GENDER BINARISM ON BATHROOM BOARDS IN PUBLIC SPACES

Abstract

This article proposes critical reflections on the male/female binarism present in the architecture and in the identification boards of the bathrooms in public spaces. Based on a post-structuralist framework of the theories of gender and sexual diversity, we take as body of analysis the bathroom signs that, through words, symbols and images, separate these spaces having as exclusive criterion the designated sex at birth and not the self-declared gender identity. In this context, the ambiguity and fluidity present in trans bodies act as significant elements of denunciation of the normative limits of the classification of bathrooms, putting in question socially legitimized territories as male and female. Thus, the signs are considered as institutional analyzers, because they reveal the dispute of the instituting forces and the instituted forces, which shows that, despite the Brazilian legal norms, the institutionalization of the recognition of the various forms of being a man and being a woman is still object of tension.

Keywords:
Bathroom; Gender; Transgender people; Public policies