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After Portland City Commissioner Amanda Fritz threatened not to attend City Council meetings over "unsafe" all-user restrooms in the Portland Building, the city changed one of two all-user restrooms back to a women-only bathroom.
As WW reported Tuesday, Fritz wrote in emails last month that she refused to use "unsafe restrooms."
"If I am afraid, how much more would a trans person using a structurally usage bathroom feel threatened?" she wrote on Feb. 23 in emails to OMF and others.
"Taking away gender-specific bathrooms may have the result that some members of our community can't use either, due to cultural norms or religious convictions," she wrote on Feb. 24.
City officials downplayed the impact of Fritz's complaints.
"This has been a pilot study all along," said Jen Clodius, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Finance. She says the city plans to make more changes to restrooms in the Portland Building as the city decides how to design bathrooms.
In a email sent this week after WW's story and addressed to "colleagues," Fritz apologized for the "impact that my statements and/or the way they were portrayed by the media have had on many of you and others in the Portland community."
WW obtained a copy today.
"I did not intend to speak on behalf of all women or all people in the trans community," Fritz writes.
Last year, the city changed all of 600 of its single-stall bathrooms to be open to all users as part of an effort to make them accessible to transgender people but also children, disabled people and the elderly who may have a caregiver of the opposite gender. As part of a pilot study, City Hall also changed the two multi-stall restrooms in the Portland Building to be open to all users.
Concerns about safety and acceptance have driven the city's change in policy about all-user bathrooms, and Fritz's remarks haven't been well-received by some advocates for transgender rights.
"I was sad to see them," says Sasha Buchert, staff attorney for the Transgender Law Center, who formerly worked for Basic Rights Oregon. "I have a lot of good feelings about Commissioner Fritz"—who supported the all-user bathrooms when they came for a vote last year.
All-user bathrooms are "definitely a good policy for everybody especially for transgeder people and gender nonconforming people," added Buchert.
In her email of apology this week, Fritz explains that her concerns were based on the implementation, but acknowledges she may have erred in her judgment.
"I recognize now that the all-user restrooms on the 2nd floor of the Portland Building may have been a better option than single-gender options available throughout the building," she writes.
She adds that she supports the all-user bathrooms, both "multi-occupant" and "single-occupant."