Students at UTM and UTSC will soon be able to find the perfect washroom with the help of the Washroom Inclusivity Project, as the project recently completed an inventory of washrooms on those campuses.

“We have all of the data but now we need to sift through it and update the map,” said Allison Burgess, an officer with the Sexual & Gender Diversity Office (SGDO), one of the organizations involved in the project.

The endeavour aims to provide information on the different features available in washrooms across U of T’s three campuses, with the ultimate goal of fostering a safe and inclusive campus. Such facilities include single-user washrooms, ablution facilities for people who wash before prayer, change stations, and various accessibility features.

“As it turns out, U of T has lots of washroom options available for people — but there is no one central place where people can find that information,” said Burgess, adding that, “The Washroom Inclusivity Project was all about collecting the information that is available on our campuses and sharing it with the people who might want to know.”

Although the project will benefit everyone who uses U of T’s public washrooms, Burgess said that people with disabilities, people from multi-faith communities who wash before prayer, parents and caregivers, as well as transgender, or other gender non-normative people who may prefer not to use other gender inclined washroom spaces may be especially interested in the project.

At last count in January 2015, U of T had about 20 gender-neutral washrooms. According to Burgess, 206 all-gender, single user washrooms are available at the St. George campus, 140 of which are accessible. This figure excludes private spaces, such as residential washrooms.

“We don’t yet have our figures from UTM and UTSC but we should have these shortly,” said Burgess.

A number of equity, faith-based, accessibility, and student organizations on all three campuses have collaborated to fund the project and to share resources.

The number of partnerships has so far increased, indicating that the project has been well received so far.