"Bathrooms are a reflection of cultural attitudes and differences.”
Arlene Matthews, bathroom psychology specialist for the American Standard Company, from “Beyond the Basic Bathroom,”
The Salt Lake Tribune, Sunday, April 28, 2002

Copycat anthrax killer or schoolboy prank gone awry? Keep your children safe! Biological agents roam university campuses while crepidula snails and gyandromorph flies hole up in college lavatories. Toilet Training Bugs and Snails alters gendered territory and inaugurates the formation of The Society of Biological Insurgents (SBI).

For SBI’s first re-assignment, together with the Carbon Defense League , we waged a clandestine sticker campaign. Pre-existing signs were replaced with black and yellow, gender neutral, removable stickers advertising the definition in biological terms of both a Gyandromorph fly and a Crepidula snail. In Gyandromorph flies, distinct regions of the body are male and other are female. Mounding Crepidula snails possess the ability to genetically change their sex depending on their location in the pile.

CLANDESTINE STICKER CAMPAIGN:
MONDAY MORNING SEPT 23, 2003
SBI discreetly approached RPI’s campus. We stealthily layered about 30 new signs over the binary male and female restroom signs. Each sticker included a campus phone number in the hopes of soliciting responses. When calling the number, the participant was greeted by a short recorded statement spoken in computer voice: “You have reached the offices of Gyandromorph and Crepidula. Please leave a message.”

By 11:00 AM, we had 15 phone calls, 14 of which were hang-ups. One legitimate call from Public Safety (AKA Campus Police) was recorded. They informed SBI that they had removed the signs and expected a return call immediately. No representatives returned the call. Due to the lack of response, the police quickly showed up at SBI headquarters. A SBI representative admitted to being aware of the action but not to direct participation. The officer was insistent upon solving this “crime.”

The participants assumed that the bathrooms had been infected by some type of bacteria and were afraid to enter. People were lined up outside of the bathrooms fearing that Crepidula snails were mounding in the bathrooms and intersexing it up - preventing anyone a facility to urinate and/or defecate. Furthermore, after calling the number they were “scared” by an “evil sounding” message. At that point it was clear that the effect of the project was not one that was planned.

The outgoing message was immediately modified to “after careful inspection, no Gyandromorphs or Crepidula snails were found in any of the campus bathrooms”.

A brief meeting between a faculty representative and Public Safety officer was called. The officer threatened expulsion for the infraction and explained that he wanted to “teach a lesson to the perpetrators.”

Following the meeting, SBI representatives discussed options and elected a new strategy. A research assistant contacted Public Safety requesting an official response from the Dept. of Public Safety.
Excerpts from the communiqué follow:

On Monday the 23rd of September at 10:13 AM the Public Safety dispatcher received a telephone call from a person at the AS&RC/Mueller Center facility expressing concern about “the signs on the doors of the bathrooms”. The responding officer found some bright yellow signs stuck to the doors with a somewhat inane message about “cluster of crepidula snails...changing from male to female”.  As much as the creator would know they meant nothing per se (although certainly designed to initiate some form of public reaction otherwise why place them) a number of people became alarmed by
their posting. Reasons being:

1. Are these legitimate? Is there some form of health hazard going on here? Why are these here? (all of which are directed to Public safety for explanation.)

2. Looking closer at the signs is there something else involved? Is this the product of someone’s warped mind and does it cause a threat to the public? (I’ve seen enough material from deranged individuals and it need not make one bit of sense to us. But to the person who wrote it it’s as clear to them as a Poly Editorial is to us. The important point is what does it mean to the writer?) Particularly since one of the signs has the word “dead” on it. Just the reference to such a word can set off public alarm. Is it some psychotic copycat anthrax killer? Sure those who know can laugh that concern off but for a nervous public in 2002 it’s just not funny. And one could easily become a victim of some psychotics action. Rensselaer has no more immunity to being the landing place of violence or terrorism than any other place in the US. Theodore Kaczinsky (sp?) had his first mail bomb addressed to RPI. Luckily it just never made it here. (Unfortunately though someone else became the victim.)

3. The sign has the term “This bathroom has been reassigned”. Some people read that and thought there was some legitimacy to the sign, disregarding the gibberish above. So they became inconvenienced.

4. Erring on the side of ultra-caution the response could have gone even further; evacuating the building, sealing the area, activating the County Emergency Services Team decontaminating personnel, dealing with a host of media inquiries, campus wide paranoia, and so forth.

All in all, in a post 9-11 world there was virtually nothing amusing about the episode. Besides the inconveniencing of some persons (who abided by the “reassignment” or just opted not to take a chance either way ) it actually caused real anxiety amongst others. To knowingly post such material one should have taken into account the consternation such an action could cause. And to even not take the time to seriously consider potential public reaction is irresponsible. (Of course if that was the intention then that is truly another matter in itself, i.e. criminal but I’ll stick to “perception.") And who gets left to deal with all the upset in the end? Law enforcement and Emergency Services (Public Safety on this date) of course. Time which could be better spent on other patrol related activities are spent trying to put out the fires of anxiety in an already nervous world.

Bottom line, perspective must always be considered. How might ones action be perceived by those who have no idea of the originators intention? All possibilities should be considered. If one wants to study “public reaction” do it in a test group in a controlled environment. And where that may not be applicable then it must done with certain community member’s and local law
enforcement’s knowledge and approval lest the “experiment” get entirely out of hand.
Hope this explains one persons “perspective”.

XXXXXXX
Department of Public Safety
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The Gyandromorph fly sticker reads
“Gyandromorph of D. melanogaster in which the left side is female (XX) and the right side is male (XO). The male side has lost an X chromosome bearing the wild-type alleles of eye color and wing shape, thereby allowing the expressoin of hte recessive alleles eosin eye and miniature wing on the remaining X chromosome.”

The Crepidula snail sticker reads
“Cluster of Crepidula snails. Two individuals are changing from male to female. After these molluscs became female they will be fertilized by the male above them.”