Tennessee Bathroom Bill Inspires Posters Meant to Go Unused

Ad creatives almost never wish for their campaign ideas to be unnecessary, but that's certainly the case with this poster series drafted by TBWA\Chiat\Day New York. Inspired after learning from a Nashville-based staffer about Tennessee's Bill 1182, which would require signage on any bathroom that allows "use of restrooms by either biological sex," the agency developed ways to frame the mandatory message with words of support for the trans community—and advice on overturning the law. For now, the bill has been stalled by a U.S. district judge's injunction while litigation over the proposal proceeds, but it could still become law. If it does, TBWA\Chiat\Day's #SurroundTheSign posters will be available to businesses and organizations that aim to comply with the law while still protesting its implication that trans visitors somehow pose a danger to others using a restroom. Each poster includes the messages "Repeal HB 1182" and "This sign has no place in Tennessee" in the bottom of the frame. The agency created 22 versions of posters for #SurroundTheSign, with custom messaging ranging from advocacy and legislators' contact info to the potential economic impacts of the law, with numbers based on the repercussions of North Carolina's 2016 "bathroom bill." That measure, which became law, prohibited trans people from using gendered bathrooms that did not correspond with their sex at birth. The bathroom portion of North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act was repealed in 2017 under immense national scrutiny and business pressure, culminating in the NCAA giving the state a 48-hour deadline to repeal the law or lose the ability to host championship games through 2022. Introduced in February by Republican state Rep. Tim Rudd, Tennessee's HB 1182 aims to require any "public or private entity or business that operates a building or facility open to the general public to post a notice at the entrance of each public restroom of the entity's or business's policy of allowing a member of either biological sex to use any public restroom within the building or facility, if the entity or business maintains such a policy." The bill applies to almost any publicly accessible restroom that accommodates more than one person at a time. The phrasing of the bill describes in detail how the message must be displayed, but TBWA\Chiat\Day's campaign idea was born from the fact that the law doesn't prohibit any other messaging from appearing around the notices. Signed into law by Republican Gov. Bill Lee on May 17, the new rule took effect July 1. But in the days leading up to the law going into effect, the ACLU—representing two Tennessee business owners—filed a lawsuit seeking to block the measure. A preliminary injunction against the law was granted in July, leaving its fate uncertain. McKinney Printed N.C.'s Bathroom Bill on Toilet Paper. You Know What to Do With It

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Tennessee's Transphobic Bathroom Bill Inspired a Campaign That Hopes to Be Unnecessary

TBWA\Chiat\Day New York wraps messages of support around a proposed legal message

David Griner

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David Griner