In an email sent out to the Berkeley High School community, BHS Principal Juan Raygoza announced the opening of a new building serving as a gender neutral bathroom building for students and staff alike. The building, which made its debut on campus on Monday, April 6, 2026, is situated on the Lower Courtyard, between the H Building and the Little Theatre, and represents what school leaders say is a significant step forward in making campus facilities more inclusive.<\/p>\n
For some students, the need was urgent enough that they were leaving campus entirely just to find a gender-neutral restroom. \u201cI would sometimes go all the way to the Berkeley Public Library to use the bathroom because it was quicker than going to the nearest all-gender bathroom,\u201d October Hertenstein, a BHS senior and nonbinary transgender student, said. \u201cIt was a nightmare,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
Hertenstein, who co-founded Gender Expansive Youth Activists, an offshoot of the Alliance of Gender Expansive Students (AGES), has been a strong advocate for gender neutral facilities at BHS and serves as a student member of the district\u2019s Gender Equity and Sexual Harassment Advisory Committee (GESHAC). They said that the building is the result of years of student organizing. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like, \u2018Oh, kind of a celebration;\u2019 it was like, \u2018Oh, my life has actually become easier,\u2019\u201d they said. Hertenstein also spoke to why gender-neutral bathrooms matter beyond just convenience. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a trans or nonbinary person, the world is set up in a way that doesn\u2019t align with who you are,\u201d they said. \u201cTo have a place where no one\u2019s going to judge you for being there \u2014 you can just go, because at the end of the day you\u2019re really just trying to pee,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
The new building was developed in partnership with Assistant Superintendent John Calise and the district\u2019s facilities department and is part of a larger ongoing project. Construction in the area will continue over the coming years, with plans to build a new glass-paneled entrance gallery for the Little Theatre.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really proud about where the Berkeley community, and specifically the (BHS) community, stands when it comes to safety for students and gender equity,\u201d Raygoza said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to Raygoza, the reaction from the community has been overwhelmingly positive, \u201cWe don\u2019t lose sight of the fact that students and staff having access to bathrooms is a basic need that we need to meet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Not everyone\u2019s experience with the new building has been seamless, however. Ni\u2019zohn Cook, a BHS sophomore, said the concept is a welcome one but raised concerns about the facility\u2019s current condition. He said he found several stalls without functioning locks and commented that the bathrooms were already dirty shortly after opening.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Raygoza echoed the call for the community to take responsibility for maintaining the space. \u201cWhen we receive these resources and facilities on our campus, it\u2019s on all of us to take care of them,\u201d he said, \u201cEveryone has to do their part to keep these bathrooms clean and safe so that students can continue to feel welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hertenstein said they hope the building signals a broader shift and credits Jasmina Viteskic, Berkeley Unified School District\u2019s Title IX Coordinator and Compliance Officer, who also oversees GESHAC, as an unsung force behind the progress. \u201cSo much work could not have gotten done at (BHS) without Jasmina,\u201d they said, \u201cShe\u2019s done so much to support this project, and I am forever grateful for the work and effort she\u2019s put into this cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
The building does not yet have an official name, though it has informally come to be nicknamed as the \u201cP Building\u201d by many in the school. For Hertenstein, whatever it ends up being called, the significance is clear. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to leave (BHS) knowing that something good has come of my time here,\u201d they continued, \u201cthat I\u2019ve created a positive change that will outlast me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an email sent out to the Berkeley High School community, BHS Principal Juan Raygoza announced the opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-284776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}