To reiterate, public spaces have always been an issue for minorities, and even though African Americans and women now (legally) have equal rights, the public bathroom still stands as a bold symbol of discrimination with its sexist roots, and is a serious issue for trans* and gender nonconforming people today. The gender-separate bathroom stands as a symbol as a not-as-equal-as-it-should-be nation, and emphasizes, according to Matthew Kopas “a space in which the dominant binary conceptualization of gender is made more concrete than perhaps anywhere else in society” (3). Oddly enough, gender-separation is not a topic broached as one of gender injustice, but purely LBGTQIA, (specifically as a trans* and gender nonconforming) issue. Part of this is because cisgender men and cisgender women do not face the fear, harassment, and violence at the extreme rate that trans*, and gender nonconforming do on daily basis. It is both fascinating and troubling that it took the amount of time, and struggle, from the LBGTQIAD community to bring bathroom gender-separation to the
To reiterate, public spaces have always been an issue for minorities, and even though African Americans and women now (legally) have equal rights, the public bathroom still stands as a bold symbol of discrimination with its sexist roots, and is a serious issue for trans* and gender nonconforming people today. The gender-separate bathroom stands as a symbol as a not-as-equal-as-it-should-be nation, and emphasizes, according to Matthew Kopas “a space in which the dominant binary conceptualization of gender is made more concrete than perhaps anywhere else in society” (3). Oddly enough, gender-separation is not a topic broached as one of gender injustice, but purely LBGTQIA, (specifically as a trans* and gender nonconforming) issue. Part of this is because cisgender men and cisgender women do not face the fear, harassment, and violence at the extreme rate that trans*, and gender nonconforming do on daily basis. It is both fascinating and troubling that it took the amount of time, and struggle, from the LBGTQIAD community to bring bathroom gender-separation to the