Texas movie chain defeats 'unacceptable' anti-trans bigotry by scrapping gender-specific bathrooms
The owners of the Alamo Drafthouse movie chain believe they have come up with a way to allow everyone to use the bathroom of their choice.
In a Facebook post this week, the owners explained that they were scrapping traditional bathrooms planned for Austin's Alamo Drafthouse in favor of a gender-neutral design.
"Instead of taking sides on whether or not sexual predators will be invading the restrooms of our stores or public schools, we’ve been thinking about what an inclusive commercial gender-neutral restroom design might look like so that these challenges are not even part of the dialogue," Drafthouse founder Tim League explained. "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. I don’t want to have any 'men' or 'women' signs in the building."
A proposed diagram of the bathroom shows a "standing" area with six urinals, and a "seated" area with eight enclosed toilets.
The theater planned to provide additional bathrooms for families and people with disabilities across the hall.
Later on Tuesday, League pointed out that he was already on record "taking sides" in the transgender bathroom debate.
"I have taken a side. My side is that bigotry and the associated violence and/or shaming stemming from your choice of stall is unacceptable," League wrote. "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."
The new bathroom plan is expected to cost up to $90,000 more and would still need to be approved by the city of Austin.
Watch the video from KXAN.
(h/t: Austin 360)