Letter to Our Partners

As you know, we at SLAQC are committed to creating safe spaces for our community to access the sport of climbing. We strive to do so in a number of ways, including ensuring that our participants are aware of the availability of different types of restrooms, showers and changing areas available at our partner gyms. Given that climbing is a physical activity, safe and equitable access to these facilities are absolutely essential to folks' initial and continued participation in our meetups and as customers of your gyms.

This most acutely impacts the trans, intersex, non-binary, and gender non conforming members of our community. We want to be able to confidently welcome this important and often marginalized community (even within the LGBTQ+ sphere!) into our spaces, even more so now with the passage of HB257. While the bill is not as legally catastrophically horrible compared to what was originally introduced, we want to be sure that the social ramifications of its passage are not reinforced at our partner gyms - meaning that we both prevent animus against trans+ people and also prevent them from self-policing beyond the actual scope of the bill.

We are relying on the (non-legal) analysis of community organizer Lilah Rosenfield to guide our recommendations:

1. Ensure that there is clear signage & mapping of restrooms, showers, and changing areas, including whether they are single gender (mens' or womens', not male or female), all gender and/or single stall. The goal is to prevent trans+ people from having to "out" themselves by asking for a special accommodation or to find a restroom etc that is not clearly labeled.
2. Ideally, make sure there are single stall options at minimum for bathrooms/changing areas. We recognize that the ability to just construct a new bathroom out of nowhere is difficult and unlikely; we believe that every gym we partner with has at least one of these but please let us know if this is not the case so we can consider the ramifications for our location selection.
3. We kindly request that signage be added to every bathroom door along the lines of "As a private entity, this facility is not subject to restrictions in place under Section 3 of HB 257. It is our policy to welcome trans people to use whatever bathroom they feel safest in." (Another common option is to say that people are welcome to use the bathroom that most closely aligns with their gender identity).
4. Finally, train your staff on your policies and facilities. Again, potentially the most likely impact of this bill is trans+ people being harassed or accused of malfeasance by people for using any multi-stall bathroom they choose, no matter what the legal or formal policy in place. Your staff will be at the front lines and can be the difference between someone being affirmed in their right to belong in the gym or being ostracized and traumatized in a space they thought was supportive of our community.

We know that you all are conduits of our relationship to the broader organizations you serve. If you would like for us to discuss any of these items further with you or other members of your team we are happy to do so. While again we recognize not everything is possible to change or adjust instantly, we believe these policies are absolutely critical for us to continue to be able to offer meetups that are aligned with our mission and values.

Thanks for your efforts to help continue to make climbing in Utah a safe and inclusive environment,

SLAQC - Matty, Rue, Lea