A Florida city is converting 164 public bathrooms to "all-gender" in a show of "support" for the LGBTQ community.
St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch signed an executive policy changing all single-occupancy, family restrooms or changing facilities to "all-gender" restrooms on September 1.
Signs on the bathrooms will be changed by March. The new policy will change bathrooms at Mahaffey Theater, Al Lang Stadium and Tropicana Field, among other places.
Bathrooms with multiple stalls will remain labeled as men's and women's.
"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.
St. Petersburg City Hall's single-occupant bathrooms were changed to "all-gender" in 2017.
"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."
Welch signed the policy after a new state law was passed requiring people to use bathrooms that correspond to their biological sex.
"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."
The Tampa Bay Times reports, "According to the 2023 Municipal Equality Index Scorecard online, St. Petersburg won six extra bonus points as part of a “flex score” for having openly LGBTQ+ elected or appointed leaders, including former City Council member Amy Foster serving as the city’s housing and neighborhood services administrator. Flex points are given to cities because state regulations may preempt municipalities from scoring a perfect 100."
"St. Petersburg got points for providing services for youth and youth bullying prevention," the report added. "A 2019 anti-bullying policy includes sex orientation and gender identity and orientation. Nixon worked with the Pinellas Homeless Alliance to add sex orientation and gender identity to properly count the homeless LGBTQ+ population, which Nixon said is proportional to the city’s LGBTQ+ population."
