City leads drive for gender-neutral bathrooms

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This article was published 18/05/2016 (3671 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg has no lessons to learn from Ottawa’s move to protect the rights of gays and transgender individuals.

Brian Bowman said the City of Winnipeg has a policy to provide gender-neutral bathrooms in all civic facilities when building upgrades are being planned.

While several local business operators said they do provide gender-neutral washroom facilities for their customers, Bowman said that’s been the city’s practise.

“I do believe Winnipeg has taken a leading position on upgrades to facilities to ensure there are options on bathrooms,” Bowman said. “When upgrades are being made, they are including not just male and female bathrooms but other options.

“That’s absolutely something I support and we are making upgrades to facilities to that end.”

Bowman said he’s been meeting with leaders of the city’s LBGTQ community to determine what more city hall can do for them to ensure civic facilities are inclusive — not just on bathrooms — and promised an announcement on that subject will be made in a few weeks..

“There’s been dialogue that I have initiated with many members of our community on what more can we do to ensure we’re being as inclusive and progressive as possible in Winnipeg. I’m expecting I’ll have more to say on that in the coming weeks but right now the issues that are being raised are not just exclusively to the narrow issue of bathrooms.”

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca