gendered bathrooms are so fucking stupid.
there are two bathrooms at the starbucks i frequent. one women’s one men’s. and i just watched a lady wait outside the occupied women’s for 15 minutes before giving up and leaving rather than just using the unoccupied men’s.
before you ask if i’d be okay with a man going into the women’s were the roles reversed: yes. of course. it’s a single bathroom. it’s not like anyone is going to run into anybody while in the bathroom. it’s one door that leads to a toilet, sink, and changing table (both bathrooms have the changing table– a win for dads everywhere.)
the only thing that separates them is the dumbass sign on one that says women’s and the other dumbass sign that says men’s.
and you bet your ass that if i need to go, and one of them is occupied, i go use the other. it shouldn’t be a big deal.
would getting rid of gendered bathrooms fix all of trans problems everywhere? no probably not. but if they aren’t designated for one set of people vs another set of people then you can’t really stop a butch or trans woman from going into the “women’s” bc she looks masculine, bc there isn’t a women’s.
there’s just the goddamn bathroom.
I started doing this when I had a small. Parents of young smalls are very acutely aware of the time between the small saying that they have to go, and the physical act. If a toilet is single-occupancy, I do not care what the sign says, other than “VACANT”.
And now that the small is older, I still don’t really care. Yes, I’ll check the one for my gender first, but if it’s full, great, let’s try the other one.
There is zero need for single-toilet bathrooms to be gendered.
the worst offender I’ve seen was at a bowling alley – they had a row of 6, maybe 8, single stalls and each one was gendered. absolutely pointless. each stall had a toilet and a sink. they were identical.
I think it was PAX in Seattle where I first encountered an all-gender bathroom. So that’s a large bathroom with toilet stalls and urinals on the walls for those who are so inclined. It’s a moment of hesitation but then you all march in and just use the bathroom for its intended purpose. And it truly does not matter because everyone’s in there just to knock out this inescapable bodily function and get back to life.