After many construction delays, Aragon’s all-gender changing room opened for the 2024-2025 school year. Construction started in June of this year and ended in late July, making it available for use at the start [of August]. The changing room was initially planned to be completed in Dec. 2023, but faced setbacks as architecture plans were not approved by the state until this April.
The idea for an all-gender locker room was proposed in 2022 by Aragon’s Student Equity Council, as well as students in an Agency and Social Justice elective class and Gender and Sexuality Awareness club who had concerns about students not feeling safe in gendered changing areas.
This past summer, English teacher and GSA adviser Vince Bravo corresponded with Deputy Superintendent Kirk Black and Director of Student Services Donald Scatena about the implementation of the changing room. Black and Scatena said that the district was working with the San Mateo County Attorney Office and the Office of Education on how to move forward with the logistics of the room.
Similar to the all-gender bathroom, the changing room is only accessible to students with permission from the administration. In order to have access, students must talk to their PE teacher or counselor. Some feel that this process adds an extra layer of complication for students.
“It needs to be a space that all students have access to,” Bravo said. “There should be no requests, no paperwork, no additional hurdles for anyone to use this space.”
Senior Alex Pate expressed a similar sentiment.
“You already have so much going on,” Pate said. “You already have to fit in so many places … there’s already so many steps. So many students who are transgender struggle to already reach out and find a teacher to talk to.”
Despite the completion of the all-gender changing room, it hasn’t been promoted as much as other recent updates to Aragon’s campus.
“Upon return at the beginning of the school year, there was a
shared with the faculty about all of the construction that’s been successful over the summer,” Bravo said. “The all-gender locker room was not included on that list.”In the map of Aragon’s campus that was issued at the start of this school year, the changing area was included, though it was marked as still being in the “planning phase.”
The changing room, which was converted from a football team room, has individual changing stalls and lockers that can be used by PE students and athletes. It is located next to the boys’ locker room, allowing it to be supervised by PE teachers.
“The idea was [to] give students as much privacy as possible,” said former Aragon principal Valerie Arbizu. “Very similar to if you’re going to try on clothes at the mall … you [have] privacy while you [are] changing … but [PE teachers are] still able to open a door to the PE office that was right on the other side and … understand what was going on in the space.”
The all-gender changing area can offer a more comfortable environment than a gendered locker room.
“I feel more safe [with] people from the LGBTQ community because they understand, they don’t judge,” said sophomore Juan Carlos Ayala Rodriguez.
Students wanting to use the all-gender changing space should speak with their PE teachers to gain access to the room.
