The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)’s Feb. 4 Board of Directors (BoD) meeting saw the ratification of the Motion Regarding SSMU Building Gender Neutral Washrooms, renamed to the Motion Regarding SSMU Building Universally Accessible Gender Neutral Washrooms. This follows the Board’s delay of the motion’s ratification at Jan. 7 and Jan. 28 meetings.
The motion—put forward by Vice-President (VP) University Affairs Abe Berglas—mandates that SSMU implement gender-neutral washrooms in the University Centre, which currently only contains three single-use gender-neutral stalls.
First, the BoD unanimously voted to declassify the discussion of the motion, allowing non-members to remain present during the debate.
Member-at-Large Dylan Seiler requested that the motion be included in the next SSMU Referendum ballot and—if passed by the student body—be ratified by the Board.
Berglas responded that this would further delay the motion, emphasizing that transgender and non-binary people’s accessibility to a washroom should not be a matter of debate.
“If people have concerns about gender-neutral bathrooms, oftentimes that comes in the form of not wanting to be in the same bathroom as a trans person, and I don’t think that we should consider that as a reasonable argument,” Berglas said. “I am interested to know whether the concerns from constituents might be transphobic rhetoric, and so we should not heed them as proper concerns, but we should shut them down for what they are, which is hate speech.”
VP Internal Zeena Zahidah seconded this point, stating that the motion is an opportunity to not only make bathrooms accessible for all gender identities, but also disabled people.
“It helps everybody. It doesn’t hurt anybody,” Zahidah said. “We cannot rely on the majority of students to vote to protect a minority.”
Arts Representative Rishi Kalaga countered Zahidah’s point, arguing that while the motion is up to interpretation, no part stipulates that gender-neutral bathrooms address ability concerns. Like Seiler, Kalaga recommended putting the motion on the Referendum ballot.
“The biggest responsibility is to make sure we’re actually representing the student population which we’re purported to represent,” Kalaga said.
The motion to place the issue on the Referendum ballot failed with two votes in favour, six opposed, and one abstaining. When put to a vote, the Board ratified the motion after modifying it to explicitly include accessibility goals. The final vote was eight in favour and one against—Kalaga.
Member-at-Large and Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) President Sophia Garofalo brought forward two motions, both standing to address concerns about the Involvement Restriction Policy (IRP) List.
The first was a Motion to mandate the SSMU Human Resources (HR) Manager provide the IRP list to faculty equity commissioners. This list names McGill students who, due to criminal accusations or charges, cannot participate in campus events, and is to be shared with each faculty’s equity commissioners. However, Garofalo reported that SSMU’s HR had failed to share the list with equity commissioners this year. As a result, the commissioners cannot consult the list in their hiring and inviting processes when organizing events.
The second was the Motion to mandate the HR Manager to review ongoing assault cases to identify any delays in action. Garofalo explained that survivors of sexual assault have come forward reporting that they have witnessed their assaulters both attending and managing SSMU-run social events. She noted that some survivors have come forward as early as September requesting that their assaulters be put on the IRP list, but received no response from SSMU.
The motion was approved unanimously, putting forth a mandate that HR must share the list with equity commissioners on a regular basis. It also states that candidates must be screened through the IRP list before hiring, and that reports made to HR alleging assault, and recommending placement on the list, be addressed by March 14.
Moment of the Meeting:
The BoD approved the Motion to Approve the Budget for 2025 Faculty Olympics, an interfaculty competition inviting students to participate in sport, academic, and social challenges.
Soundbite:
“This is the correct step, and a belated step following previous advocacy efforts in the past. I think if we do any further delay, the people who motion to do the delay might do themselves the disservice of standing on the wrong side of progress.” — SSMU VP External Affairs Hugo-Victor Solomon on the Motion Regarding SSMU Building Universally Accessible Gender Neutral Washrooms.
