Expecting safety in restrooms is presuming too much at Evergreen

I wanted to adress this issue in spring 2009, back when this incident occurred, but in contacting the Cooper Point Journal, I found I would be given 800 words to relate the event and the official proceedings (which involved letters addressed to Vice Presidents Art Costantino and John Hurley, and which had gone without a response for over two months by the time I decided to write this article in late May). It was not enough space for the article, and I knew I couldn’t trim it down and still explain things adequately. The other choice offered was to break the article in two and publish it in consecutive issues. I was also unwilling to do this. It’s been a very busy year, so it’s taken me until now to get this article published for the start of fall quarter.

I have chosen to write about my experience and the irresponsibility of the school in the form of a public article in hopes of getting a mature, professional, and decent response from an institution I graduated from in 2008—an institution I currently represent in various aspects of my life, including in the museums, galleries, and schools which have choosen to screen my documentary work—work produced as a student here. For whatever discomfort or embarrassment I feel associating with Evergreen at present, I can only guess that it must be beyond embarrassing for Art Costantino, John Hurley, and others in the administration to ignore my requests for a constructive, open resolution to the incident I describe here.

I visited Evergreen in mid-February. I was on the first floor of the Library building, where I was waiting for my friends to finish some errands. I needed to use a restroom during this time. The way I look happens to confuse people sometimes—other times, they just assume I’m one of many things: a straight guy, a gay looking girl, or a gay man. Often people don’t know which one of those to choose, or I make them uncomfortable because of my appearance, and that’s when things usually go wrong.

I would like to state that at no point in my dealings with Evergreen staff members—and in particular with Civil Rights Officer Nicole Ack—did someone ask me what my gender identity was, nor did I state one.

Given the fact that I look like a man to most people, or a very queer-looking female, restrooms are a frequent place of discomfort for me. I usually use women’s restrooms because I have always felt male restrooms to be sources of more potential violence. However, almost always when using the women’s restroom—since my teens and more frequently every year—I encounter some kind of problem. Usually this involves stares or words of some kind; sometimes, aggressive body language and confrontations. On this particular day, at Evergreen, I chose the women’s room.

Upon entering the women’s room, I heard voices, so I immediately left, without anyone seeing me. I entered the men’s and found it empty. Relieved, I entered a stall and closed it. A few seconds after I started using the toilet, I heard someone enter. I tensed a little, but knew I’d be fine, and that I’d just wait for the person to leave. Oddly, I didn’t hear him make any noises indicating that he was using the facilities himself, and a couple moments later I felt a presence outside the stall door.

“Next time, use the right restroom,” the voice from outside the stall said.

The tone was unfriendly, and I experienced a menacing anger coming toward me. The man paused for a moment, then left.

I exited the restroom shortly afterward and luckily found my girlfriend waiting outside for me. I asked her if she had seen the man who exited, and she had. She thought it was strange because he had literally run out the door and around the corner. I told her what happened, and that’s when this experience of restroom intimidation really changed for me. It turned out she knew who he was, that he was a staff member in one of the first floor departments. This change is significant, because never in my experience of restroom intimidation have I ever been in a vicinity that I frequent and experience the harassment coming from a person based in the same location. It is only because of this unique aspect of the incident that I had any power to address it. In the vast majority of restroom harassment cases, the target never has such a chance.

I did not live in Olympia, so I commuted from Seattle via bus a week later to meet with Evergreen’s civil rights officer and give my report. She later met with the staff member in question, and he corroborated my story, except that he said he had used the restroom.

Two weeks after I wrote an initial letter to Art Costantino detailing the entire incident—and following several communications with Nicole Ack, and after Ack filed her “report” of the incident—I wrote a final letter to Costantino, Ack, and John Hurley, abridged below:

I am shocked and saddened by the decision made by Evergreen’s civil rights officer, Nicole Ack, representing the Administration’s stance toward this incident thus far. I find it very upsetting and offensive that I have been treated as if I don’t know how to judge when I am being intentionally intimidated and discriminated against. As a student of Evergreen for four years with good standing and participation in the community, to be given the treatment that I am the person who has done something wrong, or made a ‘mistake,’ or should have used a different restroom causes me a great deal of pain and upset. I have always tried to be a person who shows others respect and can be treated with respect. I understand that some parts of my identity and how I look leave me vulnerable not only to discrimination but also to a choice, conscious or not, of not being understood as a complete human being, or given the respect a human being deserves.

You have no idea the pain this causes me. I did not expect much disciplinary action toward the staff member who was clearly acting in an intimidating and discriminatory way toward me, nor did I expect him to admit his intent, which was extremely clear to me, and I feel to any person, a professional or student, gay or straight, who knows how to treat a human being, and who has some basic knowledge of local culture, and therefore, the culture of the student body (as well as staff). But I am shocked by the civil rights officer’s finding of no violation of the campus code of conduct, and at the prospect that other administrative staff would support such a finding.

Beyond the personal pain and upset this has caused me so far, the negative consequences it has for the safety and respect given the queer community at Evergreen, and anyone whose gender is visibly “questionable,” is serious and far-reaching.

In quoting the first part of the conclusion of the report filed by Ms. Ack:

Complainant states that “ . . . I am visibly gay/queer looking, and pass as a male half the time. Sometimes I use the men’s restroom to avoid being hassled in the women’s.” Complainant chose not to use the women’s restroom or the easily accessible gender neutral restroom, but instead presumed that either the men’s or women’s was appropriate, which characterization clearly differs from that used, for example, by the San Francisco Unified School District, which requires “exclusive and consistent assertion of a particular gender identity” to use a particular sex-designated restroom.
I feel very disrespected by the language used in this report and the handling of the case by the civil rights officer. It casts the suspicion and doubt on me, in that I “presumed” that either the men’s or women’s was appropriate, and that I “chose not to use the women’s restroom or the easily accessible gender neutral restroom.” Every time I need to use a restroom, am I to go and find the gender neutral restroom, so that I don’t bother people who don’t know how to handle how I look without saying something antagonistic or intimidatory? I needed to relieve myself, and the restroom facilities were there on the first floor (unlike the single stall/gender neutral restroom, which is by Media Services on the second floor). [Update: I learned over the summer that Evergreen has another single-stall restroom on the first floor—something I did not know, as an alumni.]

I never “presume” any bathroom, besides a single stall, is ever “appropriate.” I am harassed or made to feel uncomfortable in restrooms at least 50% of the time I use them, to different degrees (the other 50% of the time, they’re empty, thank God). The statement in the San Francisco Unified School District that Nicole Ack used to support her comments of myself as having made the mistake (implying I caused the issue to begin with, and should have just gone to relieve myself in a private setting, where I wouldn’t have bothered anyone by my usage of the bathroom) is one I find interesting. How is she aware of any “exclusive and consistent assertion of a particular gender identity” on my part? And moreover, whether or not I have such an exclusive and consistent assertion that she may deem satisfactory, how does that change how that makes this staff member’s behavior toward me permissable or not? How is he to know what particular gender identity I exclusively identify with? It still goes back to his own “perception” of me as “female,” and therefore making his actions towards me permissable. I do not agree with this at all, and regardless of what is stated by Ms. Ack or the staff member, I find it a very self-excusing and naïve thing to be suggested that no assumptions were made about my sexuality or orientation—just my gender, apparently.

I believe it was my initial entering of the women’s restroom that Nicole Ack is relying much of her finding on (rather than the staff member’s behavior, as I think would be a more appropriate focus). It is saddening the ways in which a minority person’s decisions of how to best protect themselves can so easily lead to entrapment by an irresponsible second or third-party. The civil rights officer has not mentioned in her report or seemed to have investigated how the staff member saw me enter the women’s room and then go into the men’s. Walking from his office, I don’t know how he could have witnessed that entire process and entered only after I had gotten inside a stall and started using it, unless he had stopped to watch me.

Outside of all of that, it is very clear that the staff member entered the men’s room and spoke to me in a way that was intentionally harassing and intimidatory. He wanted me to “use the right restroom.” He wasn’t thinking I’d made a mistake—he said to me, in a voice that was not a conversational tone or any sort of friendly or neutral tone, “Next time, use the right restroom.” He knew I was fully aware of what restroom I was in, and he wanted to let me know that he was not okay with my decision. That is directly intimidatory (though he made the statement from behind my closed stall door so I could not see him), and a severe act of discrimination.

The officer also declined to add in her ending statement the staff member’s promise to her that he wouldn’t do the same thing again (also why not, if it is not problematic behavior?). In a phone conversation with me (in which she tried to deny the problems of the incident) she said the staff member said instead that he would not use the restroom if he saw someone fitting my description going into the restroom, as he wouldn’t want to make any mistake in his interaction with them. I told her I found this troubling, as a fear on his part of making a mistake in an interaction sounded extremely questionable to me, and revealing of his feelings around people who “look like me.” This staff member is uncomfortable around queer looking people using the same restroom as him (and I have a feeling this is not limited to gender questionable looking people, but probably visibly gay men as well), and chose to act on that discomfort by coming into the men’s room to put me in my proper place (which was outside of “his” restroom.) That is not a mistake; that is not a friendly question or notice; that is discriminatory and intimidatory, an act with clear undertones of gender violence.
I respect this college very much for the opportunities I have found as a student and as an artist. But I will not accept the decision made by the campus civil rights officer. I hope a more appropriate decision is made by whomever appropriate.
I encourage the campus community to ask the college to work on developing a very clear restroom policy that treats its minority students with respect, rather than with suspicion and blame. Alongside this work, I strongly advocate all staff and faculty having the opportunity for private workshops that deal with gender diversity. I am not seeking any type of retribution or “restorative justice” – the stakes are much greater than a single individual or resolution. The campus has a problem. It has a problem among its staff and its students—a problem among those who are uncomfortable (and sometimes this uncomfortable-ness can grow into anger and violence) around others in the campus community whose gender confuses them. This problem is not going to be solved by the cowardly, unprofessional, and inappropriate response given thus far by Nicole Ack and Art Costantino. It is not going to “go away” by referencing some code from San Francisco. Doesn’t Evergreen know how to think for itself? Or is gayness or queerness so alien to it that it needs to look at some other policy and use it as an excuse for not addressing a truly problematic incident, and not even bother responding to the “complainant,” an Evergreen alumni and recipient of numerous Evergreen honors.

The Evergreen community needs to put pressure on those in a position of power to make significant and lasting changes in policy. It furthermore needs to provide an atmosphere in which staff and faculty in particular can share their feelings and learn how to work with the cultural backgrounds of its campus members. Because gender, like many other things, is a manifested identity as well as something that holds a cultural understanding unique to differing groups of people. The change needs to start with Evergreen employees – it needs to be known that students don’t have to fear homophobic and genderphobic behavior from members of the College.

I will not be involved in the proceedings from this point forth, as I moved to the Bay Area in late May and have been building a life there. But I wish the campus luck in developing a mature model of dealing with incidents like this—because I assure you, they will keep occurring, and will only get worse if not addressed in a healthy manner.