Culture & Lifestyle /
Is ‘Gender Neutral’ The New It-Phrase?
Ottawa schools are set to introduce gender-neutral bathrooms to further establish schools as a safe place for all children.
In line with many other school districts around the world, an announcement just a few days ago confirmed that schools in Ottawa will now have "gender-neutral" bathrooms. These new bathrooms will roll out starting in the fall 2015 academic school year — just a few short years after Toronto introduced these bathrooms into its school system. Ottawa joins many other Canadian cities that are making room to accommodate gender-questioning and transgender students.
“We’re proud of it,” Mike Carson, the board’s superintendent of facilities, told CFRA News Talk Radio. “It’s work that can be done, that needs to be done and we trying to keep pace with our communities.”
The washrooms, also called "universal" bathrooms by the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB), are meant to create a safe place for students. Knowing that their school acknowledges students' gender identities is an important step in the right direction. It also allows gender-questioning students to feel comfortable negotiating their own identities in a place that doesn't feel foreign to them.
According to the CBC, about 20 per cent of schools in the OCDSB already have universal, single-stall washrooms. Five or six more schools will join the list in September, based on requests from parents and students.
Canadian restrooms aren't the only ones getting a makeover. On August 13, 2015, Seattle's City Council unanimously passed legislation requiring all public spaces, including city-owned buildings and private businesses, to designate all single-stall restrooms as open to all genders. This means coffee shops, restaurants, hotels and stores will no longer segregate single-stall bathrooms by gender.
"No one should live in fear when they use basic accommodations most of us take for granted," Mayor Ed Murray said in a statement. "I applaud the Council for taking this important step to provide respect and safety for members of the transgender community."
This respect and safety through the decision to have gender-neutral bathrooms in many cities has also inspired the retail industry. Retail stores are joining the bandwagon (hopefully forever) and removing gendered terms and labels that create clear gender binaries and distinctions from their stores. These same stores are moving toward a more androgynous setting that welcomes all.
Natalia Manzocco, a 27-year-old Torontonian, has opened a gender-neutral clothing store, an online boutique called Future is the Future that sells garments suitable for both men and women, according to the Toronto Star. The establishment of this store was inspired by Natalia's own pleasure wearing men's clothing. But she found that much of the attire at vintage stores didn't suit her. Her solution? To pick out items that a person of any gender can wear and sell them herself.
What do you think of "gender-neutral" bathrooms and stores? Tell us what you think . . . .
Daniel Pillai
Author
Daniel is the Digital Media Manager for ANOKHI MEDIA and the host for ANOKHI's entertainment channel, PULSE TV. As part of the dream team, Daniel manages all multiple channels under ANOKHI’s portfolio, while also training new on-air talent, and showing budding p...
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