Wisconsinites are used to seeing gender neutral bathrooms but some people may be surprised to be sharing a public bathroom with a member of the opposite sex. Ian’s Pizza has unveiled the new bathroom policy.
That’s why Dan Conn is the general manager at Ian’s Pizza on North Ave. He decided to step outside the box.
“We want to make sure our employees have a safe space to go to and not have to worry about the stress of choosing a bathroom of whatever they present,” Conn said.
So he replaced the traditional male and female bathroom signs and put up gender-neutral signs for multi-stall bathrooms in their place.
One bathroom has both a urinal and stall with no locks on the door.
Ray Campos, a manager at Ian’s Pizza thinks the move falls in line with society's progression.
“When you’re at your friend’s house you don’t use one for a girl or a guy, you just share it,” Campos said.
But not everyone agrees. We took the concept to Facebook and asked what you thought of multi-stall gender neutral bathrooms.
The response? Many said no they don’t agree with gender-neutral bathrooms: with reasons including being able to see through many stalls, and women’s safety.
On the other side, many who agree with the change say it already is the case overseas, and it should have happened long ago.
But Conn says he's already gotten a positive response.
“We have several transgender employees and people that don’t present as a cisgender, they did come forward and say that they feel a lot more comfortable not have to be tactical or political with the bathroom they can go to the one they feel comfortable using,” Conn said.
