On Thursday — International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia — Binita Shah, Copy Group Head at TBWA, Mumbai, launched, Equal Toilets, a campaign to collect online pledges and raise support for transgender equality.
She unveiled a video revealing the difficulty faced by transgender persons while using male or female rest rooms. People can pledge to support transgenders’ right to use either gendered bathroom at www.equaltoilets.com.
A simple premise
The idea started with a very simple premise. On April 3, the Central Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation announced, through a circular, that as part of the Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan, male and female public rest rooms should be opened for transgender persons.
Ms. Shah says, “Though transgenders were not barred from entering either gendered bathrooms before this, the law was a very progressive move by the government, but society was taking a while to respond. In my own friends circle, I saw many people having hesitations: ‘What about our safety’? The way they perceive transgenders is like, they are going to do something to them.” Ms. Shah and her colleagues have reached out to LGBTQ advocacy trust Humsafar, which supported the campaign, and made the video highlighting this prejudice and hesitation.
Loos swapped
In the video, shot at Harmony Mall, Goregaon, the male and female toilet signs were swapped, so that a woman entering a women’s toilet finds male urinals. The video tracks both men and women who accidentally enter the wrong bathroom, and react and fight before they are told it is a social experiment. “They experience anger and confusion at being blamed for something which isn’t their fault, and that is the crux of our campaign — why be blamed for something which isn’t your fault?” says Ms. Shah.
“Toilets are very personal; you need to feel comfortable in bathrooms,” says Urmi Jadhav, research assistant and trans spokesperson of Humsafar Trust. “In this video, people get to experience for a few moments what transgender people experience every day. Hopefully it makes people think twice.”
The pledge can be signed atequaltoilets.com.
