New iPhone App Finds Nearby Gender Neutral Restrooms

from TransgenderEquality (http://transgenderequality.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/new-iphone-app-finds-nearby-gender-neutral-restrooms/)

Finally, there is an easy way to find gender neutral restrooms while on the go. A new app, TranSquat, allows users to search for nearby gender neutral restrooms using their iPhone. The app is powered by safe2pee, a nationwide directory of gender neutral restrooms. Users can add and share new locations to help build the directory.

The National Transgender Discrimination Survey found that 22% of transgender and gender nonconforming people were denied access to restrooms appropriate to their gender at work. Using gender-specific restrooms as a trans or gender non-conforming person may lead to stressful, embarrassing, and even threatening situations. And transgender people who regularly delay restroom use out of fear can develop urinary infections and other health problems.

What’s the downside? For now, the app is only available on the iPhone and costs $2.99. Other smartphone users can access the safe2pee database through the mobile site at www.safe2pee.org/new/mobile.

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Being Transgender in America

An excellent and thorough segment on the Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC this past weekend.  If you care about trans* issues, or if you want to learn more, this segment is a terrific overview and starting point.

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/melissa-harris-perry/47054424#47054424

Gender-Neutral Restrooms

From Amplify.  

Imagine a life in which even the simplest tasks are rendered impossible. A life in which going to a public restroom is dangerous because you could be harassed, beaten, even arrested. Perhaps in this existence you are afraid to go to college, because the idea of living with a stranger in a dorm room is terrifying.

Read the whole thing:

http://www.amplifyyourvoice.org/youthresource/genderneutral

Colorado Transgender Student Suspended For Using Women’s Restroom

Relevant for our LIST project.

Dionne Malikowski, 16, claims she was told she would be suspended for three days from Fort Collins High School when she was caught using the women’s restroom. “I cried,” said Malikowski, who was born male but now identifies as transgender. At present, she is required to use the staff bathrooms instead of the students’ bathrooms. “I told them that it was really messed up for them to do that to me, and they were like, ‘We’ve warned you before,’ and I was just like, ‘Obviously you don’t understand what it’s like.'”

Read the whole article at the Huffington Post

Gender-neutral restrooms to be phased in to broader use on UT campus

Let’s hear it for the University of Texas!

http://dailytexanonline.com/news/2011/07/24/gender-neutral-restrooms-be-phased-broader-use-campus

Transgender Woman Severely Beaten at McDonalds

In case you wonder if there’s a need for a project like LIST, this story is a wake-up call.

From The Bilerico Project, April 22, 2011

This is absolutely disgusting. After an unidentified transwoman tried to use the bathroom at a Baltimore McDonald’s, two patrons started attacking her in full view of other customers and employees. What did the employees do? They filmed it on their phones.

While you can see the manager yelling stop at the two women attacking the customer, none of the other employees even try to intervene or keep the women from dragging the victim across the restaurant floor. Instead, it’s the elderly female customer that seems to do the most to help. The manager and employees simply watch as the victim starts to have a seizure and offer no help whatsoever.

You can let McDonalds know how you feel about their employees reprehensible actions – especially since they filmed it and promptly put it on the internet to degrade the victim further.

County police have confirmed that the attack happened April 18 at a McDonald’s in Rosedale, in the 6300 block of Kenwood Ave.

Trigger Warning: The video is extremely violent

http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/e/16711680/wshhiHb913Lf4TpU4q5m

Flushing the “Bathroom Bill” Fear Once and for All

By Mercedes Allen. March 22, 2011.

As I write this, the LGBT community is struggling with a situation in Maryland where the provision for “public accommodations” has been removed from a bill that proposes to extend human rights to trans people, due to the ongoing “bathroom bill” panic-generation tactic.

This is a wonderful article that links the so-called “Bathroom Issue” with human rights.

Click to read the whole article at  Bilerico or the Daily Kos

SPCAA / Project CHAMPS

Name:  SPCAA/Project CHAMPS
Address:  3307 Avenue X Lubbock, TX 79411
Type of venue:  agency
Gender Neutral?  Yes
Wheelchair accessible?  Yes
GPS Lat/Lon: 33.564231,-101.867224
Signage:

Notes:

This toilet is reserved for the clients, their friends & family of Project CHAMPS. Project CHAMPS is proud to be one of the few agencies in Lubbock with “gender identity” and “gender expression” included in our non-discrimination clause.