All-Gender Bathrooms: Would You Be Comfortable Using One?

[vegie271]

Remember, equality means equal for ALL, so a transgender person is not more important than a boring cis male.

The only downside to a rest room that is non gender, is the moment you leave the stall, you have to have your pants done up properly, you need to have your dress adjusted correctly and you can't walk in wearing outfit A, and get undressed in front of the sink and change into outfit B regardless of what outfit A and B are.

You can adjust your lipstick, you can fix your tie, you can take off a shoe and remove a stone, but the rest of the people in the room expect you to be properly dressed otherwise.

A proper genderless rest room has no urinals, regardless of whether you as a lady can do a decent aim from your gear or not. The guys might not want to see you do it, they might not want you looking while they give their own the allowable maximum shakes after going.

My only concern, is I have seen lots and lots of stalls in my time, and they are hardly what I would call entirely private. You can stand next to many and see over, you can often see plenty under. And once you have made the stall an entirely enclosed room, it's a separate room and the discussion becomes moot.

Ideally, a well designed rest room is that. A common outer room with a sink and a mirror if you desperately need it. And a row of actual separate rooms that are just that entirely separate rooms and fully enclosed with a full on door. At that point, they are not required to be all gender if only one person can use it at a time. If you have 10 rooms, all only open to a single person at a time, it is no different than having a men's room right next to a women's room in the building.

Make a toilet an entirely enclosed room with nothing but a toilet, problem solved. Then it becomes a case of telling people, don't do anything in front of the sink and mirror, you wouldn't do out in the rest of the building.

I am sorry I don't care, I have been raped and assaulted, I don't want to be in a public place with a man, I am not going to sy every man is this way, but please if you know any cis gender women talk to them ask what they do to avoid rape they know this also. I carry a stun gun with me every time I leave my house, and as I said already, if they make all restrooms this way I simply will never leave my apartment.

[Lesley_Roberta]

While I can sympathize with you, you are letting a past event control you

Rape can happen to anyone. A man can always follow you into a female tasked rest room and attack you there. If they wish to attack a person a symbol on a door won't protect you. Additional women in the room is also no real barrier. They might help you they might run away too.

I'm disabled I walk with a cane. But I'm no easy target. My cane was made from a sledge hammer handle. I'll use it too.

All I can say is you will remain trapped by that event until you put it in your past. You have the stun gun, does it not help? What makes you feel safe anywhere else? Rape can happen anywhere.

I will always suffer being thought of as a sicko or some such thing till I succeed in removing all male tells from my appearance if rest rooms are male or female only. And so will the rest of us. I'd be happier in the ladies rest room, but currently all I have is knowledge that it's really just that I need to pee, and the men's room is faster and less aggravation, and I decide what gets to aggravate me. I have bigger hells to cope with normally, than who is watching me pee.

[Jess42]

I hate multi stall bathrooms period but I wouldn't be any more uncomfortable using one as I am now.

[vegie271]

While I can sympathize with you, you are letting a past event control you

Rape can happen to anyone. A man can always follow you into a female tasked rest room and attack you there. If they wish to attack a person a symbol on a door won't protect you. Additional women in the room is also no real barrier. They might help you they might run away too.

I'm disabled I walk with a cane. But I'm no easy target. My cane was made from a sledge hammer handle. I'll use it too.

All I can say is you will remain trapped by that event until you put it in your past. You have the stun gun, does it not help? What makes you feel safe anywhere else? Rape can happen anywhere.

I will always suffer being thought of as a sicko or some such thing till I succeed in removing all male tells from my appearance if rest rooms are male or female only. And so will the rest of us. I'd be happier in the ladies rest room, but currently all I have is knowledge that it's really just that I need to pee, and the men's room is faster and less aggravation, and I decide what gets to aggravate me. I have bigger hells to cope with normally, than who is watching me pee.

The only time anyone watched me, was

1) when I had to take a random test because I was a driver for a commuter van

B) when I was involuntarily committed because I had attempted suicide

iii) when I was arrested for a DUI (and I was almost raped again in this situation as I had been on HRT for 6 years)

in a public restroom I get left alone to use stalls womyn do this, and I use womyn's rest room's but there are single person "family style" restrooms around here - if you want those you are welcome to use them. Anyone is. They are clearly marked for either gender and for disabled. I just avoid them and head specifically to female only. I personally feel safer in the company of womyn.

[Sara Thomas]

I would.

So long as I can close the stall.

[Lesley_Roberta]

Womyn, sorry, that is just being too silly for me It's just a word.

I have learned many hard lessons over the years. One of those lessons, is females are just as capable of ruining and or endangering your life as anyone else. Every person and every situation is a unique instance and not a good idea to use them as templated cases.

If I were to walk into a woman's rest room, and still be anatomically male as far as an indignant cis female was concerned, I might actually consider her more potentially dangerous than a man. She could freak out, call the cops, make a scene, generate massive embarrassment for me, subject me to public scorn and ridicule, have me end up in jail. And all because I was insistent on taking a pee in a specific room.

Yes eventually we need to make a stand. The thing is, what sort of victory do we want, and what battles do we actually expect to win?

I can't picture winning some battles as easily as others.

I'd rather a restroom that favours no one, makes no one special and serves everyone equally. I am not less of a woman just because the last person to take a pee in the stall I am in, was male. But being stubborn and defiant and demanding to pee in the same rest room as used by cis females, might be just that, nothing more than stubborn and defiant.

Look around you, not all females cis and not cis females, will be on your side, or will welcome you in the ladies rest room. Some will fight you tooth and nail, and some will do it for entirely idiotic reasons, and lame justifications or just plain cultural and religious dogmatic view points.

I could just as easily be ganged up on by a gang of hostile cis females in the ladies rest room, my clothes ruined my outfit trashed etc etc, and it would be just as traumatizing as if done at the hands of men. And don't think it wouldn't be.

[vegie271]

No one has any idea that I am trans or that I have not had SRS when I walk into Target, or the Bus stop, or a Restaurant restroom. Now in most of these place I have either the choice of male or female.

I have been full time 6 years - I am using female - I would get the most bizarre looks if I went into a male restroom! even though I am maab and no surgery


and even in Target where they have the family ones I leave those to the people with children who need them to use for changing them or for people for wheelchair or other access type or people who need them for special privacy problems - I will use the main group female even when I have to wait in line. - it works best for me, I blend better.  it feels pleasant

[Lesley_Roberta]

"No one has any idea that I am trans or that I have not had SRS when I walk into Target, or the Bus stop, or a Restaurant restroom"

Then why are you complaining?

No one has any idea I am female, because I suffer from male pattern hair loss, I have male pattern waist weight, I have a male sounding voice and I don't have the benefit of several years of work in the pursuit of being considered female visually.

Walking into a ladies rest room is a problem for me. Because it will seem like some creepy guy just walked into the ladies rest room. I think that sums up the problem for a lot of transgender persons. We have not had the pleasure of being lucky enough to be sufficiently visually convincing.

For those of us, that look absolutely convincing, I am of course happy for them.
But if you don't actually suffer from it, stop claiming you have a problem to begin with.
Unless you plan to wear a sign, or indulge in overt actions that expose the truth, you should just use the correct rest room and not be always paranoid that other patrons possess magical abilities to detect you.

[V M]

Okay friends 

That's quite enough arguing over the potty of choice

Topic locked

Thank you

V M