PERFORMING ARTS:
And its accommodation in Performing Arts facilities planning. By Todd Hensley, ASTC GENDER IDENTITY
The U.S. Supreme Court stated in October that it will hear the case of a transgender Virginia student seeking to use the boys’ bathroom in his high school. The case will address an issue that is emerging in cities, schools and public facilities across the country: the accommodation for transgender people to use restrooms that correspond to their gender identity. - commodations for gender identity. How do we create facilities that ad- design for gender identity accommodation in our public restrooms? And how do we provide for accommodations backstage? This summer I joined Peter Scheu, ASTC, and Lain Mathers to
- neering and Architecture Conference in New York. Peter, like me, is a theatre consultant, and Lain is a sociologist and researcher in gender identity topics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Peter and I are - - viduals. us approach the topic, including: Cisgender - An umbrella term referring to people who con- form to the gender binary by interpreting their gender identity as congruent with the sex they were assigned by society Cissexism - An ideology that assumes cisgender identities are superior to and more authentic than transgender identities Gender binary and gender into two distinct oppositional forms of masculine and feminine selfhood Genderqueer/fluid/variant - An identity referring to peo- ple who reject gender labels, and live as women, men, neither, and/or both in varied situations over the life course Transgender - An umbrella term referring to all people living within, between, and/or beyond the gender binary, which may also be used to denote an individual gender identity
Figure 1
Ze, zir, hir, zirself refer to people without assuming their gender and/or gender- ing them in the process
The gender binary continues to dominate the building planning pro- cess to date. Transgender people are frequently marginalized as they attempt to use a public restroom corresponding to their gender iden- tity. They face harassment, reports to police authorities, and even risk of injury when using a restroom that doesn’t meet “assumed” gender norms. Well-documented instances of violence and severe injury fur- ther demonstrate the risk that trans people face when seeking a re- stroom. Denying restroom access, or accompanying access with risk of physical harm, denies trans people a basic right that is guaranteed to cisgender people. Many municipalities have taken action to help mitigate the risk that trans people face when using a restroom. New York City, Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco and Austin, Texas are among the cities now leg- islating that all single-occupancy public restrooms be labeled as gen- der-neutral. In addition, New York City now guarantees full access to facilities”) in all City-owned buildings. New York’s leadership in granting access to ganged restrooms has been matched by many private and public institutions. Over 150 col- lege campuses have made the move to gender-neutral restrooms. The YMCA allows access to its locker rooms to people identifying with the assigned gender for that locker room. And the 2016 national confer- create gender-neutral restrooms. The door is gradually opening to transgender access in many areas,
but national building codes have not yet reacted to that change. The 2018 update to the International Plumbing Code will not be revised to permit gender-neutral access. According to 2018 IPC, all ganged toilet assigned to only male use or female use. Building codes are written to guide and standardize construction, but adopting and enforcing those codes remain with local Authorities Having Jurisdiction. Thus, it will be up to each AHJ to review the 2018 code and to determine whether gender-neutral ganged facilities are appropriate for its own institution. How, then, do we advance gender-neutral planning for the public
40 Facility Manager Magazine
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