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Unfortunately, too many students consider the dilemma posed in the title on our campus every day. And not because we’re a navel-gazing bunch, obsessed with hypothetical problems, but because of the very real gender segregation in the bathroom facilities provided by the University.

I am guessing that most of you don’t think twice when nature calls; you just find the nearest public restroom and walk in the door with the stick man or stick woman, depending on your gender assigned at birth, with no stress or worries. If this is your experience, then you should count yourself as lucky and recognise this as a privilege.

For many others on campus, the simple act of going to the toilet can cause distress and anxiety. I know people who have been yelled at, pushed out and barred from toilets because they don’t fit someone’s assumptions of what it is to be male or female. This is especially a problem for trans* people and folk with a non-binary gender identity, but it also can be a problem for people who just present a bit androgynously.

Have you ever stopped for a second and asked yourself why we have this segregation? Surely it belongs to a by-gone era where we assumed everyone was straight and therefore thought we should have segregation to make sure people didn’t get up to any hanky-panky in the toilets. This argument is now redundant with around 10 per cent of the population identifying as queer or questioning.

Perhaps you have had the pleasure of spending your first year at a residential college and got introduced to the notion of gender-neutral bathrooms, also known as bathrooms. Here you would have found yourself sitting down to evacuate your bowels, right next to a stall where someone with a different gender is making a stool of their own. It might have been a bit strange for a couple of days but then you got over it, right?

So why not extend this principle to the whole of the University? Email me your responses!