Christianna Tran (‘20)

Montgomery County Public Schools is looking into creating ‘all gender’ bathrooms in schools that will be inclusive of a variety of nonconforming and transgender students.

A parent, Julie Greenstein, urged the MCPS board to consider more inclusive bathrooms within their schools at a recent board meeting. She, being a mother of transgender and nonbinary children herself, mentioned how many students are scared or uncomfortable to use gender specific bathrooms and that adding an inclusive bathroom would benefit those people. In addition, she noted how a bathroom like this would ease the discomfort for those concerned about sharing bathrooms with people who were born with the opposite gender. Greenstein explained that adding these bathrooms will show the students that the county cares and will overall push for an inclusive learning environment.

Board Member Jeanette Dixon supports the idea of implementing gender neutral bathrooms into schools and asked some school staff to explore what the cost would be for construction. Andrew Zuckerman, the CEO of MCPS, responded by explaining that the board is looking into the cost analysis for retrofitting existing bathrooms with accommodations necessary to make them gender neutral. Zuckerman stated that he would soon be able to provide data to board members on the potential cost of adding more all-gender bathrooms to schools.