Article content

For most people, walking into a public washroom rarely triggers any fears or anxieties beyond typical concerns of cleanliness or adequate supplies of toilet paper.

But for an estimated two to five per cent of the population that doesn’t identify as a heterosexual man or woman, entering a gender-specific restroom can be an uncomfortable, and occasionally risky, endeavour.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or University of Calgary approves proposal for on-campus gender-neutral washroom Back to video

For Naomi Hiebert, a 22-year-old software engineering student at the University of Calgary who is transitioning from male to female, looking for a safe clean washroom on campus can be an exercise in frustration.

“If I was in public somewhere that did not have single-stall public or gender neutral washrooms I would have to gauge, ‘Am I looking more manly or more girlie today,'” said Hiebert.

“Occasionally I might guess it wrong and people would walk into the washroom, take one look at me and dart right back out,” she added.

In recent years, a number of Canadian post-secondary institutions, including the universities of Alberta, Regina and Victoria, have introduced multi-stall, gender-inclusive restrooms and online maps for transgender students in a bid to shield them from harassment for choosing between a male or female washroom.