Yeah, or, it's just making trans people comfortable at the conference in a way that impedes absolutely nobody from doing anything, other than shouting at someone for using the 'wrong' bathroom.
Why does this make people so itchy?
I think the author was just using this as one example, and it's probably not the best one.
I'm not aware of any such laws, and I don't see any indication that the convention center was complaining about it - only ESR.
> I mean there is the bigger question of why the hell do we even separate toilets by male/female to begin with? That's a more anthropological question that we could debate for hours.
Honestly, this is the kind of archaic social convention that I'd expect "hackers" to be happy to overthrow. To me, gender neutral bathrooms seem like a great example of the very quote that ESR cites in his complaint:
The hacker culture’s norm about inclusion is clear: anybody who
can pull the freight is welcome, and twitching about things like skin
color or shape of genitalia or what thing you like to stick into what
thing is beyond wrong into silly.But there are many people in various states and municipalities pushing laws for for bathroom use:
https://news.google.com/news/search?tbm=nws&q=bathroom%20law
The convention wanted gender neutral toilets. The hotel has existing toilets, and they're not gender neutral (I guess because of urinals and because of bins / vending machines for sanitary products, as well as signage) and so they declined that request.
I agree with you about gender neutral toilets. I don't understand why some people are so hostile to the idea.
Ah, my mistake. For reference, not all hosts respond that way: some recent high-profile conventions have successfully temporarily designated restrooms as gender neutral, including CCC (hacking conference) last year in Germany and the Democratic National Convention in the US.