Why bathrooms are a civil rights issue

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Haver said she was fired from her job at the YMCA of Pierce and Kitsap Counties when she refused to help the organization make its new policy, which allowed transgender people to use the locker room or restroom that matched their gender identity, palatable to members. The policy was enacted last April, before the state mandate. Even as an athlete, I would shower in my underwear.

I never felt safe But a report by the US Department of Justice said transgender people are the ones most at risk of sexual assault. Citing recent studies of transgender experiences, the report said one in every two transgender individuals are sexually abused or assaulted during their lifetimes.

From Jim Crow to transgender ban: the bathroom as battleground for civil rights. In and , San Diego was the site of a hepatitis A outbreak that killed 20 people and made nearly sick. A grand jury report identified lack of access to public toilets and handwashing stations as a primary cause of the outbreak, criticizing the government for failing to heed previous grand jury reports in , and that recommended increased access to public toilets for the homeless.

Additionally, the issue of bathroom access is tied to the widespread criminalization of homelessness. Laws that make public urination a crime make the shortage of public toilets especially unjust, resulting in people experiencing homelessness being further marginalized by the criminal justice system.

Installing public toilets can be expensive and a headache for municipalities to maintain. After Starbucks implemented an open-bathroom policy in in which bathroom-users would no longer be required to purchase anything, researchers found a decrease in citations for public urination in areas near Starbucks locations. In addition to showing that more available restrooms can make a measurable difference, this research also highlights the futility of relying on private industry to solve this problem; because of COVID, many Starbucks stores are now closed throughout most of the country.

Of course, installing more public restrooms and handwashing stations is only a small part of current efforts to protect homeless people during this ongoing emergency. As the outbreak continues, governments must work quickly to move as many people as possible from streets and overcrowded shelters to housing where they can safely self-isolate.