Social media complaint about KCI all-gender restroom is a lame attention grab | Opinion

All-gender restrooms in Kansas City? Horrors!

Morgonn McMichael, a self-described culture and lifestyle media personality, posted a video of her dissatisfaction with seeing such a restroom at Kansas City International Airport.

With 13 million views and rising on X, formerly known as Twitter, the video has all the features of a successful social media post: constant movement, shock and surprise (feigned or sincere) and, literally, bathroom humor. She calls the restroom “crazy” and says she will not be using it.

Here’s the thing. She doesn’t have to. There are gendered restrooms nearby. Just go to the ladies’ room, Morgonn.

McMichael shoots video of herself walking through the bathroom and cries: “This is … I hate this. I absolutely hate … I’ve never seen an all-gender bathroom. I’m not going in here. I don’t like this!”

At one point she apologizes for filming in the supposedly private space, but that doesn’t keep her walking through the whole thing.

In a separate post, she wrote: “If you SUPPORT ‘all-gender’ bathrooms you’re either a creep or a freak.”

The video was pointed out to The Star Editorial Board, and I mentioned I had recently used an all-gender restroom someplace last week. I can’t remember where, and that is the point of this column because lots of restrooms are all-gender.

The restroom in the plane she was just on is one of them. Many small businesses maintain a single restroom to cater to customers. Most likely, the powder room you offer to guests in your own home is all-gender.

So if these restrooms are not unusual, what is the fire here that she seems to want to put out?

Is it the fact that it is labeled “all-gender?” McMichael uses those words five times in a 33-second video.

Is it because McMichael’s mind is conjuring up all manner of things that could be happening in the stall next to her?

Or is it because Morgonn is a right-wing influencer who often posts on X criticizing socially liberal issues and people? A casual glance at her profile finds her lambasting an LGBTQ clothing line at Target, a flamboyant transgender attorney in Seattle, the interracial casting of a London theater production of Romeo and Juliet, immigrants, birth control and on and on.

She even shot video of herself walking down a street in Lawrence, showing what she called “a weird amount” of pride flags in business windows. She was in town for a conservative event at KU this week.

All-gender restrooms are not the issue here. And what’s the problem? They generally give more privacy and room than traditional multi-stall restrooms. The ones at KCI offer particular solitude — they’re little rooms with locking doors that go all the way to the floor.

Concerned about who is in the restroom or the stall next door? These answer that concern.

They are the solution for many practical reasons, and likely are the wave of the future.

Maybe calling all-gender restrooms “individual” restrooms would have eased her sensibilities.

Or not.