Gender Neutral bathrooms -- do they help or hurt the cause?

[Hazumu]

There have been a lot of Gender Neutral Bathroom stories in the news lately.  What do you think (anonymous), and why (optional, 'cause ya gotta post some words next to your avatar...)

"The cause" is furthering acceptance of all transgendered in society -- lessening the incidence of discrimination and violence directed at transgendered.

For example--

GN bathrooms could help the cause by lessening the tensions and anxiety some cisgendered feel toward TG individuals by keeping us out of a space they feel is segregated by plumbing (or worse, birth sex,) rather than by presentation.

GN bathrooms could hurt the cause by delaying or preventing the acclimatization of cisgendered to transgendered individuals.  It would reinforce to cisgendered that our gender is our birth sex -- they would have very little opportunity to see that we truly are our true genders, despite having a body that is the opposite sex.

I look forward to your responses;

Karen

[Lisbeth]

Where gender neutral bathrooms are a problem - and make no mistake, they are - is where cisgendered people think they are helping transgendered people by providing them.  It's just like white people thought during segregation.  They insisted that black people wanted their own bathrooms so they wouldn't have to mix with white people.  Discrimination won't end until cisgendered people turn over the power to make these decisions about transgendered people to the transgendered people themselves.

[Tay]

I'm headed into a battle this year to gain gender neutral washrooms.

Why? 

Because I am not comfortable in either washroom.  I've been stared at and even had people whisper "What is that" in the ladies and I'm too chicken to go into the men's.

For some of us, they are the only place we will ever be comfortable.

[SarahFaceDoom]

Bathrooms should be gender neutral.  It would be better for everybody if they were not segregated.  It's ridiculous when there's a huge line in the women's room, and no one is in the men's restroom.  It's just a place to use the bathroom.  They should be open to anyone.  It's so grade school that we have them segregated by gender.

[cindianna_jones]

This whole TG thing is still fairly new to our society.  Since "normal" people are so hung up about restrooms, it is a sanctuary for us to have a place where we can go without any drama.

I agree with Sarah.  Bathrooms should all be gender neutral.  As long as there are stalls to provide privacy, who cares?

Cindi

[Elizabeth]

At the Venice Boardwalk here in Southern California all the bathrooms are gender neutral. Actually they have the male and female symbols on them. They are all one stall restrooms. Sometimes women use them, sometimes men use them and sometimes transsexuals use them. This seems like a good solution because no one can claim invasion of privacy. We need to abandon this whole idea of large restrooms with stalls. Instead of stalls, in the same space we could have separate unigender toilets in fully enclosed rooms. We could then have combined washrooms. Everyone has privacy, but no one has a monopoly.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[J.T.]

Gender Neutral/Unisex bathrooms are a great idea.  Everyone has to go, so why have them be separate?  It will "help" the cause, i don't see how it could hurt it.

[buttercup]

I think gender neutral bathrooms are a good idea.  At an R.S.L (Returned Soldiers League) Club not so long ago, there were complaints made by a few women about a TG using their bathrooms.  As she was a frequent visitor to the club, this created quite a stir with the management, but to cut a long story short, she had to produce a letter from her doctor, blah, blah, blah you know the rest.  This could be avoided if the bathrooms were unisex.
I can't see how it would hurt the cause, if you're seen as odd, it wouldn't matter where you go, but it just stops some of the harassment that still continues, and the embarassment of being refused entry to a toilet facility! 

[Emerald]

Gender Neutral bathrooms? There's a ironic name. Transsexuals are the least gender neutral people on Earth, and yet they name a bathroom created specifically for transgender folk "Gender Neutral"... go figure.

On the other hand, Unisex bathrooms have been around a long time and were designed for use by either the male or female sex. Unisex bathrooms are more time efficient than standard Men's and Women's bathrooms, more cost effective, and of great benefit to disabled persons because it allows someone of the opposite sex to help them in the toilet.

Why build three types of bathrooms (Men's, Women's, and Gender Neutral) in situations where Unisex bathrooms will do? Why further segregation and create resentment by creating a brand new bathroom classification for a specific segment of society when Unisex bathrooms meet the needs of everyone?

Thumbs up for Unisex bathrooms. Thumbs down for Gender Neutral bathrooms.

-Emerald

[taru]

I think most people think unisex bathrooms = gender neutral bathrooms.

[Shana A]

I'd like having the option of gender neutral/unisex restrooms. I don't feel comfortable using either male or female, but sometimes you gotta go!!

Z

[Melissa]

I think more than anything, these restrooms benefit Androgynes and non-passable TG.  I like using the women's restroom because then I can socialize with other women.  Having gender neutral bathrooms gives cisgendered people a reason to bar TG from those restrooms.  By being barred from men's and women's restrooms, you are thus being classified as an "it".  To me, that's pretty sad.

[Tay]

I agree that there is nothing worse than being called an it.

But even in spite of that, I can't help supporting unisex bathrooms because, while I sympathise with an ftm's desire to be seen as fully male and I sympathise with an mtf's desire to be seen as fully female, I have to keep seeking for my own place in the world.

I had to go to the washroom today at the mall while I was doing some banking and stuff.  The gender neutral handicapped washroom and the family washroom (both separate entrance for one toilet and sink) were full.  I'd had a soft pretzel with butter and salt on it and my fingers were sticky.  All I was doing was washing my hands--I didn't even go past the sink divider that separates the sinks and cleaning area from the actual toilets.  I was wearing some loose cargo pants, a folk festival teeshirt and a ballcap.  I was bound, but I was in no way trying to "be a boy."  As soon as I walked in, a mother with two little girls grabbed her children away from the sink, their hands still wet, and dragged them out.  An elderly woman stared at me until I was done washing my hands and then said to me "For shame.  You shouldn't be in here."

I don't feel safe using the ladies' room at all, when I am dressed comfortably.  It makes me nervous and upset.  Unfortunately, OCD means that I can't leave my hands sticky, so I had no other option right then.

Personally?  I think unisex washrooms should be universal and we should, as Elizabeth already suggested, have little rooms with toilets and a central washing up area.

Of course, I know how important gender segregation is to many people here, so I doubt that will ever happen.

[ChildOfTheLight]

Of course, I know how important gender segregation is to many people here, so I doubt that will ever happen.

Here, there, and everywhere.

But not only are unisex restrooms (and to avoid more haggling over semantics: that means restrooms open to everyone) not a big deal, they're about the smallest deal in the world.  I don't think I just see it this way because I'm an androgyne (so I have the tendency not to feel the gender divisions the binary world seems to feel) and asexual, either.  We should have them.

[Tay]

The places that do have them do not have enough. As evidenced by my issues yesterday in the Ladies'.

[LostInTime]

Just like guns and drunken relatives, they are pretty much in the middle of the evil and good spectrums until they are acted upon by an outside force.

If a GN bathroom is built solely because of a T person then it is discriminatory and should be done away with at once. I mean why not segregate based on other thins? I live in the south and skin color can be a problem in some areas so why not build a bathroom based on ethnicity? It would end some violent encounters. Who  cares if those encounters are rare? that way we will not have to run into anyone who is "different" from us. 

If however, the GN bathrooms are placed there as a choice then that is okay. Chances are that there are quite a few who can take advantage of such a space. In that capacity I support them completely.