Consider the ongoing debate regards public access to bathrooms for gender non-conformists. We often hear of incidents where men who identify and appear as women are often shamed and chased from women’s bathrooms. There may be a solution, we could continue to segregate our public bathrooms, but in a different way. Rather than being gender focused, we could be age focused.
Bathroom One: The Family Zone (for children and their guardians / parents)
This bathroom will offer a space free from the burdens of gender identification. After all, we must always THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!
Bathroom Two: The Adult Zone (for everyone else)
This bathroom will offer a space free from the burdens of “thinking of the children”.
The purpose of this article is to highlight how complicated the issue of access to public bathrooms for trans people is today. The consequences of this plan, to highlight one, would be the exclusion of trans-parents from being able to bring their children into bathroom one or bathroom two. Regardless of what plan is perceived or motioned for, unopposed inclusion must be accepted by society. It is society who will ultimately decide if an issue has been resolved and ‘normalized’. Trans-people should frequent public bathrooms without danger or opposition, access to water and sanitation is a basic human right as set by the UN Sustainable Development Goal Six: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Three-quarters of trans-people in NYC have reported harassment and mistreatment in their places of work, and more than half have reported verbal harassment in public places. Members of the public do not have a licence to ‘gender police’ a bathroom. This is a form of sex-discrimination which impedes any progress towards achieving trans-rights. In the workplace it can be healthy for employees to suggest a more trans-friendly bathroom policy as an important step to assuring transgender rights for your colleagues. Transgender rights should not be the sole responsibility of trans-people, society as a whole can work to ensure reception of our basic human rights and dignities.