In late July, a law was passed that all public schools will have feminine products available in all bathrooms, including male restrooms. On the eighteenth of October, 2021, Dr. Weber announced that feminine products had been added to all the bathrooms at RHS. A few weeks later, students have begun to express their ideas and opinions about the act being enforced in our school.
When asked about how she found out about the free menstrual supplies, sophomore Sage Acree said, “I found out about the products in the bathroom from an email from the school; also I just saw them in there,” adding, “I’m glad they added products in the bathroom for the girls, but when the products are literal garbage, it doesn’t really help a lot of people.” Despite being happy that the products are available, the poor quality is making students not want to use them.
Since the menstrual products were added to all the bathrooms, including male restrooms, another sophomore, Jaiden Cerda provided a guy’s point of view on what appears to be the disrespectful abuse of the products. Jaiden said, “It’s not good because it’s against the law, and if you get caught you can get into huge trouble.”
This topic has sparked a conversation about the addition of gender-neutral bathrooms on campus. Acree and Cerda shared their thoughts on how gender-neutral bathrooms for students would affect them and the students here at RHS, and their responses were interesting. Acree said, “It won’t affect me at all and I doubt it will affect that many people, but it would be helpful for some people.” Meanwhile, Cerda stated, “I kinda prefer the bathrooms separate because not everybody likes seeing the opposite gender [in the same restroom] and it just makes some people feel uncomfortable.”