PROVO, Utah -- Bathrooms for every gender will be soon available at the new Provo High School.
The current Provo High School does not have a “Family use” or “Anyone use” bathroom.
Some people are calling the new “anyone-use” bathrooms the Provo City School District is including in its new school plan, “gender-neutral” however, the district said that was not the way the bathrooms were intended.
“They (the bathrooms) aren't designated male/female, but they are not in any way limited to their use,” said Caleb Price, a Provo City School District spokesman.
There has been an ongoing effort to have gender-neutral bathrooms put into the new Provo High School. In 2015, a petition on Facebook asked the district administrators to weigh in.
“I have not seen those petitions,” Price said. “I have not heard of a push that the school board or district administration had to include these in the school.”
Either way, the Provo Pride community is thrilled.
“It just really makes me feel that Provo has a hand on the heart beat of what's really happening on the issues of equality,” Provo Pride President James Bunker said.
James Bunker represents the school's LGBTQ community, and he said he is proud to see Provo City Schools planning to have three bathrooms that are single stalls for private use.
“It will give those students that are questioning, a place to feel comfortable," he said.
Gayle Ruzicka, President of conservative Utah political interest group Eagle Forum, also believes this is a positive step forward in protecting students' privacy, but she said she worries about future lawsuits.
“There may be some (people) that challenge this,” Ruzicka said. “There maybe some (people) that say, ‘I don't care, this is not good enough, I am a girl. I want to be in there with the girls,’ when they are not a girl. We have to protect everybody.”
The new school will open in the fall of 2018.
