#ourrestroom

WE DID IT!! OUR Restroom is a real thing, because of you.

Last night we completed our fundraising campaign and exceeded our goal by over $300, and we are so, so excited! We cannot thank you all enough for your support of this work, and for your belief in and commitment to creating safer spaces for people of all genders.

This success will affect real, actual changes in businesses across this country and, eventually, throughout the world. What’s more, seeing the capacity to fundraise for this initiative signals how many of us are ready for these changes, are aware of the need for collective, driven work to ensure that they happen.

Stay tuned (you can follow us here on Tumblr, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!) as we work this month to launch our website, and as we begin to do outreach to more & more OUR Restroom ambassadors!

14 HOURS LEFT to get OURrestroom 100% funded!!

Hey friends,

For all of elementary school, my mom kept my hair cut very short and I wore (by my own request) my brother’s hand-me-downs. In junior high and high school I had an undercut and wore baggy band t-shirts and JNCO jeans. I was consistently mis-gendered, and I couldn’t tell you the number of times someone tried to stop me from going into the girls’ bathroom. This repeated experience was humiliating and a total bummer.

As y’all may already be aware, my wife Kristin Russo and my good pal Allison Weiss have been running a crowdfunding campaign this past month for a new initiative called OURrestroom. Once funded, OURrestroom will be working to help restaurants, bars, schools, and other businesses understand the importance of taking gender out of the equation when it comes to single-occupancy restrooms. There are so many excellent reasons for one-person bathrooms to be all-gender:

for the comfort and safety of transgender, non-binary, and gender-nonforming people

for the ease of people who may need assistance and have a caretaker whose gender differs from their own

for the convenience of parents who may be accompanying their differently-gendered child

SHORTER LINES, BABY

Their work is already having an impact - check out this post about their first ambassador business, Craft Beer Cellar in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles. This is just the tippy-tippy-tip of the iceberg. I can’t wait to see everything that Kristin and Allison will accomplish. If you are able to help support this campaign, GREAT. If you are able to share it around in your social-verse, ALSO GREAT. I thank you on behalf of myself, and on behalf of everyone whose lives could be made a little better through this work.

This campaign closes at 12pm ET/9am PT tomorrow (Sunday July 24th). As of this posting, they are 81% of the way to their goal. 

Support the campaign and learn more HERE. 

Come hang with Jenny & I, for free on the internet!

Seems like a great time to tell you that tomorrow (Saturday, 7/23) from 12-2:30pm PST, Jenny and I will be hanging out live on the Internet, playing music and chatting with some of our friends (like @malblum & @vivekshraya)!!

We will be celebrating the last day of the @ourrestroom campaign! It will be funnnn and free AND I promise to play glockenspiel. ✌🏻️ 

OUR Restroom’s First Ambassador: Craft Beer Cellars!

Well, OUR Restroom has its very first ambassador, before the campaign has even ended! The incredible humans at Craft Beer Cellars in Los Angeles, CA, had us come in to talk to them about the importance of taking their gendered signs down... and immediately said, “Hell yes.”

Corissa, one of the two owners of the craft beer retail store & bar, explained, “We want this to feel like a home away from home, and for that to be possible, everyone has to feel comfortable and safe.”

On top of all of that, we were fortunate enough to have the incredible Molly Adams volunteer her time to document this awesome occasion. Craft Beer Cellars now has two unisex restrooms, and OUR Restroom signs up in their store to let all their patrons know why they made this important change. 

Alert: THE POSTER FOR OUR RESTROOM IS MY FAVORITE THINGS OF ALL TIME.

Look at this beautiful work of art that Allison Weiss put together I CAN’T STAND IT, ugh it’s perfect. Anyway hello, there are just 2 1/2 days left to help support our campaign to take gender off single-stall restrooms, and we just added a new level that lets you grab up this here poster so check it outtttttt.

The Restroom Sessions: Three Days Left!

In support of the OUR Restroom campaign to take gender markers off of single-stall restrooms, several musicians are coming together to create a digital music compilation of acoustic covers... recorded in their bathrooms!! 

Artists on the ever-expanding compilation include Ingrid Michaelson, Greg Holden, Allison Weiss, Jenny Owen Youngs, Vivek Shraya, Mal Blum, Bells Roar, Kid in the Attic, Koji, Modern Huge, Skylar Kergil, Tim Barry, Austin Lucas, and Little Waist!