A Florida city is converting 164 of its bathrooms into all-gender in a show of support to the LGBTQ+ community and trans youth.
St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch signed an executive policy Sept. 1 to convert all of its public single-occupancy, family restrooms or changing facilities in the city to "all-gender" restrooms. Signs indicating a specific gender will be replaced with ones that designate the bathrooms as all-gender restrooms by next March. Bathrooms with multiple stalls will remain separated into men's and women's.
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"We’re eliminating gender identity restrictions and making them all gender so trans individuals feel safe using individual facilities," the city’s LGBTQ+ Liaison Jim Nixon told the Tampa Bay Times.
The town’s City Hall converted its single-use bathrooms to all-gender in 2017, according to Nixon, and an audit of city-owned bathrooms in parks and recreation facilities found the signage was inconsistent.
"We just felt like this was a good opportunity to make that change since we had made it here in City Hall," Nixon said. "It was just an opportunity that we had seen this becoming a bigger issue."
The changes come after a new state law that went into effect over the summer that requires people to use the public bathroom that coincides with their biological sex.
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"It [lets our] transgender siblings ... know there are facilities available that they’re safer to use," Nixon said. "With everything that’s happening and the attacks on the LGBTQ+ community ... from the state, we’re always looking at opportunities to make St. Pete a safe city for all of our residents."
St. Petersburg earned a perfect score for the 10th consecutive year on the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Municipal Equality Index, which ranks cities on their LGBTQ+ support. The 2023 index results released Friday found a record number of cities — more than a quarter of the 506 surveyed — earned a perfect score.
"For 10 years in a row, we have earned a perfect score on the HRC's Municipal Equality Index, but we have not rested on our past scores," Nixon said in a press release. "Mayor Welch continues to pass robust nondiscrimination policies and support services for the LGBTQ+ community and trans youth."
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Nixon said the HRC index inspired the bathroom signage overhaul in St. Petersburg since it includes whether a city has single-occupancy all-gender facilities in its rankings.
City-owned facilities, including theaters and sporting venues, have a six-month grace period to convert their single-use bathrooms to meet the new rule.
St. Petersburg officials did not immediately response to a request for comment.
