{"id":27231,"date":"2025-10-01T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T16:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=27231"},"modified":"2025-09-26T09:46:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T16:46:31","slug":"open-space-camosun-college-bathrooms-lack-inclusivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2025\/10\/01\/open-space-camosun-college-bathrooms-lack-inclusivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: Camosun College bathrooms lack inclusivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a gender-diverse or disabled student at Camosun, good luck finding an appropriate bathroom. Our so-called \u201caccessible bathrooms\u201d are proof that accessibility for some is not necessarily accessibility for all. Bathrooms should be boring, but on the Lansdowne campus, they feel like a nightmare.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with accessibility. Most of our \u201caccessible\u201d bathrooms are catered toward mobility-based disabilities, which, don\u2019t get me wrong, is great to see\u2014I was pleasantly surprised to see a lift in the Fisher building. But, beyond that is chaos. Between the dreaded tri-combo soap\/faucet\/hand-dryer contraption that confuses everyone, the auto-flush toilets so sensitive they\u2019ll flush three times before you even sit down, and the toilet-paper dispensers too close to the ground and so far away, you\u2019d think that these decisions were made by someone who had never used a bathroom before. These aren\u2019t just small inconveniences, they\u2019re actual barriers.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the toilet paper itself. You know the kind I mean\u2014cheap, scratchy, rough as all hell. It\u2019s no one\u2019s favourite, but for students who suffer from GI issues such as Crohn\u2019s disease, IBS, hemorrhoids, and fissures, this stuff feels like actual sandpaper. I\u2019ve had to start stashing rolls of toilet paper in my locker like it\u2019s 2020 all over like again. That shouldn\u2019t be a part of student life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This story originally appeared in our October 1, 2025 issue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now let\u2019s talk about gender-neutral bathrooms.<\/p>\n

Look, just like accessible bathrooms, these are not optional, they\u2019re essential. So, I guess it makes sense that they decided to opportunistically merge the two together (much like I\u2019m doing here!). However, this really makes them feel like an afterthought. I mean, most only have a single stall, and more often than not, it\u2019s already occupied when you need it.<\/p>\n

This scarcity creates a harsh reality for us non-binary students: hold it and wait, try to make it to another building and hope that stall is free, or choose between two gendered bathrooms, which can often feel extremely dysphoric, and, at times, even unsafe.<\/p>\n

Now, add disability into the mix, and it only gets worse. Longer waits, less dignity, and more valuable class time wasted. \u201cIntersectionality\u201d isn\u2019t just a buzzword or a key term on a sociology quiz\u2014it\u2019s a reflection of the lived experience of students on this very campus.<\/p>\n

I know that adding this kind of infrastructure isn\u2019t cheap\u2014but Camosun made a commitment to inclusion and accessibility and haphazardly meeting this promise with such a basic requirement is not honourable. Don\u2019t get me wrong, it\u2019s great that we have the options we currently do have. But let\u2019s be honest: if we can find the money for sports and recreation, we can find the money for bathrooms that actually work for the people who need them.<\/p>\n

In 2016, Camosun added its first gender-neutral bathrooms. They were ahead of the curve on this, and yet, in the years that followed, no effort seems to have been made to keep up with demand and continue the work that was started nearly 10 years ago. A handful of gender-neutral bathrooms is better than none, but it feels to me like Camosun made those changes, and said \u201calright, we\u2019re done.\u201d But the work of inclusivity should never be finished. If we can\u2019t even get our bathrooms right, what does that say about our commitment to accessibility and inclusion as a whole?<\/p>\n

Bathrooms should not be battlegrounds. They should not be places where students strategize about toilet-paper quality or time their bladders around class schedules and building layouts. They should be boring, forgettable, and ordinary experiences. But until Camosun treats inclusive, functional bathrooms as the standard\u2014not the exception\u2014they\u2019ll continue being political.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a gender-diverse or disabled student at Camosun, good luck finding an appropriate bathroom. Our so-called \u201caccessible bathrooms\u201d are proof that accessibility for some is not necessarily accessibility for all. Bathrooms should be boring, but on the Lansdowne campus, they feel like a nightmare. Let\u2019s start with accessibility. Most of our \u201caccessible\u201d bathrooms are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,339],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views","category-october-1-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27232,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27231\/revisions\/27232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}