Gender neutral restrooms were installed and opened in the renovated Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life in January 2007.

Recently this year, the LBC has implemented new signage to make students aware that these restrooms are categorized as gender neutral. Right now, the new signs are being put up at Tulane’s Uptown, Downtown and Primate Research Center campuses.

“The process that you are seeing right now in the LBC is the first phase where we are putting clarifying language signs on each bathroom so people know you don’t have to be male or female to use that restroom,” Red Tremmel, director of the Office for Gender and Sexual Diversity said.

Currently, the LBC has nine gender neutral restrooms throughout the facility. These restrooms are located on all three floors of the LBC. These include two on the ga

rden level located next to Suite G03, three on the first level across from Card Services and two on the second level across from the Qatar Ballroom.

“The gender neutral restrooms provide bathroom facilities that are open to people of any gender and are a tangible example of our commitment to make the LBC an inclusive space,” LBC Director Heather Seaman said.

The change in signs was implemented in hopes of making users feel comfortable and safe.

“We realized that we need to be more clear about what our policy is in very explicit terms around bathrooms, and everyone is entitled to use the bathroom that they identify with,” Tremmel said. “And if they don’t identify as either male or female, then we would encourage them to use the bathroom they feel safest in.”

Last year, an ad-hoc Undergraduate Student Government committee was created to see what binary-gender single-stall bathrooms on campus could become gender inclusive and where the university could create more gender inclusive bathrooms on campus.

On April 5, Tulane’s USG passed the Tulane University Gender-Neutral Restroom Policy to increase the number of bathrooms available to individuals of any gender on campus by Spring 2018.

Continuing efforts such as the signage change and the USG committee last year have been made on campus to create gender inclusive restrooms.

“I feel like the community on campus is really dedicated to making things more comfortable for transgender and gender nonconforming students,” Gender Exploration Society president Lydia Bell said.

Though its time frame is undecided, a second phase of bathroom renovations is in the works to make Tulane gender inclusive throughout all parts of campus.