(LifeSiteNews) – Parents in southwestern Virginia are alarmed by the discovery that renovations to Christiansburg High School included a “gender-neutral” bathroom in which boys and girls will be forced to share space.
The Daily Signal reported that photos of the new facility feature “signs with symbols depicting a woman, a man, a half-man/half-woman, and a wheelchair. While the individual stalls have higher walls to increase privacy, the gender-neutral open concept means that teen boys and girls will share a handwashing space in view from the hallway.”
In a June 2023 presentation, architect Josh Bower explained to Montgomery County School Board that the goal of this “open plan” would be, paradoxically, to “reduce bullying,” along with drug use and vandalism.
“The bathroom is the highest level of anxiety a student has,” he argued. “They don’t want to go to the restroom because of some of the nonsense that happens in there. When you’re doing your most private activities, the stalls go from floor to ceiling and they are completely private when you are doing your most private activities.”
In June 2023, architect Josh Bower explained, “toilet rooms for the student use are all going to be open plan.” What does that mean?
Toilet rooms are open to the corridor—so people in the hallway can see you wash your hands
Toilet stalls stretch from floor to ceiling
2/10 pic.twitter.com/gNEkw4yoUc
— Tyler O’Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) August 13, 2025
Many community parents concluded the resulting space will have the exact opposite effect, however.
“How would you feel coming out of the stall, washing your hands, and having to look at the boy or man who just heard you and is now right beside you at the sink?” said Alecia Vaught, grandmother of two Christiansburg students. She argued that the new design means “the complete invasion of privacy of our girls,” who “need to have a safe space they can go to pull themselves together if they’re stressed out, emotional, or upset. They need privacy to conduct their business or ask other girls for tampons or pads, and to be able to check their faces or fix their makeup in the mirror.”
Most alarmingly, however, it is not yet clear whether this is now students’ only restroom option at the school. The district did not answer the Signal’s inquiries as to whether the school still has sex–segregated options. District policy states that “(u)pon request, a single-user, gender-inclusive facility, or other non-stigmatizing alternatives should be made available to any student who seeks privacy.”
Critics have long warned that forcing girls to share intimate facilities such as bathrooms, showers, and changing areas with members of the opposite sex violates their privacy rights, subjects them to needless emotional stress, and gives potential male predators a viable pretext to enter female bathrooms or lockers by simply claiming transgender status.
In Virginia, for example, former Loudoun County Public Schools superintendent Scott Ziegler set off a national firestorm for allegedly covering up the rape of a female student by a “transgender” classmate in a girls bathroom due to its damaging implications for the LGBT movement. He was convicted in 2023 of “using his official position to retaliate against someone for exercising their rights” by firing a teacher who testified about the situation before a grand jury, but prosecutors eventually dropped charges relating to allegedly lying about having no knowledge of the situation at a school board meeting.
Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin was elected on a wave of negative reaction to so-called “wokeness” in education, and under him the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) promulgated a model policy that requires students to be addressed by their legal names and actual sex as well as to use biological sex to determine which bathrooms, lockers, or athletic teams they are allowed to access.
But while Virginia law requires public school districts to abide by VDOE model policies, adherence to the policies has long been complicated by a lack of clear enforcement mechanisms that has enabled districts to get away with flouting them. Democrats’ takeover of the state legislature in 2023 has further dashed hopes of curing the situation through new laws.
However, relief for female students could come from the national level. U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon recently warned that school districts refusing to provide female-only intimate spaces are in violation of Title IX and are therefore in danger of losing federal funds.
