This year’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, offers attendees a “gender-neutral prayer room” with Islamic prayer mats and reportedly includes “all-gender” women’s rooms at the venue. According to a map of the DNC at Chicago’s United Center, there is one “all-gender restroom” on each of the four levels of the arena that serves as home to the Chicago Bulls. A different map, however, shows that they are typically women’s rooms.
Additional bathrooms around the arena are grouped in the usual manner of men’s and women’s restrooms.
The concourse level of the United Center also features a “gender-neutral prayer room” along with prayer rooms exclusive to men and women, The Christian Post reports.
As reported by Washington Times correspondent Susan Ferrechio, one women’s restroom in the nearby press filing center at Advocate Center had also been repurposed into an all-gender facility.
The matter of the bathrooms at the DNC comes as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, faces backlash for signing a 2023 state education law in Minnesota that potentially required free tampons in boy’s bathrooms in public schools.
In one video posted to X, a curtained gender-neutral prayer room includes Islamic prayer mats and a table with Clorox wipes. However, there is no sign of Christian or Jewish iconography.
The DNC arena is outfitted with a “gender neutral prayer room” pic.twitter.com/oA9F18VLSE
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) August 20, 2024
This isn’t the first time an all-gender restroom has been featured at the DNC. Back in 2016, the convention at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, also featured a women’s room that was temporarily repurposed as an all-gender restroom for the event.
At the time, a woman named Nikki Nice told The Guardian that she and her friend shared the bathroom with Jesse Jackson, who came out of a bathroom stall as they were coming in.
“We were like: “Ahhh,'” Nice said. “Just experiencing Reverend Jesse Jackson coming out of a stall — that just speaks everything about what an all-gender restroom really is about. So I’ll take that any day.”
Meanwhile, one woman complained to The Cut about urine on the toilet seats after men had used it.
This year’s DNC also faced backlash after it was disclosed that a Planned Parenthood van was offering free vasectomies and chemical abortion drugs.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Kevin Dietsch/Staff
