This week we published an article debating the Student Centre’s gender-neutral washrooms. We have retracted the piece from the website and we will publish an official retraction of the article in the next issue of the newspaper.
The safety and humanity of any group of people is not up for debate, especially a community as historically oppressed as the trans and gender non-conforming community. A safe space for trans and gender non-conforming people to go the bathroom should not have been up for debate.
The result of this publication left readers questioning Arthur’s dedication to fostering a safe and accepting environment for trans and gender non-conforming people at Trent. For this we are deeply sorry.
We failed to hold the article in question to sufficiently high editorial standards. It rested too heavily on speculation in the name of women and it failed to corroborate its claims or draw on any evidence.
We appreciate marginalized people taking the time to inform us of our mistake and let us know what we can do better. We are extremely sorry that this was necessary.
We will be taking action immediately to arrange anti-oppression workshops for both ourselves, the Arthur staff, and its collective members. We hope that this will go some way to ensuring that a mistake like this never happens again.