An American school board that introduced five different types of bathrooms for LGBTQ+ students is now cutting windows — so passersby can look into them. The South Western School District has approved a $8,700 budget for making windows with a clear view of these gender-identity bathrooms in its middle school.
"In making the area outside of stalls more viewable, we are better able to monitor for a multitude of prohibited activities such as any possible vaping, drug use, bullying or absenteeism,” Matt Gelazela, the board’s President, said in a statement on Wednesday.
South Western has two gender-inclusive restroom options, male gender identifying and female gender identifying, outside of the binary male and female bathrooms. There’s a separate category for single-stall private washrooms, according to The Evening Sun.
The school board’s bathroom-with-a-view policy comes after consultations with the Independence Law Center, a Harrisburg-based religious law firm with a track record for anti-LGBTQ policies.
As per an August meeting, the idea is to enhance privacy for individual stalls and urinals, while bringing "increased oversight" to the wash areas.
"[Students] should not consider the space outside of our stalls as private within the multiuser restrooms," Gelazela said, adding that the space between stalls and sinks is not a private changing area.
According to South Western, the change is consistent with a similar, long-running system in its elementary schools.
Many parents in the school district have called out the decision to cut windows into bathrooms. Bullying was one of the major concerns as children could potentially face ostracisation from their peers for being seen in a different bathroom.
"Any female who uses tampons, especially when they're learning to take care of themselves, has been messy in the restroom, which is mortifying anyway," Jennifer Holahan of Penn Township, said "And now there's a huge window."