Women's Spaces
The issue: Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation Bathroom Policy
The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation is altering its bathroom policy in community centres, libraries and parks. Its goal is to have three types of bathrooms/change rooms – men’s, women’s and “gender diverse”.
In addition, the doors on all the men’s and women’s rooms will say “gender diverse people welcome”. There is no definition of “gender diverse”. The existing bathrooms are not being retrofitted to provide greater privacy, so the old knee-to-shoulder partitions between stalls will remain. No risk assessment was done and women were not consulted.
Why does bathroom policy matter?
Without clear definitions, any man can claim to be “gender diverse” and enter the women’s bathrooms and change rooms. Aside from the fact that trans id males commit crimes against women at the same rate as other men, studies in Britain show that many more men (of any gender id) assault women in mixed sex/unisex washrooms than in single sex washrooms. Men also use cell phones to secretly film women in washrooms and post the footage online.
What can we do about the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation bathroom policy?
We need to let the Vancouver Board Parks know we object, that we need this policy rolled back so that women’s washrooms remain for women only.
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