This Campaign Wants To Help Businesses Make Their Bathrooms Safer For Trans People
A new campaign in the U.K. seeks to demystify harmful myths surrounding trans access to public bathrooms. The U.K. anti-LGBT+ violence resource Galop published an 80-page guide on Monday to help businesses make their restrooms friendlier for trans, nonbinary, and queer people. The resource was developed in conjunction with the Good Night Out Campaign, which seeks to train nightlife spaces in how to “better understand, respond to, and prevent sexual harassment and assault,” according to its website.
‘We All Need The Toilet! An All-Gender Access Toolkit’ includes testimonials from LGBT+ folks detailing their run-ins with violence and discrimination as a result of using a public single-sex toilet, while seeking to correct some of the false or misleading notions regarding trans folks and bathroom use.
“We know sexual harassment and assault are deeply gendered, impacting women and LGTBQ+ people disproportionately,” said Good Night Out Campaign director Bryony Beynon in a statement accompanying the guide. “However, enforcing gender norms by policing bathrooms through compulsory segregation or assuming where someone ‘should’ be does not prevent violence and can actually help create a conducive context for it.”
Citing Galop’s own 2020 report on transphobia in the U.K., the toolkit claims that nearly two-thirds of respondents felt it was unsafe to use public restrooms, fearing harassment, intimidation, and violence. In addition, 1 in 4 respondents reported being threatened with physical assault, while 1 in 5 were sexually assaulted or threatened with sexual violence.
According to ‘Them’, a 2015 survey from the National Center for Transgender Equality cited a similar phenomenon, finding that nearly a quarter of all respondents were told they were in the wrong bathroom. Meanwhile, 11% of respondents reported incidents of harassment and assault due to their bathroom choice.
The bathroom problem is of course an ancient, endless struggle for trans folks both in the U.S. and abroad. A year before North Carolina became the first and only state to pass an anti-trans bathroom bill, a trans-inclusive equal rights ordinance was voted down in Houston after conservative groups aired commercials showing predators preying on young girls in bathroom stalls and cartoon figures with hairy legs using the women’s locker room.
The video from the conservative Texas Values committee further drove the point home by saying that “anyone who claims female identity” could access public bathrooms if the ordinance went forward.
These are only a handful of examples of the “trans predator” myth, the widely debunked claim that allowing trans people to access public restrooms threatens the safety of women and children. In fact, “We All Need the Toilet!” cites a peer-reviewed study showing that “reports of sex crimes, voyeurism and assault” decreased after Massachusetts’ LGBTQ+ inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance was passed in 2016.
“There is… no evidence that implementing explicitly trans-inclusive bathroom access increases rates of sexual assault, despite what some media outlets say,” the report explains.
The guide goes on to cite steps that businesses — from restaurants and bars to nightclubs — can take to ensure that trans people are safe in their spaces. While a gender-neutral bathroom is a great first step, its creators say that this amenity should be “part of a broader commitment to safety for staff and customers.”
“If you feel that your women’s bathroom is the only place in your venue where women are safe, this does not reflect well on the rest of the venue!” the toolkit claims.
Leaked documents also reveal that the British government is planning to strengthen restrictions barring trans folks from single-sex women's spaces.
The campaign was released in response to a much-criticized initiative from the U.K. government examining the adoption of all-gender restrooms. According to the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, replacing single-sex facilities with unisex bathrooms “places women at a significant disadvantage” because “men can then use both cubicles and urinals,” despite the fact that lines at men’s restrooms are generally much shorter.
The year-long consultation coincided with an April 2020 speech from Equalities Minister Liz Truss in which she discussed the “protection of single-sex spaces.”
While Truss denied that the consultation was part of an attempt to roll back trans rights, her words were met with outrage by the LGBT+ community, who have faced an surge in transphobia in recent years. Along with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling’s widely publicised anti-trans comments, a U.K. court effectively blocked gender-affirming care to trans minors under the age of 16 after ruling that they aren’t old enough to grasp the ramifications of transitioning.
Additionally, the U.K. has scrapped plans to streamline the process for trans people to correct the name and gender listed on government-issued ID.
Read related myGwork articles here:
A Trans Student Was Banned From His Team’s Locker Room. Now The School District Has To Pay $300k.
UK Government Gender-Neutral Toilet Review is Boggling
Pool in Sydney Under Fire for Trans Policy
Trans Woman Killed In Puerto Rico After Using Women's Bathroom
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