It’s Gender-Free Where I Pee
By dentaldamAge • Nov 28th, 2008 • Category: BlogBathrooms have always been a highly contended space for us folk who don’t quite resemble the little stick figures on bathroom doors. Whether you identify as queer, trans, andro or you just don’t ‘look the part’, you may have experienced the anxiety and even the terrible harrassment and abuse that can occur once you step foot into a public restroom.
… and all you wanted to do was pee, which, I feel, is a pretty natural right that should be available to anyone anywhere.
Unfortunately, we, in this society and many others, take the triangle dress or the lack-there-of on the bathroom doors pretty seriously. Ridiculous when you break it down in this way, but oh-too-true.
Now, if you’re the type who likes to throw yourself into these situations, fists blazing in protest, enjoying the radicalism of disrupting a homonormative space such as a public bathroom by your gender-queer presence alone, then rock on. I mean, be safe and nonviolent in your political uprisings, but rock it if that’s how you roll.
If you’re the type who just wants to pee, without the stares, verbal abuse or physical boundary-crossing, have we got a website for you.
This website is amazing. They are doing great work in providing people access to gender-free or gender-neutral public bathrooms in North America - from our very own San Francisco, California to Vergennes, Vermont. They have maps, pictures, a resource guide and even a form you can fill out to add a gender-free bathroom that you’ve found on your own. They even throw in other factoids such as whether or not this bathroom is accessible to people with differing physical abilities. A rad double-wammy of safe-spaceage.
As I write this, the website boasts 1,684 gender-free bathrooms in 440 cities and more get added each day (and hopefully will by people like yourselves as well, dear readers).
No more squatting in the ever gender-neutral bushes, no more holding it until you get home, no more anxiety over a natural born right such Number 1, Number 2, or just checking your make-up.
And let me tell you right now – if you come to a Good Vibrations after-hours workshop, there will be no gender standards for the bathrooms you will use in our stores. Unfortunately, we cannot provide public gender-free bathroom services during normal business hours, but now, thanks to this website, we can point you in the right direction.
It’s gender-free where I pee,
* dentaldamAge
dentaldamAge >> sassy. sarcastic. small.
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yay, thanks for getting the word out on the site! be prepared — this is only the beginning of our exploration of queerness, gender and technology!