The New York City Council passed a bill on Tuesday that will make all single stall bathrooms in the city gender neutral by January 1, 2017.
The legislation was passed 47-2, and requires business owners to take down the gender binary “men” and “women” signs starting the first day of 2017.
“Most New Yorkers take their unfettered access to bathrooms for granted, yet every single day transgender and gender non-conforming individuals must grapple with the fact that their choices may lead to harassment or worse,” said Councilman Danny Dromm, the bill’s sponsor. “Designating single-stall bathrooms as all gender is an easy way to create a welcoming environment for transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. As an added bonus, anyone who is looking for an unoccupied bathroom will now have more options.”
This bill comes after Mayor Bill de Blasio’s order that city-owned buildings must allow people to use the correct bathroom: the one that matches their gender identity. According to a 2013 Williams Institute report, about 70% of transgender people have been assaulted and harassed for trying to use a restroom, whether it is the correct bathroom the one that corresponds to their gender identity, or the incorrect bathroom, the one that corresponds to the sex they were assigned at birth.
Though de Blasio’s Human Rights Law was lauded by the transgender community and allies, it did not necessarily help non-binary people, who identify as neither male nor female. This new bill allows them to use public restrooms with far more ease and comfort.
“Having gender neutral single-stall restrooms is just plain good, common sense,” said Noah Lewis, a staff attorney at the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund.
These moves towards transgender and gender non-conforming equality come largely in response to the anti-LGBT legislation passed in states like North Carolina and Mississippi, though only 20 states even have civil rights laws banning discrimination against LGBT people in the first place.
Democrat Danny Dromm said that anti-transgender politicians like North Carolina governor Pat McCrory, who is currently running for re-election against Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper, “are perversely obsessed with the bathroom habits of others.”
Dru Levasseur, director of Lambda Legal’s Transgender Rights Project, has noted the importance of the bill in the wake of the June 12 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Even after a hate crime that ended the lives of 49 LGBTQ+ people, Republicans have rejected LGBT rights legislation, including House Republicans blocking even just a vote on a proposal that would ban federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees only two days after the Pulse massacre.
This bill is now headed to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is expected to sign it. Just this month, he announced an ad campaign encouraging transgender individuals to use the bathroom matching their gender identity. “No one deserves to be denied access to bathrooms or discriminated against for being who they are. Every New Yorker has the legal right to use the bathroom consistent with their gender identity, no questions asked.”
