The Politics of Bathrooms with Dr. Sara Chatfield

Wednesday, October 29, 2025
10:00AM - 12:00PM

Online: Via Zoom. Free registration required

This is a joint meeting with the Seattle branch and the Edmonds/SnoKing branch. Others are welcome!

Social citizenship requires that individuals and groups be able to fully take part in the public sphere. However, denying toilet access means that individuals can only exist in public for as long as they can ‘hold it.’ Ensuring equal access to bathrooms – or denying it to targeted groups – becomes a powerful way for society to define who is a full citizen and to indicate who belongs and who doesn’t belong in public spaces.

The past twenty years have seen an explosion of state laws focused on bathroom access, including laws that both restrict and expand people’s ability to access basic needs in public. Through an analysis of several distinct state-level policies that regulate bathrooms in terms of gender and gender roles, gender identity, and disability, the author argues that bathroom access is an important aspect of citizenship, signaling both physical and symbolic exclusion and inclusion.

Sara Chatfield is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver. Her research focuses on American political development, women in politics, and political behavior. Her book, In Her Own Name: The Politics of Women’s Rights Before Suffrage, examines the politics of married women’s economic rights reform in the 1800s and early 1900s. Dr. Chatfield teaches classes on American politics and law, including Constitutional Law I, Judicial Politics, and a freshman seminar on the politics of bathrooms. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in Politics from Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio.