New York Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order guaranteeing people access to single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity at city facilities without the need to show identification or any other proof of gender.
Amidst the continuing national debate over anti-discrimination laws, Mayor Blasio ensured people visiting New York facilities are aligned with their gender identity.
It is stated in the order that the regulations apply to all city-owned buildings, including city offices, public parks, playgrounds, pools, recreation centers and certain museums. Moreover, it does not require agencies to build new single-stall restroom or locker room facilities, but instead enforce that all individuals, including those who are transgender or gender non-conforming, are free to use single-sex facilities consistent with their gender identity.
According to Mayor de Blasio, "Access to bathrooms and other single-sex facilities is a fundamental human right that should not be restricted or denied to any individual. Every New Yorker should feel safe in our city - and this starts with our city's buildings."
He further told that New York City has an obligation to lead and New Yorkers have an obligation to show that everyone is embrace and accepted. He believed that change comes from the grassroots. Change comes from the ground, and if people who believe in human rights do not stand up for them, it lets those negative voices dominate.
However, Executive Director of the Family Policy of Washington Joseph Backholm opined that transgender people are not the only ones whose rights need to be protected.
"Transgender people have the right to go to the bathroom. But everybody else in the state of New York or the city of New York or whatever state we're in, they all have legal rights to privacy that are real. And the problem is governments choosing one person's rights over everybody else, rather than recognizing that everybody has an interest here, and we need to behave like adults and make sure that nobody gets to say my rights trump your rights because I say so," he said.
According to The Lambda Legal Foundation, no evidences presented that gender-segregated bathrooms are "safer" for cisgender women than unisex bathrooms. It insisted that allowing transgender individuals the right to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity is the moral thing to do. Fears that doing so would lead to perverts and sexual predators in bathrooms are unfounded
As per the recent survey conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 22% of transgender and gender non-conforming people reported being denied access to appropriate bathrooms at work, and 26% reported being denied access to bathrooms in an educational setting.
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