Evanston Becomes 7th U.S. City to Adopt Gender-Neutral Restroom Signs

Being ahead of the curve is nothing new to the City of Evanston, so it’s not too surprising the city recently became just the seventh in the United States to create legislation requiring general-neutral signage at public restrooms.

Due to certain restrictions in the Illinois Plumbing Code, the ordinance only requires the new signage at places that either have only one public restroom or three or more. The IPC requires that if there are two restrooms, one must be designated for men and the other for women.

The official wording for Ordinance 40-O-15, passed unanimously by the City Council on Oct. 26, in part says that “all applicable public restroom facilities be designated by signage stating that the public facilities are for men, women, or are gender neutral. For public facilities that have multiple occupancy restrooms, signs shall indicate that the multiple occupancy restrooms remain designated for men or for women. For single occupancy restrooms, if the location includes only one single occupancy restroom, the single occupancy restroom shall be designated a gender neutral restroom. If the location includes two single occupancy restrooms, one single occupancy restroom would be designated a male restroom and one restroom designated a female restroom…

If the location includes three or more single occupancy restrooms, one single occupancy restroom shall be designated a male restroom and one single occupancy restroom shall be designated a female restroom, while the remainder of the single occupancy restrooms will be designated gender neutral restrooms.”

All businesses and places of public accommodation have 60 days from the passage of the ordinance to comply. Information on the new law has been sent to all businesses that will be affected by the change.

According to 7th Ward Ald. Jane Grover, who introduced the legislation, Evanston is only the seventh city in the nation to adopt such a law regarding gender-neutral signage at public restrooms. Five of the first six were cities larger than Evanston (Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Seattle, Austin, Portland, Ore.), while one (West Hollywood, Calif.) is smaller.

“This is good news for Evanston,” Grover said. “We don’t mind being the first in the Midwest. Our size and sensibility lends itself to doing innovative things.”

Grover also noted how her colleagues on the Council did not hesitate to speed up the approval process in this case, passing the law in one meeting when readings are usually spread out over two meetings before they are passed.

“There wasn’t much discussion, just a general updating of our building code,” Grover said. “There was no objection, everyone supported it so we got it off the agenda.”

Mark Muenzer, the city’s director of community development and LGBT liaison, was also “very pleased” with the Council’s quick support of the change.

“I think it shows the type of welcoming, accommodating and progressive community that Evanston is,” said Muenzer, who said talk started about a year ago on ways Evanston could be more accommodating to transgender people on the use of restrooms.

“We wanted to see what requirements we had to go by with the Illinois Plumbing Code and then see how we could go about getting an ordinance that would address all gender use at single occupancy restrooms,” Muenzer said.

Some local businesses, like Grover’s favorite coffee shop Linz & Vail on Central Street, have already posted the new signage.

Carly Lehwald, a transgender woman from Evanston whose sex change is the subject of “Becoming Us!,” a show on ABC Family, was consulted as part of the drafting of the ordinance, Grover said.

“Staff did reach out to consult with her as someone out in the public transgender community to talk with her about the dynamics here and what is is like finding accommodations as a transgender woman,” Grover said. “She was kind enough to spend some time with our staff.”

Businesses will have a few different sign options, with the one that will be posted at city restrooms shown above. The city will also convert its restrooms to comply with the ordinance, as residents may use the restroom consistent with their gender identity.

“Residents are not obligated to produce documentation to ‘prove’ their gender and are protected by the public accommodation laws under the Human Rights Act,” according to the ordinance.

Muenzer hopes the research performed by him and other staff members in presenting the ordinance to the Council will prove to be a good blueprint for other municipalities throughout the Midwest.

“We certainly think we provided them with a compass that’s well-researched and easily duplicated elsewhere,” he said.