Have you noticed how inaccessible and inequitable Trent University’s Simons Campus is regarding washrooms and washroom use for non-cis students? Trent can absolutely do better by furthering its equity standards and diversity by improving the number of gender-neutral washrooms, and creating better ‘good’ gender-neutral washrooms that are more accessible, inclusive, and have better signage.
I, like many other trans and gender-diverse students on campus, have the daily struggle of choosing which washroom is the safest option to use on campus, or to simply not go at all. Many of my transgender friends refuse to use any public washrooms for fear of transphobia escalating to violence, while a few of them feel safe enough to use the gender neutral ones. Gender-neutral washrooms on campus are nearly exclusively single-stall occupancy, except for a few, such as those in the Student Centre. Within the vast majority of gender-neutral washrooms that my friends and I have used, we have noticed a pattern - no disposal bins for menstrual products. Sure, there are a few garbage bins sometimes, but in ones such as the Champlain Towers, for example, any garbage bin at all is often impossible to find. Continuing with the Champlain Towers’ washrooms, they are inaccessible for those using most mobility aids - like most areas of Trent’s campus.
If I try to think of how many gender neutral washrooms I’ve seen on campus, the number is less than 8 across all the colleges. This is an issue, because one, most people do not even know where they are located and therefore are unable to feel comfortable using any washrooms on campus, two, if there are no disposal bins for menstrual products, then students have to carry around used products, which is a health hazard and outright degrading, along with often being in poor and inaccessible locations, which only serves as a reminder that trans and gender-diverse students are an afterthought.
The disappointment is unreal at times, as a simple bodily need is debated about through the rise of transphobia across the world, which is also felt on our own campus. Additionally, Trent has such a queer-student population that one would think that prioritizing the safety and inclusion of
those students would be discussed more. Instead, I hear other students say they will use the washroom at home where they feel safe, or will pick the one that follows their assigned sex at birth rather than their gender identity, where they feel gender dysphoria and other anxieties, just because they cannot find a gender-neutral washroom that is up to standard.
Many professors in the GESO department, along with students who take those classes, have brought this up, along with other activists and those who are affected by others’ potential ignorance. A simple solution to this problem, as done by other universities to some extent, like Brock, UofOttawa, and Queens, is to make disposal bins for menstrual products available in every stall, provide better signage for washrooms in general, and hopefully implement better ways of making accessible washrooms across this very inaccessible campus.
As a student working in the Equity of Human Rights Office, we are striving to make changes regarding these things. If you, as a reader, feel similarly or have any questions and want to discuss this further, please feel free to reach out to us at humanrights@trentu.ca.
This blog was written by Darien Kenny.
References
The Brock News. (2021, March 8). BUSU enhances free access to menstrual products on campus. Brock University. https://brocku.ca/brock-news/2021/03/busu-enhances-free-access-to-menst…
Harwood-Jones, M., Martin, K., & Airton, L. (2021, August). Research and Recommendations on Gender-Inclusive Washrooms and Changerooms. Queen's University. Retrieved November 10, 2025, from https://www.queensu.ca/vpcei/sites/vpceiwww/files/uploaded_images/Washr…
University of Ottawa. (n.d.). Period Project. https://www.uottawa.ca/campus-life/health-wellness/period-project