This pizza restaurant's bathroom sign is receiving national attention
Pure PizzaPure Pizza of Charlotte, North Carolina, is generating buzz for an unexpected reason: a note hanging inside of its unisex bathroom.
"We have a UniSex bathroom because sometimes gender specific toilets put others into uncomfortable situations," the note reads.
Juli Ghazi, the owner of Pure Pizza, goes on to write that she added a unisex bathroom option because she wanted to "provide a place" for single dads with daughters, single moms with sons, parents with disabled children, members of the LGBTQ community, and adults with aging parents who may be disabled.
A photo of the note was posted to a neighborhood Facebook group this weekend, and has since been shared more than 1,000 times, and liked by more than 2,800 people.
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The pizza shop lacks a men's room altogether, with one gender-neutral restroom and one reserved for women, reports local LGBT-centric journalist and blogger Matt Comer.
Ghazi was partially inspired to designate a gender-neutral restroom after the Charlotte City Council failed to pass several LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination ordinances, writes Comer. The rejected legislature would have expanded laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories.
Gendered bathrooms have recently been the target of a number of recent proposals and laws. A new bill was recently proposed in Virginia that would require public facilities to designate restrooms for use "by a specific gender to solely be used by individuals whose anatomical sex matches such gender designation." Meanwhile, cities such as Seattle, Philadelphia, and Austin, Texas have passed laws that require public institutions to provide visitors with gender-neutral bathroom options.