Help businesses understand the importance of unisex restrooms, one bathroom at a time.
Executive director of LGBTQIA youth organization Everyone is Gay, Kristin Russo, has teamed up with musician and queer rights advocate Allison Weiss as directors of the OUR Restroom project to raise awaireness around issues related to bathrooms, gender identity, and gender expression.
OUR Restroom aims to educate and help businesses understand the importance of having unisex bathrooms. On June 24, 2016, OUR Restroom launched an IndieGoGo campaign to help raise funds for its initiative, already raising $5,500 of the $15,000 needed.
Several cities around the US, including Philadelphia, Seattle, and New York have already put laws in place that require single-stall restrooms to be gender-neutral. In fact, Councilman Danny Dromm of Queens said, “Designating single-stall bathrooms as all gender is an easy way to create a welcoming environment for transgender and gender nonconforming individuals. As an added bonus, anyone who is looking for an unoccupied bathroom will now have more options.”
Once funded, patrons of local businesses will be able to reach out via the OUR Restroom website and inform volunteers about businesses in local communities that have gendered single-stall restrooms.
OUR Restroom will reach out to these businesses by mail, phone, email, and social media to help educate them on the importance of making these bathrooms unisex. Customers will feel an increase in both comfort and safety once businesses everywhere learn of the importance of unisex restrooms.
The project will also work with local government representatives to help move forward new bills similar to the ones seen in Philadelphia, Seattle, and New York.
OUR Restroom has released a promo video introducing Lil Zee, an animated character who doesn’t identify as a man or a woman and uses the gender-neutral pronouns of they/them/theirs, to illustrate the hurtful impact that gendered single-stall restrooms have on customers and how the problem can be easily avoided.
There is only one week remaining to donate. For more information and to support visit OURrestroom.com
The campaign runs through July 24, 2016.
Connect with OUR Restroom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.