Syd Krochmalny: Baño Revolution

In 2009 I tried to drive attention on some very common ways of discrimination in everyday life that remain invisible, even in institutions that are conscious and opposed to gender inequity. I worked specifically on the problem of public restrooms in the University of Buenos Aires. As everywhere, they are only two options: man and women. But, which one would be adequate for transgender or transvestite people? They remain with no place in binary gender classification.
With this idea in mind I produced an artistic operation called Baño Revolution (Toilet revolution) at the Department of Social Science at the University of Buenos Aires.
So I designed stickers with many gender options: women, men, lesbians, gay and transvestite persons. Then I stuck them in all the toilet doors of the Department turning them in genderless restrooms. As a way to make it work I invited some 50 people to use the restrooms independently of their gender option.
The event produced a wide and open discussions among students and professors. It was so polemic that the Department Director, the Academic Chair and professors wrote several articles which they published in a local newspaper. Aside from that, a research group on gender studies published a paper in the Social Sciences Review.
Later on, Argentina became the first country in Latin America and the second in the Americas to allow same-sex marriage nationwide.
My project is to turn the video recordings of Baño Revolution action into a mass media event through a video clip based on a song specially composed on the subject by a well known pop singer.
The video clip will play on Latin America music channels.