Gender Neutral Bathroom News: Yelp Adds Feature To Search For Trans-Friendly Restrooms

While Yelp is best known for providing reviews of businesses, the service is also handy for finding locations with specific amenities. The platform will soon allow users to see restaurants and businesses with gender-neutral bathrooms, according to a report from TechCrunch.

In the coming weeks, Yelp will add the ability to to search for locations that offer gender-neutral bathrooms, which are single-stall bathrooms with doors that lock and are accessible for all genders.

To gather the information, Yelp will begin asking users if a business they patronize has a gender-neutral bathroom. Business owners will also be able to disclose this information on their store page.

The decision to start highlighting locations with gender-neutral bathrooms comes shortly after the Donald Trump administration decided to rescind a protective guidance for transgender students put in place by President Barack Obama. The order protected the right of transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identities.

Yesterday, Yelp joined 52 tech companies in signing an amicus brief in support of Gavin Grimm, a transgender boy who sued his school board after they denied him the right to use the boy’s bathroom.

The company previously signed a letter —along with dozens of other tech firms—from the Human Rights Campaign sent to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory urging him to repeal a bill that forced transgender students in public schools to use facilities that were inconsistent with their gender identity.

How To Find Gender Neutral Bathrooms

While Yelp will soon start identifying business with gender-neutral bathrooms, counting on crowdsourcing and self-reporting means it could take some time before it has anything close to an exhaustive list of businesses with the amenity.

Luckily, there are alternatives available that make it easier to find businesses that offer gender-neutral facilities.

Refuge Restrooms, an open-source web application, highlights places where there is restroom access that is safe for all genders. The resource includes more than 4,500 reported gender-neutral bathrooms from Safe2Pee, a now-inactive database of bathrooms accessible to all genders. Refuge Restrooms has added more entries to the the list, which spans across the United States.