The ??? ?? ??nationwide debate over transgender-inclusive bathrooms just got another high-profile champion.
Yale University, which affixed "all gender" signs to 23 of its bathrooms last fall, decided to promote its bathroom policy ahead of the school's graduation ceremony on May 23. A link to a campus map of all-gender bathrooms is featured prominently on Yale's commencement website.
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"Yale aims to be a leader on this front," Tamar Gendler, dean of Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, told the Associated Press. "Part of what is important about the all-gender bathroom project and about putting it at the top of our commencement site, is this is about public signaling."
Inclusive bathrooms are just one of many recent policy changes designed to make the university friendlier to transgender students, staff and visitors, school officials said.
"Yale aims to be a leader on this front."
Yale also has decided to change a long-standing rule and will allow transgender graduates to have on their diploma the name they use, rather than the name on their birth certificates. Professors are also using preferred pronouns when addressing students, and the school is allowing transgender students to change their names on their school identification card and the school's web portal at no charge.
The 23 bathrooms became gender neutral last November after officials identified facilities that required only a sign change. The new signs include the traditional male and female icons alongside a third icon that is a combination of both.
“The language of ‘all gender’ and the inclusion of the three icons on this picture and the fact that it is official Yale signage that went through every single part of the Yale process means that this is done with approval at the very highest levels,” Gendler said at the time. “This is a category of self-understanding that Yale is publicly acknowledging and putting on the walls with this kind of permanence.”
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A growing number of schools are changing their policies regarding transgender rights. The University of Vermont officially addresses transgender students using the name and gender pronoun of their choice. Smith College, an all-women's school in Massachusetts, made headlines last year when it began admitting students who were born male but identify as female.
"Yale's programs, policies and practices are very much what LGBT inclusion looks like for students on a campus," Rebby Kern, programs manager at Campus Pride, a nonprofit that tracks LGBT rights on campuses nationwide, told the AP.
The subject of transgender-inclusive bathrooms, particularly on school campuses, has become increasingly controversial in recent weeks. In March, North Carolina passed House Bill 2, a law that forbids transgender people and students from using public bathroom and locker room facilities that correspond to their gender identity.
Earlier this month, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state, its governor and the University of North Carolina, among other parties, for violating federal civil rights laws that prohibit sex discrimination. The university could lose federal funding if the case proceeds.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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