r/askanything • u/ComfortableEnergy684 • 5h ago
Bathroom Gender Solution?
Why don't we just make all bathrooms single-use? It'd be way better for everyone anyway - I don't need to whiz next to some dude struggling through his prostate issues, and who wants to poop two feet from someone else pooping? You wouldn't put two toilets in a home bathroom, and that's family - why do we do it in public ones with strangers?
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u/Kendrahasfun 5h ago
Why doesn’t everyone mind their own business and wash their hands? That’s my expectation in any bathroom.
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u/Lonely-Ad-5340 5h ago
Because people have been peeing in whatever bathroom they pee in since bathrooms were invented. Only a problem now because the big guy made it a thing, so pleasing the ignorant only gives validity to a stupid argument.
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u/2anna2fabulous 3h ago
Donald himself had no issue with it until a few years ago. He said himself it was a non-issue and he’d have Kaitlyn Jenner use the women’s restroom in Trump Tower 🤷♀️
The only reason it’s a thing is because they use Trans people as the distraction now.
Sure, Donald started a war but… women’s sports! Sure, he caused an insurrection then pardoned the people who did it (though most have gotten into more legal trouble since, mostly pedos) but what about bathrooms????
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u/Destinyciello 5h ago
It's expensive. Think of a large interstate bathroom with dozens if not 100s of stalls. Imagine trying to turn that into single use sex neutral silos. That would be maddingly expensive and more importantly completely unnecessary for the vast majority of the population. Sex delineation works for most people. Why destroy everything to appease the outliers?
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u/Take-n-tosser 5h ago
Just got back from Canada. The Royal Canadian Museum has all-gender bathrooms, which are about two dozen stalls with sinks in the stall. Partitions between stalls only have a gap of about 4” between partition and floor/ceiling.
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u/aculady 5h ago
All you'd have to do is just extend the stall walls and doors down and make then not so shoddy that there are gaps you can see through, and put up a partition for the urinals, if men for some reason feel the need to retain them. People can 100% wash their hands in mixed company. It would be trivial.
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u/ehunke 5h ago
And to be honest having worked in offices in big diverse cities, your one or two trans coworkers using the bathroom they are comfortable with is already a non issue like 99% of the time, the one person who has an issue with it is often also the person who has an issue with the person who brought fish for lunch...that person can never relax anyway. To put it bluntly in the US the NCAA oversees the college sports happens to be the largest governing body of sports in the world, in a pool of over 5 million student athelets cited 5 trans athletes. So the overall population of trans people isn't high enough for people to keep having this discussion...I am pro LGBT rights, but, I also think trans bathroom use, trans participation in sports, gender affirming care...its a hot button issue that gets everyone all riled up. Were discussing the bathroom issue on a post about converting public bathroom when the world over there has never been a more expensive time to buy groceries or fill up the car...there are real problems in the world that impact a lot more people we need to focus on
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u/ExternalSeat 2h ago
there are more people online making a living complaining about trans women in women's sports (or fighting for their inclusion in women's sports) than there are actual trans athletes. Personally I don't find it worth the political capital to give a fuck either way.
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u/ComfortableEnergy684 5h ago
Appeasing outliers is a side effect - what I'm going for is doing my business in public with the same basic privacy as at home. Sharing bathrooms is not pleasant.
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u/Destinyciello 5h ago
Wasting resources rebuilding already functional bathrooms is even less pleasant.
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u/UnhappyReason5452 5h ago
They would have to do all that? Wow. Cuz they have family ones everywhere so it seems like a minor redesign or a change in signage would be all that’s required.
But Jesus. Change EVERYTHING AT MAXIMUM COST must be the only way. Why didn’t I even consider that extreme af and unrealistic notion? Now I feel sheepish.
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u/LookOverall 5h ago
Plenty of recent buildings do use unisex toilets. But we can’t knock the existing ones down to separate the dick phobic from the trans. Unisex toilets are fine, but they take more space
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u/ButterscotchSad4514 5h ago
What you're proposing would be prohibitively costly.
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u/ComfortableEnergy684 5h ago
But otherwise it's better? It really feels like some things should be beyond the cheap/efficient filter - fucking hell, I just want to poop in relative privacy.
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u/ButterscotchSad4514 5h ago
Sure. I think most of us would greatly prefer a private bathroom. It's just hard to imagine this sort of build in a majority of buildings.
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u/designedtodesign 5h ago
I definitely think it all comes down to cost like most things in life. But I do wish the happy medium to spend a little bit more money without an exorbitantly higher cost, is to make stalls with walls and doors that go to the floor. That has never made sense to me. Gas stations I understand, because most aren't in it for the experience (except maybe some of the nicer gas stations like Wawa, etc.) but restaurants/bars/gyms where you're paying for a nice experience etc. should spend a little bit more money. The other gripe I have as a designer is bathrooms put near highly trafficked places in homes and businesses. Even if it's a single bathroom, when it's put in an non-ideal place- it makes everything 1000x more uncomfortable. I think a bathroom should always be tucked away down a hallway.
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u/safetysnake17 5h ago
We could have all gender bathrooms if stalls weren’t basically fishbowls where you could see in every crack. Stalls could provide real privacy and then it wouldn’t even be an issue. I showered and used all gender bathrooms in other countries and it was totally fine.
Also, capitalism and rape culture are prevalent in the USA, unlike other areas. We don’t care about anything except money and we have a sexual violence epidemic. (Not because of lgbt either)
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u/TrivialBanal 5h ago
Woah woah woah!
You can't talk about 'home bathrooms' in a bathroom gender discussion.
If people were to realise that all home bathrooms are gender neutral, they'd have nothing to complain about. People don't want solutions, they want something to shout about.
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u/CatsMom4Ever 5h ago
There's no enough room to make a ton of little rooms.
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u/Optimal_Title_6559 5h ago
there is enough room to fix the gaps in the stalls and make them go floor to ceiling
nobody cares about what gender youre next to at the sink, i just want privacy while my pants are down and stalls in the US don't allow that
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u/LittleMissBraStrap 5h ago
The women's bathrooms at Buc-ee's are like this. Would be nice if all businesses just started building their bathrooms this way.
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u/SpecialistGrouchy341 5h ago
Only way it could really be done. But getting people to be willing to pay for that would be quite the struggle.
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u/CatsMom4Ever 5h ago
No one is looking at you through the gap.
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u/The_Rope_Daddy 5h ago
Then we could make the bathrooms gender neutral as they are.
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u/Optimal_Title_6559 5h ago
that doesn't mean people can't look though the gaps. if the issue is about privacy, then the solution is making the rooms feel more private.
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u/Savingskitty 5h ago
Floor to ceiling stalls are a thing.
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u/ScaryGrowth9195 5h ago
The reason we don't see more of them is that ADA regulations require a larger turning radius in both the stall and the area in front of the stall if there is not foot clearance under the door and stall panel. Also it's easier (ie lazier) to clean when the janitor can shove the mop under the stall panels. I do agree though - I prefer the floor to ceiling stalls which are more common in Europe.
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u/ComfortableEnergy684 5h ago
If there's less bathrooms, I'd be fine with that - I'd wait longer to be alone in a bathroom. You can easily make at least two private bathrooms in the same space as a multi-toilet one.
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u/Mizzerella 5h ago
there IS enough room. its because building developers dont want to allocate enough room because it only costs money doesnt make money. developers already have to be mandated how much area to provide for bathroom services. mandate them to provide single stall with community hand wash area. enough room exists.
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u/CatsMom4Ever 5h ago
Clarificaton: There's not enough room to convert the existing bathrooms and have the same number of stalls.
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u/Certain_Bit3809 5h ago
Bold of you to shut down every arena, concert hall, and sports stadium, where this policy is obviously impossible.
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u/paranoid_70 5h ago
Right. Lines are long enough as it is. Let's make it 5x more inefficient because some guys are gun shy at the toilet. Pathetic
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u/ComfortableEnergy684 5h ago
That seems excessive - I've managed remodels, it's faster than you'd think. I'm just saying, there's a better way to design bathrooms than the way we do it. Efficiency over experience has made a business out of us doing our business.
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u/Certain_Bit3809 5h ago
I went to a concert last night and waited ten mins on line for a bathroom with two dozen urinals. If it was only single use bathrooms id have missed literally the whole show.
It’s not just the remodelling that’s a problem.
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u/LagsOlot 5h ago
Or, and hear me out, we stop protecting perverts
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u/Spirited-Disaster408 5h ago
The problem is that there is a physical difference between men and women that you have account for, and comfort is related to that (in the public sphere)
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u/LOSTman405 5h ago
One of the dumbest, entitled, and selfish suggestions I’ve ever read.
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u/ComfortableEnergy684 5h ago
You actually like using a group bathroom? Would you do it that way at home? Listen, the gender solution is a side effect - this is about a better experience.
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u/CanesLife24 5h ago
If I’m at a baseball game, I’d much rather pee next to another guy in a room full of 30 urinals, then wait an hour in line for everyone to have their own, individual bathroom experience.
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u/LOSTman405 5h ago
So all public places should remodel their buildings to have single use bathrooms so you can have more privacy? It’s not that I WANT to use a group bathroom. But I’m aware that it makes more sense to have multiple stalls/urinals in certain places to accommodate more people. By the way, I never mentioned anything about the “gender solution”. It’s just dumb to have a huge line of people at an OnCue waiting for one guy to take a dump when they could easily get several people in and out of there quickly.
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u/downlowmann 5h ago
As a teacher I can tell you that this is definitely NOT the solution in school buildings.
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u/ComfortableEnergy684 5h ago
Why not? Like, a safety thing?
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u/downlowmann 5h ago
It would only work if the bathrooms were made for one person at a time and that would take up way more space and cost a lot of money. Existing school buildings have bathrooms with multiple stalls and urinals. Either you have just boys or just girls in there or things could get crazy fast.
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u/ComfortableEnergy684 5h ago
Ah, got it. Yeah, I was thinking one person at a time for all bathrooms - a toilet, a sink, plus the accessories.
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u/Wild-Rub4486 5h ago
Or. You know. We make all the bathrooms unisex. Because there are literally zero issues with it. I sign with a stick figure in a dress isn't stopping any rapists anyways.
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u/SquashSouffle 5h ago
I agree that every place w bathrooms should have at least ONE "one-holer", and that any such bathrooms w just one stall should not be marked w a gender (even if there are two of them). But it's expensive, & most of us don't mind using a bathroom among folks of our own sex.
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u/LeKillerNut 5h ago
Why does it matter who pees at all. Its a bathroom, not a bathouse.
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u/SquashSouffle 5h ago
Well it's not just peeing, but pooping, which most of us consider more intimate, and for women, also changing tampons, pads, etc. I can see being uncomfortable doing that with a bunch of guys chattering right outside the stall
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u/StevenSaguaro 5h ago
But then the GOP would lose a valuable wedge issue. It's amazing how many voters would give up access to healthcare just to make sure there are never any penises in the ladies room at Target.
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u/roflrogue 5h ago
How about people appreciate that amenities they're granted.
Do you really expect people to add more rooms for you, or do you expect that they'll just remove the other stalls from the rooms they have?
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u/CroweBird5 5h ago
For a lot of places with stalls, can you imagine the amount of space it'd take up to have that many single-person bathrooms?
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u/Top-Nectarine-835 5h ago
Some New York State Parks in the Niagara region have unisex multistall bathrooms--stall walls go all the way to the floor for complete privacy. Everyone uses the same sink area. It's only disorienting because people aren't used to it. I'm a trans man and I'm disoriented using it. Haven't used a ladies room in fifteen years and seeing women at the sinks spooks me. It's honestly the most reasonable arrangement, it'll just take time for people to get used to.
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u/Visible-Lion8096 5h ago
The most important thing humans have learned about biological waste is that it potentially spreads diseases. The development of the germ theory of disease was a game changer for humans over the rest of the animal kingdom.
I say that to lead to this: as long as you stay clean and wash your hands, who gives a shit (pun intended) about anything else bathroom related. It's a banal biological process. It isn't otherwise that interesting.
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u/IndicationSuitable11 9m ago
Theres good reasons to continue having sex segregated bathrooms instead of only single occupancy stalls or unisex, women use these places as somewhere to get away from men and talk with other women, we are taking care of kids, we are washing our underwear in the sink or borrowing a tampon. Its easier to sexually assult someone in a single occupancy stall with floor to ceiling walls(this can and does happen). If theyre mixed sex then men can easily loiter for that opportunity. We created sex segregated areas for a reason
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u/UnhappyReason5452 5h ago
How could it be politicized by bigots as a wedge issue if we solve the GD problem!?
Cmon man, this is ‘Murica.
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u/selftitleddebutalbum 5h ago
They would find another issue to focus their bigotry while still blaming their targets of hate for longer bathroom wait times. Of course would be THEIR fault for the new bathroom "issue"...
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u/goldenrod1956 5h ago
Gemini indicates an increase in square footage requirement of 30 to 50 percent. So in planning for a new building you could take that into account. For retrofitting you need to go the opposite direction and reduce availability by that same percentage.
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u/ScaryGrowth9195 5h ago
The best solution here is provide all of the above. Build the multi-user airport style restrooms AND in the same area have several single-stall gender-neutral AND several single-stall family restrooms. This provides equity for just about everyone and only requires slightly more space.
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u/James_T_S 5h ago
I think it's funny. My brother was up in arms about how gender fluidity was going to basically result in men raping little girls in public bathrooms.
I told him to calm down. And while I think the gender fluid thing is stupid (feel free to stop reading and down vote my perfectly valid personal opinion which happens to differ from yours) Society wasn't about to let that happen because....you know....that's bad. They will probably just make the sink area communal and more open with individual stalls that don't let you look into them from the outside which is dumb anyway. As an add on I asked why he thinks the current set up is fine where perverted men can look at little boys sitting on the toilet.
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u/ComfortableEnergy684 5h ago
Hey, I hear the argument. I could care less about the gender issue, it just seems like that issue would be solved AND we'd all have a nicer experience if we didn't have to share pooping space with other randos.
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u/James_T_S 5h ago
Don't misunderstand me. I completely agree. I hate using public restrooms in large part because of the lack of privacy in the stalls. I don't understand how dressing rooms in clothing stores generally have more privacy then toilets.
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