Gender Neutral Bathroom Challenge →
The challenge: Don’t use any gendered bathrooms or change rooms for the month of April. (click on the link to read more/join the event!)
What are “gendered bathrooms”? Gendered bathrooms are designated for “men” or “women” by a sign. This challenge includes ALL multi-stall and single-stall washrooms, and the bathrooms at work, schools, libraries, bars/restaurants, and everywhere, really.
There are multiple purposes for this challenge:
1) To give people who don’t find going to gendered bathrooms a difficult/unsafe experience a small idea of what it is like for trans and gender variant people to navigate this world. Hopefully, with some real life experience, you will have a broader understanding of how gendered this world really is. But,
DOING THIS DOES NOT GIVE YOU AUTHORITY TO SAY WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE TRANS OR GENDER VARIANT.
2) To inspire people to fight for more gender neutral bathrooms.
Tips:
- Don’t drink a lot of liquid if you are leaving the house for long periods of time
- Try to figure out where some gender neutral bathrooms are in your town/city, and plan your day around using a gender neutral bathroom.
- Remember, you can use gendered bathrooms again in May. Some people can’t.
And, even if you really have to go to the bathroom, try to not see gendered bathrooms as a possible place to go.
If you are interested, feel free to write your experiences down and send them to gnbchallenge (at) gmail (.com). With your permission, they will be included in a zine on the topic of gendered bathrooms.
We also recommend fighting for gender neutral bathrooms in one (or more) public space(s). Often the fight for this aspect of bathroom accessibility is only fought for by trans and gender variant people; It would be nice if other people fought for it too.SIGNAL BOOSTIN!
Spread the word yall + participate. I pretty much only use gender neutral washrooms now, and it’s really shitty sometimes since they can be hard to find. I would love more solidarity on this issue and understanding and support when I feel scared or need a buddy when using gendered washrooms.
I’m for sure pissing myself in public doing this. Mama’s bladder is SMALL
THIS IS AWESOME! I feel really spoiled, I have access to nongendered washrooms at both my jobs.
(Source: heavymuffintop, via rematiration)
