“The choice between being hassled and holding their water affects thousands of people.”* This quote, taken from a New York Times article, describes the decision that trans-gender citizens must make every day. If one’s identity falls in between male and female, which restroom does one use? This debate has been ongoing and has led to the emergence of a gender-neutral restroom option. College campuses, shopping malls, and highway rest stops across the country have begun to adopt the new style of “family” facilities.
After reviewing this topic in class, I was curious, I had never thought of a gender-neutral bathroom as plausible. Picturing an average, multi-stall/ urinal bathroom with both men and women in it at the same time just never seemed socially acceptable. I suppose this is from the “social construction” that has told me since I was little that men and women used different rooms because they “pee” differently. After thinking about it for a while, I was fine with the idea but then thought “are the urinals still there? Is there a stall for them?” That would be my biggest concern, not wanting to make myself or other folks uncomfortable by seeing them exposed. Anyway, after working out a setup in my mind of a proper gender-neutral restroom, I decided that they seem like a very good idea for those who do not fit into a specific gender category.
The American version of the gender-neutral restroom, I found, is normally a one-stalled lockable room. The sign outside the door has a picture of both the classic male and female signs.
Gender-neutral bathrooms are a great step towards accepting the transgender community completely. Leaving people excluded from the public-restroom scene seems to me just as bad as the racial segregation of the 1950s. “Very few spaces in our society remain divided by sex...there’s marriage and there’s toilets, and very little else,” says Professor Mary Ann Case of the University of Chicago.*
As all change-related topics go, there is always opposition. Most of those against gender-neutral restrooms are afraid that they will be targets for sexual harassment. “You can be sure that stalkers and peeping toms will take full advantage of this change,” one adversary says. * Another argument arises from the socially constructed element of shyness about bodily functions between the sexes. There seems to be a façade that women are clean and do not expel their waste. Breaking the separation can make both males and females uncomfortable.
With the average American gender-neutral bathroom, however, none of those arguments stand a chance. Without others in the same area, there is no one to know or see what is going on. Also, isn’t judging someone who is transgender for using a restroom sexual harassment itself?
Nationwide, the gender-neutral bathroom has become fairly common, appearing under the name “family.” This shows that not only the transgender community can benefit; the facilities are convenient for parents with children of the opposite sex and the disabled as well.
In California, building codes are now beginning to incorporate regulations that make gender-neutral bathrooms a necessity. San Francisco, New York, and three other major cities have made laws regarding gender-identity based restroom access. *
Hopefully in the near future, people of all genders will be able to use public facilities without being afraid of judgment or even worse, harassment.
*http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE5DF113DF937A35750C0A9639C8B63&pagewanted=all
The name "family" bathroom, is an interesting one. As you mentioned, it opens up the gender-neutral space to more than just transgendered people. Yet, the very openness of the bathroom's name dimensions seem a bit closed off to me. By centering the idea for gender neutral bathrooms around the needs of family keeps a lid of normality on the whole idea of fluid gender space. "Family" speaks of safety, while even the neutralness of gender neutral bathrooms hint at danger to our "family values." Even something as freeing as creating a gender neutral bathroom has to be bogged down with the symbolism of family.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting too that the average gender neutral bathroom is usually a "one-stalled lockable room." Even as we push the boundaries, we keep things privatized.
A full service, full size gender bathroom sounds wonderful to me, we'd save space and learn a lot about one another.
I agree a lot with Ava. Placing the name "family" on a gender-neutral bathroom seems like kind of a cop-out for actually saying that it is a safe space for anyone to use the restroom regardless of what gender you identify as. "Family" stall is a name placed on the restrooms to make it still acceptable by society and all of the social norms that are drilled into our heads from the day that we were born.
ReplyDeleteAlso when you mentioned about how most gender-neutral bathrooms are "one-stalled lockable rooms", this also seems like a way for the building to say it has a gender-neutral bathroom but without really having a multi-stalled restroom for anyone to use.
I think a gender-neutral bathroom should be one that just has everything in stalls. I see nothing wrong with a urinal in a stall that way the person does not feel exposed as people walk in. And people really should just get over the fact the men and women use the restroom to get rid of waste, this is 2011.
Final thought: Full size gender-neutral bathrooms might be good for the environment as well as being super awesome to see.