A set of guidelines for designing inclusive bathrooms for public buildings, created to address an "urgent social justice issue", is now available online.
Architect Joel Sanders, transgender historian Susan Stryker and legal scholar Terry Kogan launched the Stalled! initiative at the AIA Conference on Architecture in New York City yesterday, 21 June 2018.
Three years in the making, the open-source, design-research project provides information and prototypes for creating safe and inclusive restrooms that can be used by all.
"Stalled! takes as its point of departure national debates surrounding transgender access to public restrooms to address an urgent social justice issue: the need to create safe, sustainable and inclusive public restrooms for everyone regardless of age, gender, race, religion and disability," said a statement on the website. The Stalled! prototypes for inclusive public bathrooms include a design that divides the functions of grooming, washing and eliminating
The initiative also intends to raise awareness and encourage dialogue around the topic through lectures, workshops, essays and interviews.
Stalled! follows heated recent debates about transgender access to single-sex public bathrooms, in the US and worldwide. Some argue that people should be able to choose the bathroom assigned to the gender they identify with, while opponents argue that this would cause discomfort and safety concerns for other users.
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