From the Editor

Posted Wednesday, June 24, 2015 5:02 pm

As demonstrated time and again, the Interwebs — more specifically, social media — has the power to take seemingly benign ideas and raise the stakes of participating and engaging with said ideas (think MS Ice Bucket Challenge, or its less philanthropically motivated, more dimwitted cousin, the cinnamon challenge). It’s social pressure, only magnified. Rarely, however, do such efforts effect lasting social change, or even increased awareness — a fact I’ve proved by calling the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge the MS Ice Bucket Challenge, without you even doing a double-take (bring on the letters to the editor).

So when local political activist Ben Weaver (who identifies as Ben America on social media) talks about the impact of his most recent digitally driven agitation, he does so with caution.

“I’m not on a crusade with this,” says Weaver, whose social media reach extends to a respectable 2,500 Facebook friends. “I’m just trying to point out some things that we take for granted around us that institutionalize sexism, racism, and classism,” he tells me.

A few weeks ago, Weaver, who runs a sign business, posted a picture on his Facebook page, along with a simple (incomplete) sentence:



“Thinking of making and donating.”



The picture that accompanied this phrase was of a brown restroom sign. From left to right on the sign were two familiar female and male pictograms (wearing the standard A-line dress and conceivably nothing at all, respectively). And to the far right stands a third icon, a blend of the other two — the dress protruding from only one side.

“It seems really simple,” Weaver says of the gender-neutral signage. “You got a sink and a toilet. You put up a sign. It doesn’t say ‘this is a men’s room’ or ‘this is a women’s room.’ It’s just a bathroom.”

Weaver, who worked closely with the LGBT-PAC during the better part of Jacksonville’s recent mayoral race, told me he hoped to spark conversation with the post.

“So how do you change minds and hearts?” Weaver asks me, rhetorically. “You start showing them the absurdity of these systems that we hold onto.”

Many businesses adhere to an antiquated building code that requires separate facilities for the sexes. It’s called potty parity (seriously). For people who identify as transgender or questioning, this binary, socially-constructed framework complicates things.

But things are changing.

Student-led initiatives made it possible for gender-neutral signage to be installed on the campuses of most public universities in the state of Florida. City governments are beginning to follow suit. Santa Fe, New Mexico, for instance, passed an ordinance in early May requiring all single-occupancy restrooms to be available for anyone, regardless of gender, and its City Council is weighing giving gender-neutral signage

to businesses.

Is Northeast Florida ready to embrace inclusive signage?

Weaver received hundreds of comments on Facebook, including legal advice regarding state and city codes related to restroom accommodations, as well as solicitations for procurement and installation of the signs.

The owner of Bold Bean Coffee Roasters inquired, but decided he couldn’t wait. The Riverside coffeehouse has since posted its own version of the signs featuring only the androgynous pictogram, with the word Whichever underneath.

But that’s in Jacksonville’s liberal enclave. Socially and politically speaking, Riverside/Avondale may be the one place in Northeast Florida where the word progressive can be uttered aloud, in public, with a straight face (though, in their affinity for Republican mayoral candidate Bill Bishop, many residents displayed a confused understanding of the word). It’s diverse and inclusive, yet you won’t find a more homogenized — ideology-wise — district in the city. So if you live there, or spend a great deal of time there, it’s easy to forget you live in one of the few major cities in America that votes overwhelmingly red. Many Riverside/Avondale residents lovingly refer to this blissful ignorance as the bubble.

In the past, Riverside/Avondale hasn’t had much success exporting ideologies to the rest of Northeast Florida. More recently, the neighborhoods’ collective causes — a push for candidates to embrace a comprehensive Human Rights Ordinance, the campaign of a fringe-progressive-ish candidate — have, just like in the past, fallen on deaf ears.

But elections aren’t always the best way to effect social change. Experience is the most powerful form of persuasion.

Bold Bean is a popular spot. The ability to sell a highly addictive drug (oh, and their welcoming atmosphere) attracts people of all ages, inviting them from all corners of Northeast Florida to both of the Roasters’ two locations. It may seem like a small, even subliminal gesture, but by now hundreds of people have put their eyes on the signs.

“For us, for generation X and Y, it’s obvious, we’re built for change,” Ben Weaver tells me. “We’re early adopters — change doesn’t scare us.”

“Then again,” he says, “we’re not the ones who vote.”

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