[edblarney]

"It’s Googley to stand up for diversity and inclusion, such as protesting against binary gendering on toilets"

This is BS.

99.99% of the world is find with the 'binary signage' on toilets, and it is absolutely not 'anti trans' or 'anti anyone else' frankly, to do so.

BTW - this is not like a 1960's movement - you're not in the 'right side of history' here. 'Binary Gender' is, and will always be normative, simply because almost everyone is binary, and is fine with it. The number of people who actually have issues with 'binary' is very, very small. Even most people who are trans are still 'binary' (!) i.e. they identify as one gender or the other, not anything in between.

I somehow doubt that 'it's Googley' to be this, this may be a little bit of a stretch, or 'mis-articulation' by the author.

Though I don't have a problem at all with someone who is 'anti gender binary' (I don't really care) - I do have a problem with a company that pushes social extremism as part of their culture. It's just more evidence of the culty behaviour at Google.

I make a hobby of studying cults. I used to go into the Scientology clinic to 'take the test' and kind of debate with them, to get an understanding of how they are. I used to read a lot of their stuff - not for the 'knowledge' but to grasp the nature of the organization.

These kinds of 'ideals' are actually far more about creating a coherent group, than projecting any ideals.

Google is a good company, generally, but they do some nefarious things with our data. One of the great things about having a 'we are morally superior' cult, is that any decision made by Google that can feasibly be considered unethical - won't be, using the internal logic of 'We don't do evil, so, what we are doing cannot be evil'.

Anyhow, it takes working at several companies for a while to start to figure this out.

[tptacek]

For someone who doesn't care much about toilet signage, you sure care a lot about toilet signage.

[edblarney]

You misread, or I miscommunicated my statement: I don't care about 'signage'.

If Google has a practical reason to have special signage, all the power to them.

I care about the 'social ethos unwittingly imbued on people' as a function of an aggressive culture.

The signage is an artifact of the culture, as implied by the author it's 'Googly', i.e. 'these are the values that we must have' - which may have nothing to do with the workplace, but more to do with projecting ideology.

If an Atheist was required to have 'morning prayer' at a company ... would this be acceptable? I mean, why should an Atheist care? It's just a bunch of words that would effectively have no meaning to them? Of course, it wouldn't be right to have 'prayer', per say, as a 'cultural requirement' unless it was a religious org, or special in that manner. Imagine being the only one at your company who 'doesn't do it' ... you'd be the Black Sheep surely.

Google may have an over-representation of people with gender ID issues, and may very well just have some pragmatic solutions, like 'individual bathrooms' that are just marked as 'bathrooms'. This seems like a rather good solution to me, and avoids the ideological issues entirely. There's no argument needed, anywhere. But to specifically foster 'anti gender binary ideals' as part of the culture is wrong.

My guess is the author is projecting is own ideals onto what 'Googly' means.

Ask someone 'what Burning Man means' - and you get 1000 different answers. Most of them 'authoritative'. :).

[tptacek]

This is all a bit intersectionalist for me. I'm having a hard time keeping track. Are they asking people to pray to the toilet signage? I think I might be right there with you on that one.

[idlewords]

You sound like you're the one grappling with "gender ID issues".

[edblarney]

There are other places for trolling and ad-hominem.

Moreover, you're likely unwittingly helping me make my point.

[wsh91]

Speaking as a genderqueer engineer at Google, I'm really glad to work with supportive cis colleagues. I'm sorry that you take such a negative view, but at least for me, as someone who has rarely felt included in tech, it's a tremendous relief to be here.

If going to great measures to make sure people who break the mold feel comfortable constitutes "social extremism", well, I'm glad we're extreme.

[ozy123]

What does it mean to be 'included in tech' ?

[wsh91]

It means that software (the product, not the community) tends to offer a binary choice for gender and a lack of gender-neutral forms of address (I go by Mx.). It means that the conversations around gender in tech tend to reflexively focus on "women" with "men" as their opposite, both essentializing gender and reinforcing a fictional dichotomy. It means being able to come to work dressed the way I want to dress without someone complaining that my leggings are revealing when half the office is in Lululemon (yes, that actually happened). It means that I can ask other people to respect my pronouns and feel supported by management and colleagues rather than feel afraid to speak up.

In other words, it means a hell of a lot.

[ozy123]

Your tight leggings create a bulge of your genitalia, societal norms don't yet accommodate the visual enhancing of the penis or vagina such that they are prominently displayed. Unfortunately the penis/scrotum are much more bulgey than the vagina.

But by trying to pretend that it's ok for the 'other half' but not you, you're failing to advance your argument - which is that people should get comfortable with your package being prominently displayed. Because to you it is the equivalent of an ass/breasts/pecs being enhanced in some way?

Look I'm all for drinking kosher soda. It doesn't affect me. Having to adopt my language to accommodate every minority group (of which there is an infinite number) is just too heavy a cognitive load with zero benefit to me. It benefits my friends who ask me but I refuse and ask them to instead accommodate my not wanting to. And I think that's fair?

[drewrv]

Is it really that difficult to address people how they wish to be addressed?

If someone said to you, "Please call me Matt" do you respond with "But your birth certificate says Matthew! How am I supposed to handle this cognitive load? What's the benefit for me, Matthew?"

[ozy123]

"Matt is coming with us. He said he'd be at four. Jemima is also coming they said they'd be here at five."

Matt is coming at five? No Jemima is coming at five. Matt is coming at four. Also Sarah is coming with her partner Zoe. Ze said ze would be here at 4 also zey're getting a ride with Matt.

Umm. Ok.

Not to mention that now when I talk about women, I have to also consider every other gender non binary person as requested by OP. He doesn't want it to be essentialized and pragmatically to be inclusive one has to therefore moderate all language relating to gender.

That is a significant cognitive load and I wish people would stop pretending it's simple. I live around and have friends who are trans/binary non gender people and it's hard work keeping up.

[euyyn]

Not sure what's your point. wsh91 is explaining how much it means to him/her that at Google we're generally happy to personally do those kinds of "accommodations" (for lack of a better word).

I couldn't care less about any team-mate of mine coming dressed the way they wanted. And I'm not surrounded by "every minority group", so if someone told me tomorrow he rather I use "he"/"she"/whatever when referring to them in public, they'll be the first one and I'll have no problem at all. I might forget some times, but that's fine too. Pronouns are also more of a personal thing than a minority group thing: I don't change my language when I talk to black people, or to white Americans, but if a person asks me, sure, why would I give a damn about language if that makes them feel better.

[wsh91]

Thanks for giving a shit. :) (I go by "they".) And I promise that for those of us who are a little different, the effort is what matters.

[ozy123]

Him/her/them/per/xem/...

https://uwm.edu/lgbtrc/support/gender-pronouns/

Do try to be inclusive when making a point about how happy you are to be inclusive.

[wsh91]

I guess for me the question would be "why are you trying to scrutinize my genitalia?" Google is famous for its dress code: "you must wear something." Seems to work out okay for us.

[ozy123]

But see that betrays the hypocrisy in the request. Tight fitting clothing highlights the sexual organ. The absence of clothing does the same thing (and yes in the minds of others). Why you are comfortable with google's insistence of clothing but uncomfortable with the request of others to not wear something that has a similar effect?

So whether I'm interested in your genitalia or not is beside the point. You were trying to draw a false equivalence, I wanted you to understand why it was different for you and not 'half of the office'.

[dragonwriter]

> 99.99% of the world is find with the 'binary signage' on toilets

[citation needed]

AFAICT, even many people that see gender as binary favor gender-neutral restrooms.

> The number of people who actually have issues with 'binary' is very, very small.

The number of people who identify outside of the classical binary distinction mau be small (or it may be that lots of people simply lack vocabulary to explain non-binary identity, which makes non-binary identity less visible as such), but lots of people whose own identity fit into the traditional binary distinction nevertheless have real problems with the binary view and its normativity.

[hota_mazi]

It's easy to test: remove the entire distinction and have only one type of toilets where everybody can go.

Let this experiment run for a few months.

Then compare the number of people who complain about that experiment with the number of people who complain about binary signage.

I'm betting the former number will dwarf the latter. And no, I don't have a citation for that, just giving my opinion.

[greglindahl]

The W hotel in downtown Austin, TX has had all of their restrooms in the bar/restaurant area as single-user facilities labeled Men/Women for... ever since it was built, I think. At least 5 years that I can remember. Among other reasons, it efficiently supports conventions with wildly varying gender ratios.

[espadrine]

Obviously there is a strong habit of having signs on toilets. But I am unsure why. Sitting toilets are the exact same thing for both genders, there's no reason not to have a bin next to them anyway…

Most homes don't have gendered toilets. Why is that so common at work?

Why do you think the separation was made?

[Bartweiss]

Three big causes:

First, home bathrooms are reliably single-user. Some people are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of sharing a bathroom with people of another gender (though exactly which people they would not want to share with is a complicated question). Interestingly, this seems to be a bigger deal in the US, where our stalls are shoddy and easy to see into.

Second, cleanliness. Mostly, home bathrooms stay clean on a system of "if you make a mess you'll get yelled at". That's not viable in public settings, so gendering helps ensure that there are clean toilet seats for those who need to sit on them. Again, not totally effective, but relevant.

Third, most public and business bathrooms have a bunch of gendered additions which aren't present in homes. Urinals, hygiene/contraceptive vending, and (controversially) changing tables are the big ones.

For a sanity check on that list, think about the public bathrooms that aren't gendered. Single-person bathrooms are often marked male/female/family/disabled, on the grounds that they have a toilet, changing tables, and cause no particular gender issues. Similarly, porta-potties are usually unisex, whether or not they include a urinal. Again, they're single-user and generally filthy no matter who uses them.

So there's a bunch of reasons. But the third - the most objective - doesn't actually require gendered signage. A "facilities" list would be more useful and effective for those issues. The second is a bit ambiguous - gender doesn't seem to be the strongest predictor of bathroom hygiene, and there are options here. The first is the strictly gendered one, but it's actually quite complex! For all the concern of "gender identity doesn't make a person look like they fit here", "gender assigned at birth" is no better at ensuring "only people who look like they belong here". The ways to achieve that would be subjective and probably inconsistent between complainants.

Reasons for signage, then, but not necessarily for gendered signage.

[edblarney]

"gender doesn't seem to be the strongest predictor of bathroom hygiene"

It definitely is when you have very few elements to chose from.

When the 'men's' one-ey is 'in use' in Starbucks, I often go into the 'women's' - and it's very consistently cleaner.

It is what it is.

[tptacek]

So you're saying we should have binary signed toilets so that you can ignore the signs?

[euyyn]

> Urinals, hygiene/contraceptive vending, and (controversially) changing tables are the big ones.

I think I've seen baby-changing tables at all if not most male restrooms at Google.

Urinals... I've never seen another person's trunk when using urinals. I'd get upset if you tried to look at mine no matter your sex or gender. And I'd get as upset as a woman if you showed it like an exhibicionist, even though I have one too. So I think in practice, at Google, urinals wouldn't ultimately matter.

Hygiene and contraceptive vending I can see how people might want to be more private about.

[wglb]

So if 'Binary Gender' is, and will always be normative, simply because almost everyone is binary, I wonder what it might be like to be left-handed. Would you consider it social extremism to treat left-handers, which are a seriously small minority (10%) as actually equal to right-handed, normative, normal folks?

[edblarney]

10% is a meaningful minority.

As it stands, the world is mostly made for right-handed people, with a lot of accommodation for lefties.

In very lose terms, the number of people who identify as 'somewhere on the spectrum of gender' is about 0.5% - but this includes a huge amount of people who have a 'feeling' and frankly, are probably ideological about it, i.e. "I don't believe in gender, ergo, I refuse to identify as one".

The actual number of people who truly do not fit in essentially or pragmatically one or the other gender - to the point wherein they would feel uncomfortable going into either a male or female bathroom is extremely small. Remember that even most trans people actually identify with one gender or the other.

So, when > 99.9% of a population 'is something' ... 'it's normative'.

[esrauch]

Do you not think its noble to make life better for 0.1% of people?

[edblarney]

"Do you not think its noble to make life better for 0.1% of people?"

It's not within reason or pragmatism to change how everyone on the planet refers to gender - and our entire 'bathroom social norms' to accommodate a tiny minority.

Here is a practical, non-ideological solution:

It seems as though every edifice has to provide special facilities for handicapped people.

Change the sign on the handicapped door, to something considerably more generic, like 'a bathroom for whoever' - and then those who are not comfortable with male/female - or for any other reason - can use it.

Now the 99.9% have their bathrooms - and 'everyone else' who doesn't fit perfectly into that paradigm, can use the 'other' facility.

[orodley]

Just by the way, the statement in the article is incorrect. Google Sydney does have male/female toilets, but we have unisex toilets as well.