In many conversations I conducted as part of my master’s thesis, I heard the sentence: “A very current topic you’re working on!” Undoubtedly, the LGBTQIA+ community today experiences more visibility than ever before. Queer individuals have existed as long as humans have existed. Events like the Stonewall Riots of 1969 and the ACT UP! movement of the 1980s brought global attention. Yet, at the latest, with the rise of social media—which facilitates both self-expression and self-determination as well as the formation and radicalization of global right-wing movements—the queer community seems to hover between being a marginalized figure in society and the focal point of political debates. Queerness has suddenly gone mainstream, and not everyone is pleased with this: While Kamala Harris wants to bring the Brat Summer into the Oval Office¹ or Orville Peck brings “not-so-conservative-and-uptight” country music out of its closet (if Dolly Parton hadn’t already done it before him), some are left with the impression that the world we live in is becoming increasingly queer.² Right-wing ideologies perceive this development as societal decay.³ Headlines circulate, such as the one involving Elon Musk, who announced the death of his son on X.⁴ In reality, his daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson is very much alive—she simply fled from her father because he couldn’t accept her transition to a woman.⁵ Or statements about “those evil drag queens” who allegedly have the sole mission of confusing children’s gender identities by reading preschoolers stories from picture books.⁶

As a queer designer, this development deeply concerns me. Over the past nine months, I have intensely examined, as part of my master’s thesis, what it means to queer something. I have explored Queering Design as a strategic and creative approach in design practice, with a particular focus on gender-segregated restroom spaces. Does Queering Design involve a stereotypical type of design—an aesthetic style that attempts to wrap things in an artificial, exaggerated pink-plush shell, akin to a Yassification face filter? Or is it something that—if we believe the fears of homophobic and anti-queer groups—amounts to a dispossession of cis-heteronormative ideals? Are things, spaces, systems, and ideals being appropriated by queer minorities for their own interests, under the motto Queering the World? Is Queering Design the catalyst to turn everything upside down? Are the fears of right-wing groups not entirely unfounded? To answer these questions, we should first clarify a few fundamental points to understand what Queering Design is actually aiming for:

Queer Worldmaking

In queer-feminist linguistics, as represented by scholars like Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner, Queer Worldmaking refers to a project that explores the affirmative world of queer individuals. In Sex in Public, Berlant and Warner describe how this world (co-)exists within a larger, dominant society and is energized by actions, fleeting or intense relationships, activism, and the creative expressions of people on the margins of society.⁷ This world has its own culture, speaks its own language, and is boundlessly accessible, with numerous entry and exit points. According to Berlant and Warner, it is a collection of diverse, risky, and provocative paths and aesthetics that queers pursue and create to cultivate what “upright” people dismiss as “criminal intimacies.” Here, “upright” relates to the idea of a publicly sexual society, in contrast to the privatized sexual culture of heterosexuality, which imbues its practices with an unspoken sense of correctness and normality. This sense of correctness, embedded not only in sex but in objects and systems themselves, is what Berlant and Warner call heteronormativity. It encompasses far more than ideology, prejudice, or homophobia—it manifests in nearly all forms and arrangements of social life: in nationality, state, and law, in economics, medicine, and education, as well as in the conventions and affections of narrative, romance, and other protected cultural spaces.⁸ The heterosexual matrix appears as an inescapable, singular reality, from which one can only escape by retreating into niches within dominant publics or moving beneath the visible surface of everyday life—for instance, in gay and lesbian bars, clubs, or cruising spots where sexual freedoms and intimate encounters (or non-encounters) are allowed to exist. Today, however, the digital world has shifted these boundaries, as social media spreads and network-connects everyone who feels understood and included in these life realities. More people, whether by chance or through algorithm-driven trends, come into contact with these realities, which could explain why LGBTQIA+ visibility is currently experiencing such a significant surge.

We Live in a World Designed by Cis-Heteronormative People for Cis-Heteronormative People

Both in design practice and design theory, references to Queer Theory are scarce. This makes the research of Ece Canlı all the more significant. In her dissertation, Queering Design: Material Re-configuration of Body Politics, Canlı critically examines foundational assumptions of design practice from a queer-feminist and anti-colonial perspective. She argues that gender norms in design must be deconstructed to expand the boundaries for queer individuals. Canlı’s research moves away from the conventional design concepts that overemphasize innovation and maximal development potential—hallmarks of the market-oriented design industry that defines itself primarily through these principles. Instead, her focus lies on those at the lower end of the success hierarchy. Canlı challenges the notion that design should be viewed solely as a product of unwavering faith in progress within a capitalist system. She emphasizes the importance of deconstructive methods such as unlearning, unmaking, and undoing—dismantling existing and learned conventions—as anti-strategies for design practice.⁹ Canlı highlights that queering design requires resisting the tendency to revert to entrenched design patterns when critiquing fixed materialities, actions, and systems. Instead, design should also embrace dysfunctionality, uselessness, and freedom from the pressures of success or complete resolution—allowing for open-ended processes and a willingness to experience radical "failure."¹⁰ The goal of Queering Design is to shift power in favor of marginalized individuals and catalyze a long-overdue queer turn in design, fundamentally questioning and deconstructing the construction of gender norms. Queering Design can be ironic, absurd, campy, and misunderstood, serving as an antithesis to itself.

“[A] queer turn in design does not mean ‘design for queer people’ as a new marketplace for production or to make an inventory of ‘queer designers.’ Nor does it deem queerness in design to be a stylistic umbrella for all marginalized identities or merely being genderless or ‘unisex.’ […] It is a project of excavating, unfolding and unraveling the hegemonies of all material practice so deeply entrenched in our cultural, social and daily contexts.”¹¹

Queering Design thus defines itself as a critical design practice that challenges traditional design principles. It is undeniable that both the designed world and the foundations of design have been defined within heteronormative ideals. While Queering Design embraces plural solutions and diverse truths, incorporating them into the design process even if they lead to no concrete outcomes, it stands in opposition to the dogma of “good and universally true design,” which seeks to unite all problems under a single solution.¹² The general expectations of design often revolve around holistic solutions, but in doing so, the voices of marginalized groups are frequently lost.

Queering Bathrooms

Returning to the topic of gender-segregated restrooms presents a particularly intriguing case in this context. Communal bathrooms are often perceived as neutral, functional infrastructures designed to meet universal needs. In reality, however, they are fluid and contested spaces, shaped and interpreted differently through the interactions of bodies and communities. Standardized design norms rely on a binary spatial politics that assumes unequal gender roles, reinforcing outdated concepts and excluding “other” gender identities. The credo of universal design promises a "solution for all" but often proves incomplete and insufficiently thought through. Despite the well-documented challenges, transforming these spaces frequently proves difficult to impossible. Discussions often collapse into bureaucratic chaos, perpetuating discrimination and stigmatization of trans* and non-binary individuals. In 2015, architect Joel Sanders, transgender historian Susan Stryker, and legal scholar Terry Kogan launched the Stalled! project, which critiques the dichotomy of gender-segregated restrooms and addresses the issue from cultural, political, and legal perspectives:

“We are committed to tackling this topic through three design, legal, and educational initiatives: developing Best Practice Guidelines for all-gender restrooms in light of legal, economic, and practical considerations; amending the International Plumbing Code (‘IPC’)—the model code that governs most construction in the United States to allow for all-gender, multi-user restrooms; and raising the awareness of the design community and institutional and government stakeholders.”¹³

The so-called multi-user solution disrupts binary spatial design by replacing semi-enclosed stalls with an open-plan layout featuring fully enclosed restroom spaces. This restructuring enhances safety by improving visibility while maintaining individual privacy with partitioned toilet areas. Yet, nine years after the project’s introduction, little progress has been made. Both supporters and opponents of gender-neutral restrooms often frame the issue as one of safety. Opponents falsely portray trans* women as men “disguised as women,” while trans* allies point to statistics showing that trans* individuals are more frequently victims of violence in restroom spaces.¹⁴

Photo Credits: András Tibor Vizi, Model: Anton Henzler
Editorial: Dr. Mahret Ifeoma Kupka

This publication first appeared in "Aneignung*", the publication of the seminar of the same name led by Dr. Mahret Ifeoma Kupka for design theory at the UdK Berlin during the summer semester 2024, on November 19, 2024. It was published by the Institute for experimental fashion and textile design at the Berlin University of the Arts.