A school in the English Montreal School Board has created the board’s first gender neutral washroom.
A year in the making, a group of Westmount High School students pushed to get parents, teachers, and board members to agree.
“For people who are going through a serious identity struggle, who are trans – this makes their life a whole lot easier,” said Eden Alati-Coventry, a 16-year-old student at the school.
“And even if people don't realize it, for them it means a lot and it shows that people are aware that they exist,” he said.
Born female, Alati-Coventry said he always felt like a boy.
“I wasn't expecting it to be so hard. At first I thought I was just a tomboy going through a phase,” he said.
Far from a phase, once in his teens, he told a loving family there was only one possible future.
“If I can't get the hormones to make me be me, you're going to have either a living son or a dead daughter,” he told his family.
His friends rallied behind him, and decided it was important to make him feel accepted at school.
“We have friends and peers that have to struggle with things like this. We decided, hey, first thing we should do – bathroom,” said Westmount High School student Kyra Hedley-Cain.
“We really did it because we discovered there was a need,” said Michael Christofaro, the school’s principal, who is proud that his school is the first in the EMSB to go gender neutral.
“I think it’s important that we as a school and as a community hear what the kids have to say.”
The washroom has multiple stalls and is open to anyone; a way to make sure no one is bullied or labelled.
“Anyone is free to use it. It's not exclusive to transgender students. So it's not putting a target on anyone's back, it's like a family washroom at the YMCA, really,” said Adrienne Buell, a student at the high school.
Just a washroom to some, to Alati-Coventry and those like him, it's much more.
“It makes me feel beyond happy and really proud that I can call this place my school,” he said.
