It’s been about a month since Caitlyn Jenner accepted the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2015 ESPYS. Watching her acceptance speech moved me, as it shed some light on an issue I’m still not very familiar with. After reading articles and the comments that followed, looking for more understanding, I realized the harsh reality transgender people face. In addition, the numbers Abby Wambach shared regarding the bullying, murders, and suicides in the transgender community are disheartening. In light of this recent attention to LGBT issues, I wanted to take some time to spotlight how such issues may impact our venues.
An article was recently shared around our office on venues in North Carolina and the continued pressure they were getting from the LGBT community to publicly state their policy on transgender restroom access. In this article, “Charlotte Motor Speedway, Bank of America Stadium, and BB&T Ballpark all went on record to say that transgender patrons can use the restrooms consistent with their gender identity.”
After reading the article, I found it essential to thoroughly examine how our venues address transgender restroom access. The law in Washington, D.C., (where our venues are located) requires certain public places to “allow individuals the right to use gender-specific restrooms and other gender-specific facilities … that are consistent with their gender identity or expression.” I was able to confirm that our venues operate in accordance with this requirement. Ensuring we continue to provide excellent customer service for our guests, we have reminded all of our security and guest relations supervisors of the law and have advised our staff to listen for discriminatory comments made by staff or patrons, and report.
As public and private facility managers, it’s my belief that we owe it to all of our patrons to provide a positive and safe experience at our venues. In furthering my knowledge on this subject, I have found that states have very different human/civil rights laws, some more progressive than others. I would encourage you to look into your local laws on gender identity and expression to ensure your facility is in compliance, and, in the absence of any clear legal requirements, to be fair and open-minded in developing policies and procedures on these issues.
(Image: James Willamor/Creative Commons)
Nate,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this issue. Not only do we need to be thinking about this in our industry, we need to be thinking about how this will shift our culture. How will this affect the way gyms or recreational leagues handle access into locker rooms? How does this affect the health insurance that companies provide their employees? These are questions that I don’t know the answer to, but your article has sparked me to start doing the research.
I hope you get some more comments to help keep the conversation going.
IF THEY WERE UNCONFORTABLE OR CONCERNED USING THE PUBLIC RESTROOM, COULD THEY NOT BE DIRECTIED TO THE NEAREST FAMILY RESTROOM ?
convert a portion of womens and mens washrooms into unisex facilities. private stalls across the board, no banks of public urinals. keep a portion of washrooms exclusive to gendered options if individuals have a concern about it.