FEATURED ARTICLE
All Gender Toilets – We just want to go to the toilet! by Ms. Joe Manton Director Access Institute ACAA Fellow Williamson Fellow • Fellow of the Association of Consultants in Access Australia • Fellow of Leadership Victoria • Diploma of Access Consulting • Certificate IV in Training and Assessment Joe established one of the first access consultancy companies in Australia in 1993 and subsequently developed Access Institute a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) that developed and delivers the only nationally recognised qualifications in access in Australia in both the Certificate IV and Diploma of Access Consulting.
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n an ABC Opinion piece by Rory Blundell posted on Tuesday 4 April 2017, Rory states:
‘Like most people who consume almost a litre of soft drink while seeing a movie at the cinema, I really need to pee. A familiar, prickly feeling of anxiety grows as I try to decide which bathroom I'll fit in to most. In a moment of panic, I rush into the women's and beeline for the nearest stall.
I feel like I've betrayed myself, once again, by not feeling able to do something so simple as use the men's toilet. I identify as non-binary (or more specifically, trans-masculine), meaning that although I was assigned female at birth, I have never identified as a girl. Whilst I dress in typically ‘masculine’ clothing and wear a chest binder, I haven't undergone hormone replacement therapy and often get mis-gendered or mistaken for a girl. This can make using a public bathroom extremely difficult, as I'm faced with a choice: mis-gender myself and feel like I'm betraying my identity or feel like I don't quite belong and feel physically unsafe’. You only need to undertake a Google search look to identify the vast range of research that has been undertaken relating to the issue of ‘bathroom anxiety’. This impacts on the use of public toilets by many people.
Now I just have to make my exit without encountering anyone else. After 10 minutes waiting in the stall, listening for other people, I decide the coast is clear. Predictably, however, as I'm at the sink, someone enters and stares at me, clearly puzzled. A part of me is happy that I look masculine enough to confuse people, but mostly I feel deeply uncomfortable, and humiliated by how much attention I'm drawing to myself.
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THE MAGAZINE FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF CONSULTANTS IN ACCESS AUSTRALIA
