* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Friday, July 11, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Immersive sports and entertainment venue Cosm set to build its 5th location in Cleveland – WKYC

    Cosm Reveals Exciting Vision for Its 5th Immersive Sports and Entertainment Venue in Cleveland

    Monumental Sports & Entertainment’s Samantha Brady on the Power of the RSN’s Direct-to-Consumer Streaming Service Monumental+ – Sports Video Group

    Samantha Brady Reveals How Monumental+ is Transforming Sports Streaming with Direct-to-Consumer Access

    Moses Singer Welcomes Entertainment and Intellectual Property Partner Frederick Bimbler – Yahoo Finance

    Moses Singer Expands Team with New Entertainment and Intellectual Property Partner Frederick Bimbler

    Longhua District and Max-Matching Entertainments, supported by RWS Global forge strategic partnership to develop international IP-themed entertainment complex – Amusement Today

    Longhua District and Max-Matching Entertainments, supported by RWS Global forge strategic partnership to develop international IP-themed entertainment complex – Amusement Today

    Government whip to withdraw Entertainment Complex Bill on July 9 – Nation Thailand

    Government whip to withdraw Entertainment Complex Bill on July 9 – Nation Thailand

    Magicians and Battlebots light up Las Vegas entertainment scene – KSNV

    Magicians and Battlebots Take Las Vegas Entertainment by Storm

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Stallion Uranium Provides Update on Technology Data Acquisition Agreement – GlobeNewswire

    Stallion Uranium Announces Exciting Progress in Technology Data Acquisition Agreement

    2025 WE Local Prague Recap: Inspiring Women in Engineering and Technology – Society of Women Engineers

    2025 WE Local Prague Recap: Inspiring Women in Engineering and Technology – Society of Women Engineers

    SMPTE Opens Early Bird Registration for Media Technology Summit – TVTechnology

    SMPTE Launches Early Bird Registration for Exciting Media Technology Summit

    Google Fiber puts Nokia network slicing technology to the test – Fierce Network

    Google Fiber Puts Nokia’s Network Slicing Technology to the Ultimate Test

    Kaseya Extends Community Investment with Addition of Technology Marketing Toolkit – Kaseya

    Kaseya Extends Community Investment with Addition of Technology Marketing Toolkit – Kaseya

    AI and the Trust Revolution: How Technology Is Transforming Human Connections – Foreign Affairs

    AI and the Trust Revolution: How Technology Is Transforming Human Connections – Foreign Affairs

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Immersive sports and entertainment venue Cosm set to build its 5th location in Cleveland – WKYC

    Cosm Reveals Exciting Vision for Its 5th Immersive Sports and Entertainment Venue in Cleveland

    Monumental Sports & Entertainment’s Samantha Brady on the Power of the RSN’s Direct-to-Consumer Streaming Service Monumental+ – Sports Video Group

    Samantha Brady Reveals How Monumental+ is Transforming Sports Streaming with Direct-to-Consumer Access

    Moses Singer Welcomes Entertainment and Intellectual Property Partner Frederick Bimbler – Yahoo Finance

    Moses Singer Expands Team with New Entertainment and Intellectual Property Partner Frederick Bimbler

    Longhua District and Max-Matching Entertainments, supported by RWS Global forge strategic partnership to develop international IP-themed entertainment complex – Amusement Today

    Longhua District and Max-Matching Entertainments, supported by RWS Global forge strategic partnership to develop international IP-themed entertainment complex – Amusement Today

    Government whip to withdraw Entertainment Complex Bill on July 9 – Nation Thailand

    Government whip to withdraw Entertainment Complex Bill on July 9 – Nation Thailand

    Magicians and Battlebots light up Las Vegas entertainment scene – KSNV

    Magicians and Battlebots Take Las Vegas Entertainment by Storm

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Stallion Uranium Provides Update on Technology Data Acquisition Agreement – GlobeNewswire

    Stallion Uranium Announces Exciting Progress in Technology Data Acquisition Agreement

    2025 WE Local Prague Recap: Inspiring Women in Engineering and Technology – Society of Women Engineers

    2025 WE Local Prague Recap: Inspiring Women in Engineering and Technology – Society of Women Engineers

    SMPTE Opens Early Bird Registration for Media Technology Summit – TVTechnology

    SMPTE Launches Early Bird Registration for Exciting Media Technology Summit

    Google Fiber puts Nokia network slicing technology to the test – Fierce Network

    Google Fiber Puts Nokia’s Network Slicing Technology to the Ultimate Test

    Kaseya Extends Community Investment with Addition of Technology Marketing Toolkit – Kaseya

    Kaseya Extends Community Investment with Addition of Technology Marketing Toolkit – Kaseya

    AI and the Trust Revolution: How Technology Is Transforming Human Connections – Foreign Affairs

    AI and the Trust Revolution: How Technology Is Transforming Human Connections – Foreign Affairs

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Business

Toilet talk: How gender-inclusive bathrooms can protect human dignity

June 24, 2023
in Business
Toilet talk: How gender-inclusive bathrooms can protect human dignity
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

South Africa’s journey towards passing a hate crime bill that addresses explicit acts of violence and discrimination motivated by prejudice and intolerance is gaining momentum. However, there is an important aspect of discrimination that often goes unnoticed—the everyday prejudice and intolerance experienced in private spaces, including bathrooms. In the midst of a global debate on gender-inclusive toilets, psychologists and scholars in South Africa argue that shared bathrooms can foster inclusive societies and protect human dignity. Jarrad H Martin and Pierre Waldemar Brouard explore the significance of bathrooms as political arenas, the challenges faced by trans and gender diverse individuals, and the potential for gender-inclusive facilities to challenge harmful assumptions and promote a more inclusive future.

Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.

Bathrooms are political: how gender-inclusive toilets can combat indignity and violence

By Jarred H Martin and Pierre Waldemar Brouard*

A new hate crimes bill is inching closer to the possibility of becoming law in South Africa. The bill entrenches human dignity as a foundational value of the country by providing for penalties for explicit acts of violence and discrimination motivated by prejudice and intolerance.

However, prejudice and intolerance can also be expressed and experienced in everyday ways that are often taken for granted. The bill does not necessarily acknowledge this. It’s crucial to acknowledge that acts of discrimination happen not only in obvious forms of hate speech and violence in public spaces. They also happen in the everyday private spaces that form part of our homes, faith spaces, workplaces and, in particular, the bathrooms available in these spaces. 

As psychologists and scholars working in the fields of sexualities and gender in a country with high levels of gender-based violence, we are sensitive to the anxieties of all people and, in particular, women, who voice an almost omnipresent sense of the threat of violence in public spaces. But we’ve also come to understand that people whose gender appearance may be “non-normative” often feel unsafe in public bathrooms.

As the debate around gender-inclusive toilets rages around the world, we argue that shared bathrooms create more inclusive societies that ultimately protect human dignity.

Read more: FORSA’s Ellerbeck: ANC’s proposed censorship law not about ‘Hate Speech’, but to criminalise ‘Speech’ elites ‘Hate’

Bathrooms are public-private spaces

The bathroom, a seemingly private yet inherently public space, has become subject to intense scrutiny. Especially regarding the rights of trans and gender diverse individuals, both in South Africa and abroad. (A transgender person identifies with a gender different from that of their sex that’s assigned at birth. A gender diverse person has a gender identity or expression that’s at odds with what’s perceived as being the social norm.)

The public bathroom has become a lightning rod for a general social anxiety about safety and gender. Are women safe if a trans woman uses the same bathroom? What does it mean to the gender (and indeed sexuality) of men if a trans man uses the “men’s bathroom”? Aren’t children at risk if anyone can “decide” they are trans and walk into a public bathroom? Why can’t we keep things simple and make people go to the bathroom according to their sex assigned at birth?

It’s in this context of moral and personal panic, we argue, that in fact it’s trans and gender diverse people who are most at risk of a “quiet violence” as they attempt to access and navigate these everyday spaces.

This discrimination is “quiet” because it does not appear as the kind of overt act of violence that the hate crimes bill seeks to legislate against, such as a transphobic slur or assault. However, it remains a form of violence because trans and gender diverse people feel policed and threatened navigating these spaces.

Bathrooms as political arenas

Bathrooms hold more than a functional purpose; they’re historically significant sites of overt and covert political struggles. Throughout social justice movements worldwide, bathrooms have played pivotal roles. In the US, bathrooms became contested spaces during civil rights movements for women’s rights, desegregation and disability rights.

Apartheid also enforced strict policing and segregation of public amenities including swimming pools, beaches and toilets. This perpetuated institutionalised racism and a disregard for the dignity and worth of people of colour. 

This legacy endures in historically marginalised communities, where the “bucket system” (non-flush toilets where a bucket is used to collect waste), pit latrines and inadequate sanitation facilities persist.

Read more: Lindiwe Sisulu: Mkhwebane, TJP and systemic oppression of SA women in power – views sure to challenge popular perceptions

The gendered nature of bathrooms

Choosing between “men’s” and “women’s” bathrooms subjects an individual to a normative system that organises and disciplines their body based on a sex-segregated understanding of gender. 

This system enforces a binary of gender, defined solely by two biological sexes – male and female. For trans and gender diverse individuals, selecting a bathroom becomes a calculation of self-preservation. This requires self-surveillance in an effort to minimise the likelihood of harassment and violence for deviating from normative gender presentations.

Violence and discrimination in bathrooms

Bathrooms are often reported to be distressing spaces for trans and gender diverse individuals, becoming sites where they experience discrimination and exclusion. Occupying gendered facilities can lead to discomfort, verbal abuse and physical assault. Being forced to “hold in” basic biological functions can also result in health problems.

Calls for these individuals to use bathrooms aligned with their assigned sex at birth don’t only demonstrate the binary model of gender. They are discriminatory and foster conditions that perpetuate violence, confusion and negative attitudes towards trans individuals. It’s crucial to recognise that violence against trans and gender diverse people is often overlooked. 

Read more: South Africans have spoken: “Wokeism – The opposite of creativity”

Ensuring recognition and safety

It’s critical to acknowledge women’s concerns regarding the prospect of sexual assault in using gender-inclusive bathrooms. It’s equally crucial to challenge the notion that bodies assigned male at birth are inherently violent and that safety can only be guaranteed through gender-specific or sex-segregated bathroom arrangements. 

Studies from Australia, the US and the UK have demonstrated that gender-inclusive facilities do not compromise safety or privacy. 

In fact, they serve as catalysts for social change, challenging binary constructs and debunking the notion of inherent male violence. Reducing violence to a specifically gendered body overlooks the complex social psychology of violence, which is rooted in gendered power asymmetries, control and dehumanisation.

By recognising the discrimination that trans and gender diverse people face in these spaces and implementing new gender-inclusive bathroom arrangements which accommodate all people, we believe that inclusive societies can challenge harmful assumptions and contribute to the cause of dignity for all.

Read also:

Tyler Cowen warns: Don’t trust Joe Rogan’s public debates! Seek truth through evidence, not spectacle
SLR Diary: Taking a mischievous gander at gender
Andrew Kenny examines the manipulation of children into believing they were born into the wrong gender

This article was first published by The Conversation and is republished with permission

*Jarred H Martin is a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, University of Pretoria

*Pierre Waldemar Brouard is the Acting director of the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS & Gender, University of Pretoria, University of Pretoria

(Visited 59 times, 59 visits today)

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : BizNews – https://www.biznews.com/undictated/2023/06/23/toilet-talk-gender-inclusive-bathrooms-protect-human-dignity

Tags: businessgender-inclusiveToilet
Previous Post

South African startup Omnisient: Using AI and alternative data to help millions access credit

Next Post

Viljoen lays into Naspers management for “feeding” at shareholder expense

Stallion Uranium Provides Update on Technology Data Acquisition Agreement – GlobeNewswire

Stallion Uranium Announces Exciting Progress in Technology Data Acquisition Agreement

July 11, 2025
Angel Reese’s rebounding greatness summed up in one wild statistic – Yahoo Sports

Angel Reese’s rebounding greatness summed up in one wild statistic – Yahoo Sports

July 11, 2025
International call for freedom for environmentalist Onur Yılmaz – ANF English

International call for freedom for environmentalist Onur Yılmaz – ANF English

July 11, 2025
This week in science: a comet, plastic-eating bugs, and how altitude changes smell – KUOW

This week in science: a comet, plastic-eating bugs, and how altitude changes smell – KUOW

July 11, 2025
Science Museum of Minnesota cutting more than 40 full-time employees – CBS News

Science Museum of Minnesota to Cut More Than 40 Full-Time Jobs

July 11, 2025
Doctors say we’ve been misled about weight and health – ScienceDaily

Doctors Reveal the Truth About Weight and Health That You’ve Been Misled About

July 11, 2025
Sierra Club breaks record for world’s largest display of origami fish to protest Line 5 – News From The States

Sierra Club Creates Giant Origami Fish to Break World Record and Protest Line 5

July 11, 2025
Senate Democrat: Trump economy full of ‘uncertainty,’ ‘chaos’ – The Hill

Senate Democrat Warns of ‘Uncertainty’ and ‘Chaos’ in Trump Economy

July 11, 2025
Arts and entertainment events happening July 10th-13th across the Mid-Ohio Valley – WTAP

Unmissable Arts and Entertainment Events Happening July 10th-13th in the Mid-Ohio Valley

July 11, 2025
World’s Premier Cancer Institute Faces Crippling Cuts and Chaos – KFF Health News

World’s Leading Cancer Institute Grapples with Devastating Cuts and Turmoil

July 11, 2025

Categories

Archives

July 2025
MTWTFSS
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031 
« Jun    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (715)
  • Economy (738)
  • Entertainment (21,626)
  • General (15,827)
  • Health (9,775)
  • Lifestyle (745)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (740)
  • Politics (748)
  • Science (15,956)
  • Sports (21,237)
  • Technology (15,724)
  • World (721)

Recent News

Stallion Uranium Provides Update on Technology Data Acquisition Agreement – GlobeNewswire

Stallion Uranium Announces Exciting Progress in Technology Data Acquisition Agreement

July 11, 2025
Angel Reese’s rebounding greatness summed up in one wild statistic – Yahoo Sports

Angel Reese’s rebounding greatness summed up in one wild statistic – Yahoo Sports

July 11, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version