Is this true? Would they really make some of us do it somewhere else?

Bathroom issues seem to be the rallying cry for those who are uncomfortable with the idea of rights for trans people.

~It makes perfect sense. They are afraid the “gay” germs will get on them and will spread.

Instead, the idiots are spreading stupidity.

I don’t know that there’s a solution that will make everyone happy.

We had a discussion here a long time ago that included the statement that some people feel victimized even having to identify as male or female.

So short of making every restroom unisex, individual, and completely equipped, someone is going to be upset.

Perhaps some unisex loos would solve the argument @funkdaddy. They’re not unusual here. They will usually only have one cubical. Most disabled toilets here aren’t gender specific.

@Earthbound_Misfit Yes, when this issue was discussed by the Ally committee I was on at my college, the provision of more unisex toilets was deemed the solution. (Unfortunately, no real money was allocated to implement it.)

@janbb, ahh the dreaded provision of money. I guess the time to push for these things is when buildings are being renovated. If we can include disabled toilets, surely we can include on cubical that’s unisex? At my workplace everywhere there is a ladies/gents toilet there’s a disabled toilet and often it’s the one that includes a shower so they’re obviously not intended for exclusive use by people with a disability.

I don’t care who uses the restroom I am in. I have always been straight but who am I to object to someone’s gender association. I would imagine that most objections might come from the far right. if they don’t have a issue that they can light their hair on fire over they might not be capable of having a honest conversation about the sexual beliefs of human beings who have views that differ from what they perceive as the mainstream.

@LuckyGuy Really, homosexuality is caused by a germ? So we could develop a vaccine to cure their disease?~ You may have saved western civilization.

I don’t know about you menfolk, but in the bathrooms I go to we pee in a stall if it is a bathroom for more than one person for my “gender.” No one is really seeing me “go to the bathroom.”

When I was a teen I used to go to a nightclub that had a lot of men in drag. They were all decked out in the super high heels, think RuPaul. It was a little daunting as a young teen having those big tall men in women’s clothing in the bathroom. Transgender is a different thing. I can’t help but wonder what the people who introduced these bills are thinking? Picturing? Imagining?

Making a law is ridiculous in my mind. Is there a law now? My husband came in the women’s room with me after my accident and I couldn’t even walk alone. Could he have been arrested?

Would the bill cover single bathrooms? I use the men’s room all the time. I think it’s stupid when there is just two restrooms in a restaurant or gas station to make one for men and one for women. Why? Not all restaurants do.

What a waste of time these bills are.

I can understand why certain people would want certain other people to use certain bathrooms. It will just have to do until there are all types bathrooms for all types of people. Whole buildings full of all types of bathrooms! (It could never be practical!)

@kritiper “I can understand why certain people would want certain other people to use certain bathrooms.”

Sure. I understand why we might want men to use men’s (or unisex) bathrooms and women to use women’s (or unisex) bathrooms. But trans men are men, and trans women are women. So there’s no problem (other than bigotry, I suppose).

“It will just have to do until there are all types bathrooms for all types of people. Whole buildings full of all types of bathrooms! (It could never be practical!)”

Or—as has already been suggested in multiple answers above—we could have a few unisex (omnisex?) bathrooms and dispose of the whole issue (which is perfectly practical; the building my office is in does it without any problem).

I’m all for unisex bathrooms and think history has shown again and again that legislation based on identity rather than behavior is almost always a bad idea. Put another way, let people pee where they want, if they’re doing something to make others uncomfortable, most of those actions would be covered by other laws already.

That said, everyone seems to have their own agenda when it comes to shared space and I’m not sure how far we can push that with bathrooms. To make everyone happy we’ll need individual fully accessible unisex bathrooms with changing tables, separate trashcans for menstrual products, and a separate sanitary area for breastfeeding. (others are offended by breastfeeding in a bathroom, I get it, not what this question is about) That really just covers the discussions I’ve heard in the last month or so. None of those things are bad, but everyone thinks their cause is “no big deal” while the total of them all really is impractical.

I think the tests for bathrooms are places like the airport, schools, and stadiums. How would a lot of well appointed unisex rooms hold up compared to two large restrooms? Does everywhere we go need to be home?

So if a single unisex bathroom with additional space makes everyone feel included, awesome. But if you’re using that as the handicapped bathroom, the changing room for children, the private breastfeeding space for those that want it, and the catch all, then someone is going to be waiting.

Would confusion be reduced if the signs were labeled: “Stand to Pee” and “Squat to Pee”?

The “Stand to Pee” rooms would have, per Yankee Stadium code, a ratio of 2.16 open urinals for every toilet with stall. The “Squat to Pee” rooms would have a ratio of 5 toilet toilet stalls per urinal. There shall be one sink minimum for every 3 urinal or toilets, herein called, WDD, wasted disposal device. “Stand” rooms shall have a mirrors of minimum 0.25 sq meter per sink. “Squat” rooms shall have a minimum of 0.5 sq meters per sink, plus one vase of fresh cut or synthetic flowers.
Structure occupancy shall be limited to a use constant, k, times the number of WDD. The use constant, k, shall be a function of the facility use and typical customer duration, see ~Architectural Code 2012 Article 1.5.4
Upon the face of each door shall be a sign stating: “By entering this room you hereby agree to treat all other occupants with respectful indifference and privacy. Violations shall be considered harassment, a Class F Misdemeanor.”

Simple…

In France, you sometimes have to walk past a relatively open space with urinals to get to the unisex cubicles. It’s a little hard to adjust to as an inhibited American but one does fairly quickly.

As I’ve often said here, I don’t consider any discomfort I may feel as a right to infringe on someone else’s identity.

@janbb You wrote: “I don’t consider any discomfort I may feel as a right to infringe on someone else’s identity.” Beautiful.

Maybe I’m just a simpleton, but I when I have to pee, I have to pee. Simple. It does not matter who, or what, is nearby. I do prefer the privacy and positioning of a urinal but will gladly use a tree or a red solo cup. I just need to pee and I presume others in the room do too.

Why would you want to force a woman to use a male toilet and the other way around?

Since I don’t get the why, I can’t even begin to understand the fairness of it. It seems a whole bunch of bigotry.
I am particularly impressed by the lack of shame in displaying that bigotry. They’re bigot and proud of it?

I share a toilet with a man every day at home @whitenoise. As long as there is a cleaner visiting regularly to make sure the loo is presentable, why should I care who peed or pooed in the bowl before me?

Some larger women’s bathrooms have a lounge area or chair in them. That’s nice for women who are modest and need to breast feed, so that is a time when women might be slightly exposed in the bathroom hoping for privacy. I think the majority of American wouldn’t care if they were seen breast feeding by others whatever gender they are biological or otherwise. The extremely modest can go into a stall I guess.

@Earthbound_Misfit I would assume the concern is bathrooms for multiple people at once. In large places like many shopping malls we already have family restrooms that any gender can use in addition to a women’s room with multiple stalls and a men’s room with multiple stalls. We also have in small restaurants and stores typically just one bathroom for the public that is for both genders. Maybe it varies a little by state and I haven’t noticed. I never thought about there being laws about it.

I think we just need to all relax and get over it. I hear you @JLeslie, but I’m sure we can all go to the loo without making such a big fuss about it. I don’t spend time talking or interacting with other women in the loo now. I’m sure I wouldn’t if there were guys in there as well. Go in, do my business, leave.

@Earthbound_Misfit I agree, but I can understand it from a safety issue. We are just a little more vulnerable with our pants down. You can’t run with your trousers down. If we allow ourselves to be paranoid I guess women might feel uneasy about a “man” in the bathroom, because what if he is a bad man? Someone with a penis who can rape us. However, why I didn’t really go into that above in my first answer is because bad men can lurk in a ladies bathroom anyway whether there are laws or not, because after all is a rapist worried about a bathroom law?

Note: I understand that tran people are to be called the gender they identify with. Moreover, I was not implying tran people are more likely to be criminals, I’m just talking about the bathroom law and why a woman might be worried about someone with a penis in the ladies room completely regardless of the gender identity issue. I hope I worded it in a way that came across with my intention.

I saw that film with Harry Connick Jnr, and at night when I use a public toilet and there’s just me in there, that scene with Harry Connick Jnr and Sigourney Weaver pops into my mind on occasions, but I really think women are at greater risk of rape from men they know than strangers in a public toilet.

It’s a little hard for me to imagine a trans woman being a rapist as well. I think that danger is a fear too far.

@Earthbound_Misfit I think @whitenoise is saying that he agrees that forcing a person to use a certain bathroom because of their genitalia makes no sense.

I didn’t mean a tran woman would be a rapist, I meant a man dressed as a woman.

It’s all I can think of that might be a reason why people might be very uncomfortable with it.

Edit: To clarify I don’t mean transsexual or transgender. I mean a man dressed as a woman with bad intentions.

Just to repeat. I don’t personally think there should be any laws about it at all. The only laws about bathrooms I care about are health laws. Sometimes I think maybe that should be better examined, but that is a different topic.

So bad intentions. Are you for repealing the 2nd amendment? Hell of a lot more gun violence here than bathroom rape by lady-boys.

@johnpowell I am just guessing what people might be worried about. I said multiple times I’m not for this proposed law. I’m not for any law about genders and bathrooms. I think society can work it out just fine. Not to mention the tran population is relatively small and a little discomfort once in a blue moon for a non-tran person doesn’t compare to what a transgender person would go through having to step into a bathroom they feel uncomfortable in every time they need to pee. I err on the side of freedom and a person’s ability to identify themselves. Believe me.

Just more stupidity in government. How would you even dream of enforcing anything so ridiculous? There was an old English tradition in which the idiot son in the family was traditionally steered into the clergy. It’s quickly becoming apparent which career is the preference for our feeble minded.

This game might be instructive for those unfamiliar with urinal selection etiquette. The Urinal Game. .
I got all but one correct.

Hey @LuckyGuy… now that does make sense… I got all of them!

Anyways… I think this newly proposed rule is so silly that not even everyone understood the issue.

Well, I conclude that making a man pee in a woman’s loo is wrong, regardless of his gender at birth. And the same goes for making women visit men’s loos.

Now… creating some opportunity to diaper-change your young child in the men’s loo.
That could actually make sense.