Toilet Training: Law and Order in the Bathroom

produced in collaboration with the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, single channel video, 26:00, 2003

Toilet Training focuses on bathroom access in public spaces, addressing the persistent violence caused by gender-segregated bathrooms.

Healthy adults use the bathroom 4 – 8 times during the day and 1 – 2 times per night. Toilet Training surveys the policing of gender in restrooms–persistent discrimination, harassment, and violence towards people who do not adhere to the norms associated with male or female identities. What happens when laws are broken and order is disrupted in the bathroom? Through anecdotal case studies, Toilet Training focuses on bathroom access in public space, in schools, and at work alongside problems associated with “holding it.” Concluding with examples of policy change, Toilet Training provides a necessary foundation to address this overlooked issue.

Selected Screenings and Exhibitions:

SRLP New Member Orientation, New York, NY, Spring 2013 and Spring 2012

LGBTQ Resource Center, College of Staten Island, CUNY, Fall 2012

1 night, 2 transgender films, The Cultural & Regional Studies Program, Prescott College, Prescott, AZ, April 11, 2012

Panelist, Performative Strategies for Rethinking Queer (Non-)Identities, Transnational Queer and Transgender Studies Symposium, UCSD, San Diego, CA (artist lecture: Society of Biological Insurgents, Toilet Training, and PYT) (RFP) April 23, 2011

Suggestions of a Life Being Lived, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA, September 9-October 23, 2010

Hello Liberty, Dalton Gallery, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA, 2008

Queer Matters, Kings College, London, England, 2004

Translating Identity Conference, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, 2004

PISSR People in Search of Safe Restrooms, San Francisco, CA, 2004

Presentation, Toilet Training: Advocating for Trans-Accessible Bathrooms, 7th Annual True Spirit Conference, Washington, D.C., 2002

Critical Writing:

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community. Ed. Laura Erickson-Schroth. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender. Ed. Olga Gershenson and Barbara Penner. Temple University Press, 2009.