The Politics of Bathroom Access, Exclusion, and Gender Identity in the States

• In Event: Constitutional Government after Full Inclusion

Abstract

The past twenty years have seen an explosion of U.S. state laws focused on bathrooms access, including laws that both restrict and expand the ability of people to access basic needs in public. While bathrooms as a site of political and legal struggle is not a new phenomenon, this fight has expanded into a variety of novel policy areas in recent years. I argue that the concept of social citizenship helps us understand both why bathrooms are so important to accessing public spaces, as well as why they have been such frequent targets for exclusion and symbols of inclusion. Social citizenship requires that individuals and groups be able to fully take part in public life and have full access to opportunities in education, the workforce, and civic life. Denying toilet access means that individuals can only exist in public for as long as they can “hold it.” Thus, ensuring equal access to bathrooms – or denying it to targeted groups – becomes a powerful way for society to define who is a full citizen and to indicate who belongs and who doesn’t in public spaces.

This paper examines intersections between social citizenship and policies aimed at both restricting and expanding bathroom access for trans people and others who do not fit neatly within the gender binary. Because of the way the U.S. Constitution assigns power over policies that affect health, safety, and morals, bathroom politics occurs primarily at the state and local level. As a result, social citizenship can vary dramatically depending on the state or city one resides in or travels to. Relevant state-level policies include anti-trans “bathroom bills,” requirements that single-stall bathrooms be labelled as gender neutral, and non-discrimination protections based on gender identity that include the use of sex-segregated bathrooms. In each of these three policy areas, I outline the policy landscape in terms of content and geography, analyze the role of partisanship and interest group activity, and consider how rhetoric around these policies employs ideas related to social citizenship.

Author

• Sara N. Chatfield, University of Denver