I changed a thing!

Manitou Springs, Colorado is five miles west of Colorado Springs. It's where Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak are, so it gets a lot of tourists, especially in the summer. It embraces its hippie local identity, of which my husband and I are a part (not apart). One of our locals is a cute little taphouse called Kinfolks, where we've been hanging out long enough to witness a change of ownership.

Since we were already regulars, we became friends with the new owners right away. One evening when my husband and I were the last two at the bar near closing time, I suggested that he make the restrooms gender-neutral.

Kinfolks had two single-use restrooms. I quit obeying gender-restrictive signs on single-use restrooms a long time ago, so I was familiar with the innards of both restrooms. I reject the gender binary. I understand that my vision of  a gender-neutral public restroom with multiple stalls plus a urinal trough is a bit much for many people. But I've yet to hear a persuasive defense of keeping single-use public restrooms segregated by gender. "Men are messy" or "women take too long" depend on outdated stereotypes that are easily debunked by the fact that your bathroom at home is probably gender-neutral.

The owner's first reaction was to laugh at my funny joke, until he realized that I was dead serious and waiting for him to respond.
He knee-jerked that he didn't think most people would be comfortable with that, and we engaged in discussion. When my husband and I left that night, he was still skeptical, but had agreed to "look into it."

We frequented Kinfolks often as the summer continued, and each time I freely used either bathroom and encouraged others to do so. Before long, that became the norm. One evening, I came in and the owner had replaced the professional signs with homemade signs that read "Unisex." I was so proud.

A few weeks later, we returned, and the homemade unisex signs were down. Perplexed and saddened, I asked the owner what happened. He said that the signs kept getting ripped down and that he intended to order some proper signs but he hadn't gotten around to it. I immediately used my phone to order a pair of "unisex" signs online.

There was a little mix-up on the delivery; the shipment had my name on it and I hadn't told them it was coming, so they were about to refuse it. I reached them on Facebook in time.

The signs are now up.  The owner is on board. One or two tourists have inquired about why, but no one has complained.

I did it.