179. Gender
Thanks to Adam for helping me draw the urinal in order for me to heavily modify it beyond much recognition.
Benefits to having this instead of the silly gendered people symbols:
- Less confusing to nonbinary people
- Less confusing for men needing to use baby-changing facilities (which are often in women’s toilets)
- Less likely to get abused if you’re trans*
- Less fuss for people who want to switch from the gendered toilets system (ie: no plumbing to do right away; you can just switch signs)
If people needed a while to get used to the new symbols, both sets could be on the doors at the same time for… a year? A few years?
There. I have FIXED THE WORLD.
The Bobbu’s better high-res symbols
The Bobbu has made some excellent high-res versions for printing out BIG and still looking well professional and brilliant. Click here for his DeviantArt page, where you can download the symbols in many handy formats. (They are beautiful. I never thought I’d say that about a picture of a urinal.) He says in the comments below: “I’ve released them on an attribution non-commercial share-a-like license, as I do with all my work – but people have my express permission to use them in the real world without crediting me.”
The original symbol images I made
Click here to download my symbols and The Bobbu’s symbols. Our symbols are in separate folders, each with the specific licence information enclosed. Please note that The Bobbu’s symbols have a Creative Commons license (requiring attribution online), and mine are public domain.
For the folder containing my symbols: To the extent possible under law, Lotte Lodge has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Gender Inclusive Toilet Door symbols. Basically, you can modify them and use them for anything and you don’t have to attribute me (though it would be nice if you did).
Almost forgot!
For anyone who’d like to document and find gender-inclusive toilets, there’s safe2pee.org.
I thought the picture on the right was of an egg! Which makes about as much sense in the modern world as trying to use a skirt to signify genitalia, or caring about genitalia in reference to who uses what loo in the first place.
I was also wondering if it was a dinosaur egg. Maybe one room contains toilets and the other contains toilets plus facilities for dinosaurs?
Mattie’s gender was dinosaur that one time – maybe it makes sense that way? 😉
It’s hard to tell from the picture being so small. :/ Here is a bigger version: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0ByVvhUyACboSYXR2Yjg3c0hGNkE/edit?docId=0ByVvhUyACboSOW42M2VBLV91UkE
and if one is broken, you can use the other! (Has been having accessibility wahs. I mention this as a handy side effect, especially for those who have to take care about these things.)
Oh very true! This can only be a winner, law-making folk. Get on it, Parliament.
Oh, also also. It’s currently entirely legal to use either bathroom. Which a lot of people don’t realise. (Although some will still look at you funny.)
I did not know that. That is extremely useful information. Thank you. 🙂
I so want to guerilla these *everywhere*
Oh my word yes, please do that. 😀
Brilliant! We need these EVERYWHERE!!
I would be so excited, you have no idea.
I realised I forgot to add, at the last Radical Routes gathering, I gender-neutralized a toilet! It was a single room with a loo and a sink behind a door, so I put a sticker over the gender symbol. The sticker had two hand-drawn figures in different clothes and the words ‘neutral toilet, single cubicle behind door’. Some delegates were confused, but many were pleased. ^_^
Also, the degree to which people are programmed towards these things is impressive. At a hospital I once saw a really pregnant person, standing patiently outside a ladies’ toilet with a ‘do not enter, cleaning in progress’ sign on it. The gents’ was _right next to her_, but she wasn’t going in, even though she was _pregnant_. (When you’re pregnant you often have a fetus sitting on your bladder. It can be really unpleasant to have to wait for the loo.) 0_o
You are an excellent human being! Bladders and personal comfort are more important than signs.
Stockholm Central Railway station has an unsegregated public bathroom. Go visit it one day. It is a magical place.
If I am ever in Stockholm I will be sure to drink a lot of water!
Oh! Do you think you could put it on http://safe2pee.org/new/ ? I would, but I don’t speak the language and I don’t know the bathroom.
Done. Thank you!
Ah! You hero. Thank *you*.
I saw the urinal picture and thought ‘salt shaker’. This amused me, .’. is win.
Haha, yes, it looks like that too! Is my symbol too vague? I think on a real life door it would be pretty clear, but in this comic it is small. :/
Hey Lotte – I spotted that your signs for download are a touch on the low-res side, so I made some up in illustrator to look all professional and whatnot. Hopefully encourage people to take them more seriously!
I’ve made all the files and formats available for download for free on my deviantart: http://bobbu.deviantart.com/art/Gender-Neutral-Toilet-Signs-362361136
Oooooo, you excellent creature! They look much smarter than mine. 😀 Fantastic. What’s the license on them? Or are they also public domain? (If they’re free to share I’d like to put them for download here, because having things in more than one place online makes for more reliable resources, though I would certainly put a source link to your DA page also.)
I’ve released them on an attribution non-commercial share-a-like license, as I do with all my work – but people have my express permission to use them in the real world without crediting me 🙂
So by all means, share them everywhere you want!
Totally brilliant. I have edited things to make stuff make more sense (I hope). Thank you!
I’m 100% male by any imaginable definition, but I would vastly prefer to use the room without urinals every single time.
This would be so wonderful! There is not reason why single room bathrooms ever need to have a gender! Just tell people what they need to know to decide where to go!