DENVER — Students in Colorado's largest school district will head back to class next month.
Inside Denver School of the Arts' (DSA) new campus is a new multi-stall, gender-neutral restroom for anyone who might need to go. Denver Public Schools (DPS) said it's the first restroom of its kind for the district and they believe, one of the first like it in the state.
"Just excited that hopefully starting next year, a lot of students will be able to actually use them and reap their benefits," said Skye O., a graduate of Denver School of the Arts and one of the students who helped bring in the gender-neutral bathroom to DSA. At her request, 9NEWS is not sharing Skye's full last name.
After years of pushing and planning for change, Skye is getting a look at the multi-stall gender-neutral restrooms she and her fellow Denver School of the Arts students worked so hard to secure.
"Oh wow," Skye said. "This turned out pretty great."
Skye graduated from DSA this past spring. She and her classmates first started pushing for these restrooms during her sophomore year because the options for transgender and nonbinary kids just didn't cut it.
"There were some single stall restrooms, converted staff bathrooms, but they kept getting shut down," Skye said. "Students might have been vaping in them or there were some other things that were going on in them. But, you know, they ended up getting shut down pretty often because of that. So you know, it was done out of good motivations and safety concerns but it ended up resulting in kind of an access problem for trans and nonbinary students who felt more comfortable using gender neutral bathrooms than the gendered male, female bathrooms."
So Skye and her classmates reached out the leadership at DSA, including Assistant Principal John Najmulski.
"We talked about needs and interests and one of those specifically was gender-neutral bathrooms being very limited, talking about safety and privacy within bathrooms," Najmulski said.
"We ended up, myself and some other students, broached the idea of potentially having a multi-stall, gender-neutral restroom. They're not very common across the United States," Skye said.
As DSA started construction on a new campus next door, that idea took shape.
"It was a very new idea. Some in the administration were hesitant at first. But as we kind of explored the topic more, discussed it more, we ended up making a lot of headway," Skye said.
Now, when DSA's high schoolers enter the building for their first day of school in August, they'll have both a gendered and gender-neutral option if they need to go.
"But this bathroom is really specifically for any student who would like to use the restroom and feel that safety and privacy," Najmulski said.
That goal was made possible through years of dedication from students like Skye. With it comes a lesson in the importance of perseverance.
"Those conversations have happened for years which seems kind of ridiculous to talk about a bathroom for years, but that's why it's so important. It's so important for the equity space but it also, that idea of where we should be going in the future," Najmulski said.
"And so, here it is," Skye said. "And it's real today so it's very exciting to see."
DPS has single-use restrooms available to all of the district's LGBTQ+ students. This new, multi-stall restroom was designed to provide students more space, privacy and inclusivity.
Najmulski said DSA is planning on putting in an additional multi-stall, gender-neutral restroom on the other side of DSA's new campus.