{"id":2452443,"date":"2019-12-19T21:41:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T04:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=317996"},"modified":"2019-12-19T21:41:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T04:41:00","slug":"pitkin-county-building-bathroom-to-become-all-inclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/pitkin-county-building-bathroom-to-become-all-inclusive\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitkin County building bathroom to become \u2018all inclusive\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pitkin County officials are planning to convert a men\u2019s bathroom in the newly built county building on Main Street into an \u201call-accommodating\u201d bathroom for transgender and other citizens, an official said Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s come to our attention that we really should be looking at an all-inclusive rest room,\u201d said Rich Englehart, assistant Pitkin County manager. \u201cIt\u2019s really staying ahead of what is happening across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gender-neutral bathroom \u2014\u00ad which will likely be located on the county building\u2019s second floor \u00ad\u2014 is meant not only for transgender employees, residents and visitors, he said. It will also be available to, for example, a father with a young female child needing assistance or a female nurse, relative or caretaker accompanying an elderly man, Englehart said.<\/p>\n

The bathroom, which was not included in the plans for the county\u2019s year-and-a-half-old new building, probably will not require any major construction, he said. Instead, officials will likely convert the men\u2019s bathroom on the second floor to a gender-neutral designation through signage and install a lock on the door, Englehart said.<\/p>\n

The county cannot release whether any of its employees are transgender, said Pat Bingham, county spokesperson. However, Englehart said the request for the bathroom did not come from an employee who works in the building.<\/p>\n

Instead, the suggestion for the gender-neutral bathroom came from county public heath officials, he said.<\/p>\n

Pitkin County Public Health Director Karen Koenemann said being as inclusive as possible is the healthiest way to treat people. The Health and Human Services Building, across from Aspen Valley Hospital where Koenemann works, has a gender-neutral, single-stall bathroom available.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, equity and inclusion are values,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to make sure we\u2019re building places, spaces and programs for all people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discussion about gender-neutral or \u201cgender-inclusive\u201d bathrooms is echoing within the halls of churches and universities across the country and some parts of the world, Koenemann said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was recently in Norway and it\u2019s just the norm there,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019d be hard-pressed to find a gender-specific bathroom there.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, one bathroom she encountered in Oslo \u2014 the Norwegian capital \u2014 had individual stalls labeled men, women and transgender, Koenemann said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s happening across the country,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen we\u2019re creating spaces for the future workforce, we need to think about these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The county has not yet received permission from the city of Aspen \u2014 the county building on Main Street is within the city limits \u2014 to re-sign and re-jigger the second-floor men\u2019s bathroom, Englehart said. County officials also need to have a conversation with second-floor employees before the plan is fully approved, he said.<\/p>\n

Englehart said he wasn\u2019t sure why plans for a gender-neutral bathroom weren\u2019t included in the county\u2019s design for its new building, which opened in July 2018.<\/p>\n

The new Aspen Police Department building \u2014 located next door to the new county building and also about a year-and-a-half old \u2014 features a gender-neutral bathroom available in the lobby area, said Assistant Police Chief Bill Linn. The city\u2019s new office building \u2014 currently under construction across from Rio Grande Park \u2014 will feature something similar, though the specifics have not yet been worked out, said Tracy Trulove, city spokesperson.<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pitkin County officials are planning to convert a men\u2019s bathroom in the newly built county building on Main Street into an \u201call-accommodating\u201d bathroom for transgender and other citizens, an official said Thursday. \u201cIt\u2019s come to our attention that we really should be looking at an all-inclusive rest room,\u201d said Rich Englehart, assistant Pitkin County manager. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 01:19:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}