an event on Thursday October 20 to launch the initiative. Ayden Scheim, a PhD candidate and Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar in epidemiology and biostatistics at Western University, delivered a talk called From the washroom to the classroom and beyond: Transgender rights and social inclusion. Scheim has worked with transgender communities as an educator, health promoter, and support worker and conducts  community-based research focused on social determinants of health and access to health care among sexual and gender minorities.