When the need for gender-neutral locker rooms was brought to the Physical Education (PE) teachers five years ago, the teachers took the issue to the administration. The administration agreed that there must be a place for nonbinary and transgender students to change, but the process always seemed to stagnate before it ever was completed.
Nicole Graydon has been a PE teacher at Redwood since 2018 and has been working on implementing gender-neutral locker rooms.
“[Not having gender-neutral locker rooms is] just a mental health disaster. [Non-gender-conforming students] are already dealing with something that sort of others [them]. [The teachers] want to level the playing field, [but gender-non-conforming students] can’t even have a locker,” Graydon said.

Around two years ago, six lockers were installed in one of the non-binary bathrooms located at the back of the small gym. The lockers are small, without enough room for a backpack. Currently, there are 18 students enrolled in PE who need to use a gender-neutral locker room. Although better than nothing, these lockers are, at most, a band-aid solution.

Students who have to use a non-binary bathroom but don’t have lockers must find alternatives like changing in the Wellness Office. During the swim unit, these students can sometimes shower in the staff showers or the ones located by the pool, but at other times, they do not have access to any shower.

“Anytime this project hits a hiccup, I have to start over and we’re just not getting anywhere,” Graydon said.

Junior Gunnar Niemi is a non-binary student. In their junior year, Niemi no longer needed a locker room but previously experienced difficulty as they did not have access to a gender-neutral space.

“In the two years that I had PE, I never had a chance to have one of the lockers, so [I had] to change in wellness every single day, [causing me] to be an additional two to three minutes late to class,” Niemi said.

Niemi had gone to Graydon about the issue they were experiencing and learned that the admin was aware of it, but no progress was being made.

“The [teachers] agree with the issues of gender neutral locker rooms. It’s horrible because as a teacher, you don’t want to tell your kids, ‘We don’t have something for you, even though it’s desperately needed for comfortability and safety,’” Niemi said.

There have been a few proposed solutions, but these solutions must pass the regulations set for by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which would require the locker rooms to be wheelchair accessible.

One of the proposed solutions was adding more and larger lockers to the bathrooms in the small gyms, but this was given up because the admin thought it might not meet ADA requirements.
“Tam District really wants to be equitable. [They have] all these good intentions, yet they’re dropping the ball majorly on [the lockers], which is really the bare minimum,” Graydon said.”
Niemi has faced the struggles of not having the same amenities as other students during his two years in PE and believes that no more students should have to go without access to a locker room.
“It’s needed now, and it’s been needed; students shouldn’t have to feel disregarded. It’s not just a want, it’s a necessity,” Niemi said.