Central Kitsap High School houses three single-stalled gender neutral bathrooms. There is one bathroom located on each floor of the school, next to the girls and boys bathrooms.

Unlike the public bathrooms, the gender neutral stalls are only available to use with a specially programmed key fob. While students who’d prefer a gender neutral space are being encouraged to come forward to counselors, office staff, or a trusted adult at the school, complications with the general accessibility of the bathrooms are preventing the stalls from being fully utilized. 

To obtain a key, there is an established process that a student must go through. For many students, the first step is discussing why access to the gender neutral bathrooms would be preferable with their guidance counselor. 

Elizabeth Martin, CKHS counselor for students with last names K-Q, has become very familiar with aiding students in acquiring the key. Since December, it’s become increasingly apparent that supply is not meeting demand. 

“Currently, we do not have enough fobs to support the student need for gender neutral bathrooms,” said Martin. 

Martin suspects that the school simply did not anticipate the amount of students that would want access to the bathrooms, and now there aren’t enough programmed key fobs that are ready to be provided. 

“The issue that we’re having is that the fobs need to be programmed. It’s like an electronic mechanism where a student would have a fob, swipe it, and then I think they need to swipe it to lock it also,” said Martin. The fobs need to be programmed so that they work correctly and so that the students are able to have their privacy and lock the door, and we have the fobs, but they are not programmed. So, right now I have a waitlist of students that do not have access to the gender neutral bathrooms, which is an issue.”

Many students have been waiting for access for months now, but without a clear time range for when fobs can be expected to be programmed, it’s likely that the waitlist will only grow longer. 

“I would also like students to know that if they either are on a waitlist with their counselor, or they’ve talked to the main office and have been told that they don’t have access to it right now, that there is a single-stalled bathroom in the health room,” said Martin. So, that would be available to the students as well, and I’ve talked to the nurse about that– that students can utilize that, because I definitely want students to have a place that they feel safe and they’re not having that worry in the back of their mind.”

The delay in properly programmed key fobs isn’t the only issue surrounding the gender neutral bathrooms. With little information being provided by the school regarding the process and specificities, many students are completely unaware that gender neutral bathrooms are available to anybody, or even exist. 

Aiden Carlile, sophomore at CKHS, feels that there is insufficient information surrounding the bathrooms. 

“I feel like they’re not talked about enough,” said Carlile. “I think the only reason most people even know that they’re there is because they’re right next to the actual bathrooms.”

Other students feel reluctant to use the gender neutral bathroom because of the implications it can come with. With fewer students utilizing and having access to the single-stalled bathrooms than the public ones, and little information circulating about who has access to them, some worry that bystanders in the hallway might make assumptions about why they’re using the bathroom, essentially “othering” themselves in front of other students. 

“I think they’re pretty good, but it can be inconvenient,” said Issy Dexter, sophomore at CKHS.  “If you just want to quickly run to the bathroom you have to go through all the things to unlock the bathroom, it’s kind of a pain. Especially if people see you go in there – It kind of immediately tells that person that you’re using the gender neutral bathroom for a reason.”

In the past few weeks, there has been growing discussion surrounding the bathrooms. Flyers with information about how to access them have been posted throughout the school, and a survey has been distributed to the student body through advisory classes. 

These efforts to spread awareness about the gender neutral bathrooms can be accredited to a small group of students in Ms. Rumpke’s civics class. 

Ky Moody, senior at CKHS, is one of the students who has been working on the project. 

“So, [in] my civics class, we’re doing a project, it’s our CAP project. My group is doing gender neutral bathrooms and we’re trying to spread awareness on how to gain access to them so that way people are more aware,” said Moody. 

Through their survey, they found that out of 144 students, 75% were already aware of the gender neutral bathrooms. Despite this, only 23.6% of students knew how to gain access to them. 

The group has collaborated with the students producing the Kugr Broadcast to reach even more students with information about the process, and a follow-up survey was sent out recently with the intention of gathering data on how many students are aware of the gender neutral bathrooms now that more resources have been spread.