Yelp is convenient because it reviews everything from restaurants, to stores, to churches but now the company is upping their game by offering the ability to locate the nearest gender-neutral bathroom. According to Glamour, users will be able to see whether an establishment offers gender-neutral bathrooms, which are defined as individual stalls that anyone can use regardless of their gender identity.
The feature is crowdsourced, which means it might take some time before the listings are 100% accurate. To get it up and running quicker, business owners can take action by editing their profile to indicate if their establishment has gender-neutral bathrooms or not. Yelp is also going to be able to prompt users checking in to or reviewing an establishment to confirm if the place of business already provides gender-neutral restrooms for customers.
A national move regarding changing gendered restrooms to gender-neutral facilities was originally implemented in 2015. President Trump lifted these guidelines last week, leaving the issue up to states to decide whether or not they want to provide gender-neutral bathrooms in their establishments. Yelp's decision for this new feature is a direct response to the new position.
Rachel Williams, Yelp's head of diversity and inclusion, stated that "People in this company were so incensed by what's going on in our country and to potential employees and customers, that they wanted to do something to support."
Go, Yelp!