Following the trend..

Because I just couldnt resist adding another bathroom-themed post to my repertoire, D.C. Starbucks' are making their bathrooms gender neutral.

While one response may be, "woopty freakin' doo, they're single room bathrooms anyways, who cares what the door sign says?", that's not the point here. For people who fit pretty comfortably into a gender, me included, changing the signs on two doors you already used interchangeably isnt too big a deal. For transgendered people, however, who spend every day of their lives being forced to choose between two signs that dont represent them (and who disallow them in both cases) this is really a great step forward.

That said, another big 'woopty freakin' doo' for the fact that this has been four years in the making. In 2006, the D.C. council passed regulations requiring that all public accommodations would be 'accessible to transgendered people'. Pretty much, that boils down to gender neutral bathrooms (no such thing as gender-specific stairs, I guess).

Four years. And now Starbucks is finally getting around to it, and only in their D.C. shops (admittedly, that's still 52 locations).

So, all in all, pat on the back for Starbucks for actually doing anything, but we're holding out the really big pat until someone makes anything more than a perfunctory (and actually legally required) change.