The Alamo Drafthouse movie theater chain unveiled blueprints this week for its take on gender-neutral bathrooms.
Alamo CEO Tim League posted the design on Facebook, which is set to be included in the franchise’s new Austin, Texas, location.
“The consensus was that we’d have a room with ‘standing’ toilets (heck, we’re even looking at those all-gender urinals) and individual rooms with sinks, mirrors and trash cans in each room, our ‘seated’ toilet area,” League wrote. “I don’t want to have any ‘men’ or ‘women’ signs in the building.”
League posted again, clarifying that he was indeed taking a stand on the issue with the bathroom design.
“My side is that bigotry and the associated violence and/or shaming stemming from your choice of stall is unacceptable,” he said on Facebook. “But changing that mindset is likely going to take a long time. My hope is that by changing the design of restrooms we can in the meantime avoid some potential violence.”
In an email to the Washington Examiner, League said that “long term,” Alamo plans to implement the design in all its theaters in 21 cities across the U.S., “but we have to work through local building codes and pricing first.”
“Immediately, we are changing all family bathroom signs to gender-neutral signs across the brand,” he told the Examiner.
Richard Weiss, the architect working on the project for Alamo, told the Examiner via email that the company’s push for gender-neutral bathrooms was inspired by an episode of Amazon’s “Transparent” where Jeffrey Tambor’s Maura (an out-and-proud transgender woman) is humiliated in a public restroom, “combined with several stories about individuals being persecuted based on their personal identification and feeling/being unsafe in restrooms.”
The issue of gender-neutral bathrooms was thrust into the spotlight when North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory overturned a state anti-discrimination ordinance by signing a law that required all residents of the state to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their birth gender.
Many saw the law as specifically discriminating against transgender people, which led to companies, celebrities and even professional sports leagues condemning it and refusing to do business with the state.
Earlier in May, President Obama issued guidance that requires schools to allow students to use whichever bathroom matches their gender identities or risk losing federal funding.
“North Carolina and Obama’s directive have put the issue front and center, but Alamo wants to make it a non-issue by providing accommodations for everyone,” Weiss told the Examiner.
On Wednesday, 11 states sued the administration over that guidance, claiming it is turning schools “into laboratories for a massive social experiment.”
Weiss said Alamo is hoping his bathroom design “eliminates the gender issue in favor of the individual.”
“What was posted on social media is the beginning of a larger conversation, and we fully intend to augment the design based on feedback we have already received,” he said.
