For about a year and a half Seattle airport has been providing free female hygiene products in all restrooms – including men’s rooms. One traveler noted the contrast to the paid vending machine beside it with $1 diapers.
Welcome to SeaTac Airport!
Where the feminine hygiene products in the men’s restroom are free, but a diaper for your kid costs $1. pic.twitter.com/JQ7tQPqgez
— Ben Rudolph (@BenThePCGuy) April 18, 2026
Free menstrual products in airport bathrooms aren’t new. You’ll find those at Houston Hobby and Intercontinental airports. Chicago O’Hare O’Hare installed 55 dispensers in women’s and gender-neutral restrooms in 2023. Newark Terminal A has 14 dispensers. What’s unique is stocking them in men’s restrooms.
This is meant to support travelers of all gender identities, including transgender, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming people. By placing menstrual products in male restrooms, they become available to male-identifying passengers who may still be transitioning or who may have the biological characteristics of women.
It would seem less out of place in the airport’s all-gender restroom between gates D1 and D2. There are separate mens and women’s restrooms next door at D1 and also at D5, so this was built to “reflect[..] the needs, values and diversity of the community.” There are urinals but in a separate urinal room. Stalls are private, wash areas are shared. Here’s a deep dive into the artwork in all gender restrooms at the airport, by 12 LGBTQIA+ artists.
Credit: Port of Seattle
Restroom vending machines also aren’t new. Charging for diapers hardly seems out of place. There’s a juxtaposition of making certain items free, and charging for others, that generates a reaction – because it reflects a community’s views of what’s important and what they want to encourage (subsidize). Some ‘pro-natalists’ will see their status lowered because supplies for babies are costly while supplies for gender-transitioning passengers aren’t. But diapers are being made very convenient – and for just a dollar!
Several airports ask you to rate their restroom facilities. How would you rate this one?
I actually think this is fantastic to offer in a men’s restroom, because you can dispense one and leave it there so that the machine and tampon look like some dude smoking a cigar.
The Port of Seattle doesn’t break out the cost of this effort, but we can do a back of the envelope.
- Dispensers run about $350 – $400 each and annual refill cost is about $2,500 per airport bathroom.
- Before adding the all-gender bathroom, the airport had 120 restrooms. Plus, the rollout included back of house restrooms also. So there are more than 120 restrooms. But let’s use that figure.
- At 120 restrooms, a dispenser unit gets to roughly $63,000 – $69,000 without before labor or other installation costs. Then you’ve got $300,000 a year in stocking costs. But that’s for the full project. If you want men’s restroom costs that’ll be less than half.
Bathrooms can be pretty political. That’s not just true for passengers who see this and feels like it runs counter to their own values. These are placed there because the ‘in-group’ in charge at the Port of Seattle is able to displays its own values (in a sense) prominently this way. As one commenter puts it,
there are men who have vaginas that might need a pad or tampon. why should people have to pay for tampons and pads to begin with?
It’s a decision that elevates one group and lowers the status of another. That’s why many of you will have reactions to it that far outstrip the functional significance of the decision.
I wouldn’t worry too much about this. The President rarely visits Seattle anyway; so, he shouldn’t need a diaper-change there anytime soon. Phew! Crisis averted!
How often do you see a line at the men’s room? I have been to bars where women go to the men’s because there is no line
If a women is comfortable going into the men’s go for it.
Men do not hang out there they go and leave. It is not a place to chit chat and meet people. It is the quieter then a library
@Tomri — Maybe, if it’s a ‘shit-n-quit’ kinda joint; but, these days, folks sit down, pull out their phones, and take 20-minute ‘craps’… probably not good for their gastrointestinal health. Like, excessive sitting on toilets can lead to hemorrhoids, no?
There are men that have Vaginas.
Then they are not men.
Fixed it for you.
@1990…… You seem to forget that Biden was the one who actually wore diapers and shit himself in public, then had to escorted out by Mommy Jill to change said diaper!
@1990 -Come on man, you know it is 46 that has these problems. He personally asked the pope to pray for him.
Never thought Seattle would have a mayor as bad as “The Summer of Love” moron. Then Katie Wilson comes along.
Tampons are great for nose bleeds!
This whole thing is a ridiculous waste of money. Not to mention is completely counter to basic biology.
No man needs a sanitary product. No man has a proper place that object would need to be inserted into.
@Jill — I’m pretty sure 45, 46, and 47 each wore and wear diapers. Maybe, just maybe… gerontocracy isn’t the best way to run a country, a company, or even a family. While some septuagenarians and octogenarians are still with-it physically, mentally, and emotionally, clearly others are not… Hoping for some younger leaders to actually lead us, soon enough. Like there are ample, experienced, capable, morally and ethically viable talents in their mere 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s.
@Michael Mainello — Speaking of the Pope, please keep JD away from him (and any couches). Sheesh!
@George Romey — You know Republicans are afraid when they need to rely on bathroom politics… “PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!! THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ HAS SPOKEN!!” Also, thank you for your attention to this matter.
Fury, so I will not even go into what I think. Way to go Seattle Airport, jack up the price of travel some more, and while you are at it give make work duties to overpaid bureaucrats at the airport to oversea and manage this boondoggle for the alphabet quirk. Pathetic.
@1990 – 46 for sure, 45 & 47 pure speculation (lying) on your part.
Bathroom politics – that’s a hoot. A dumb democrat that doesn’t know biology and you make it a republican issue. You are a good bot.
Still waiting on you to tell me what good things the dims are going to do, not just hate on 45-47. I do know you are going to open the flood gates with regards to the illegal invaders. You guys, gals, and confused really don’t care about America. You do care about power.