University of Otago Diversity Week organiser Hahna Briggs and students association Clubs and Societies manager Matt Tucker queue in a gender-neutral toilet. PHOTO: LINDA ROBERTSON
All toilets in Otago University Students Association buildings will be gender-neutral this week, as part of the association's annual Diversity Week.
Ms Briggs said the initiative was a recognition of a 2014 University of Otago survey which investigated the views of students with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.
"It is well documented that a lot of people don't identify with binary-gender experience surveillance when going to public bathrooms.''
Such surveillance caused some people to feel extreme anxiety and suffer physical harm such as kidney infections, because they would "hold on all day'', she said.
Ground-floor toilets in the Clubs and Societies Building would be permanently gender-neutral, she said.
