Unisex Toilet - A Proposal
Slides made for a University module. Persuasive speech given in class to propose unisex/genderless toilets in Singapore to ultimately reduce Gender and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) discrimination. Toilet is an area all of us use daily, be it in school, work places, shopping centres etc. However by continuously using male and female toilet we subconsciously reinforce the essentialized binary sexual distinction. Is the binary distinction fiction? Is there any that are caught in between? Is there any that are both, a third sex? What about those who change their gender but not their sex? Biological sex is not simply a dualistic model, as highlighted by many academics including Anne Fausto-Sterling and Judith Butler to name a few. To introduce unisex/genderless toilet seems ridiculous, but imagine 100 years back when Whites and Coloured people in USA used different toilet. Only after the dismantling of the Jim Crow Laws in the 1960s has the discrimination and segregation de jure ended. Now we take it as a norm that all races use the same toilet without discrimination and differences. The same can be done for sexual and gender difference too, to reduce discrimination and embraced a pluralistic society that allows the human diversity to flourish. Therefore to end the confusion and to embrace differences, unisex toilet/genderless toilet is the solution in Singapore.
