VICE-PROVOST (ACADEMIC AND EQUITY)
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON, PO Box 600, Wel ington 6140, New Zealand
Phone +64-4-463 9972
Fax +64-4-463 5240
Email [email address] Web www.victoria.ac.nz
27 June 2016
C Bremer
By ema
il: [FYI request #4090 email]
Dear C Bremer
Official information request for information regarding gender neutral
bathrooms
I refer to your official information request dated June 1 2016 for details regarding the
response to gender neutral bathrooms at Victoria University of Wellington. Specifically,
you have requested in regards to gender neutral bathrooms:
1. Are students generally pro or anti having them present?
2. Have incidences of violence increased or decreased at all?
3. Do gender diverse students report feeling safer and more included?
4. Do binary students feel comfortable having the bathrooms present and/or using
them themselves?
5. What were the costs involved?
6. If you currently had no neutral bathrooms, would you strive to provide some
given your experiences?
These questions are difficult to address in terms of an OIA request due to their subjective
nature. However, I can advise that Victoria University first instituted gender neutral
bathrooms in 2010, and has since strove to provide gender neutral bathrooms in new
facilities. Victoria currently has 95 gender neutral bathrooms across all campuses,
including unisex and accessible facilities
, the locations of which are available on the
attached table.
Victoria University has no reports of gender-based violence in relation to bathrooms on
campus, and any such reports would be taken very seriously by the University as a
criminal matter and breach of the Student Conduct Statute.
No substantive costs were involved in the specific provision of gender neutral bathrooms,
as the costs involved are related to signage, rather than the construction of the bathrooms
themselves.
Yours sincerely
Associate Professor Allison Kirkman
Vice-Provost (Academic and Equity)
