The City of Portland recently banned urinals in the Portland Building because women cannot use them.
In keeping with current trends, the City of Portland decided to remodel their restrooms as gender neutral.
The building’s remodeling is expected to cost the taxpayer $200M, and, as part of the remodel, comes the move towards promoting inclusivity.
KGW8 reports:
The building’s 1st, 3rd and 15th floors will have large multi-stall bathrooms that men and women will use together.
Other floors will have separate men’s and women’s bathrooms.
But every floor will have at least one any gender bathroom.
Over all there will be 42 “all-user stalls” as the city calls them and 104 gender specific stalls.
Gender and bathroom use has been a big deal when it comes to those who are transgender or gender fluid.
But the city made no mention of that in an email to employees.
The Chief Administrative Officer Tom Rinehart wrote to employees:
“I am convinced that this is the right way to ensure success as your employer, remove arbitrary barriers in our community, and provide leadership that is reflective of our shared values.”
The change will also be applied to male restrooms which will also become gender neutral.
According to WRVA:
According to the report, Chief Administrative Officer Tom Rinehart sent an e-mail to employees in February informing them of the decision, writing, “we will continue to have gender-specific (male and female) multi-stall restrooms that are readily available to any employee that prefers to use one. But there will be no urinals in any restroom in the building.”
The city is also designing men’s restrooms to be gender-neutral, which means there will no longer be urinals in the men’s restrooms either.
Gender neutral toilets have been trialed in many, more progressive, parts of the Western World.
The UK, in particular, has been something of a standard bearer in leading the charge of gender neutral toilets in schools.
In spite of some negative feedback concerning the toilets, the popularity of gender neutral toilets has appeared to increase.
CONFUSION: UK Girls Skipping School Over ‘Mixed Sex’ Toilets
