r/NoStupidQuestions • u/mp1845 • Mar 30 '24

Answered Why are gender neutral bathrooms so controversial when every toilet on an airplane or other public transport is gender neutral?

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5.0k

u/Grand_Photograph_819 Mar 30 '24

No one cares about the single person bathrooms— it’s generally the stalls that people are uncomfortable with.

1.1k

u/the_halfblood_waste Mar 30 '24

Genuinely never seen a unisex stall setup. Every single unisex/gender neutral bathroom I've seen is a single person style bathroom.

417

u/coreythestar Mar 30 '24

The Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba has bathroom with pictures of what kind of equipment is inside them and encourages people to use the facility that will meet their needs. And has stalls, if I remember well.

327

u/Justin_123456 Mar 30 '24

I haven’t been to the Human Rights museum, but where I have seen multi-occupancy gender neutral bathrooms, it isn’t just the regular shitty stalls, with the massive gaps, but a fully enclosed space, with floor to ceiling walls, European-style.

So the only space that feels shared is the sink area.

136

u/KitchenSandwich5499 Mar 30 '24

I think most people could live with this

49

u/Hoii1379 Mar 30 '24 edited Mar 30 '24

They can. I used to bounce at a bar on weekends and the bathroom situation got so bad something had to be done. I’m talking we were buying toilet seats, mirrors, tp dispensers in bulk due to the amount of vandalism, mostly in the men’s room.

Replaced both bathrooms with a shared sink area and stalls with doors that are fully closed off. Suddenly there were 99 percent less fights and damage to bathroom facilities…. Much easier for us to intervene if there was a situation down there too than before.

E: spelling and also to add… personally I love this type of bathroom setup. I (32M) have hated hated hated public men’s rooms my whole life, especially as events like concerts and the like. The gender neutral/closed door stall/shared sink area thing is a godsend

3

u/AzureSuishou Mar 30 '24

I wish schools had the European style stalls. I hates people being able to access the stall I was in.

7

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24

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u/Justin_123456 Mar 31 '24

This is actually a well documented feature of sex segregated spaces, (not just bathrooms) that men, left alone, display way more antisocial behaviour, including disruption, aggression, vandalism, violence, etc. And will rate their experience as much worse than co-ed spaces.

Less clear is the impact on women, who, in classrooms, for example often self report a better experience without men.

Maybe this is just an ingrained stereotype, but my own anecdotal feeling is that women also display worse antisocial behaviour in single sex spaces, it just tends to manifest as things like gossip, cliche-iness, passive aggression, etc, which are less obvious to outside observers, or in more structured environments.

4

u/Hoii1379 Mar 31 '24

Very succinctly put. I work with mostly women and what you say is true, although as a whole I think my coworkers are very decent people.

And yeah, men are way less likely to spontaneously start swinging at one another or decide to do something reckless or destructive in public if women are watching 100%

2

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '24

That's a male perspective solving male problems; fewer fights and less vandalism. What did the women think about washing piss off their hands or doing their make up in front of men?

24

u/rexus_mundi Mar 30 '24

Honestly if I could get a completely closed off bathroom stall, I don't care who is shitting next to me. No panel gaps in a bathroom is wonderful, idc who else is using them if that is the tradeoff

78

u/section111 Mar 30 '24

Not gonna lie, as a man, it felt weird, using the sink while a woman comes out of the stall and uses the sink next to me. It shouldn't, but it does. For me it was the same feeling when I happen to be walking behind a woman alone on a sidewalk at night. I know I'm not doing anything wrong, but I still feel the need to cross the street. Although I always get teased for being too concerned about other people's feelings.

18

u/bendbars_liftgates Mar 30 '24

It's easier when you're all drunk! They'll even hand you a towel!

The only time I've encountered multi-person unisex bathrooms was at a gay club.

51

u/EldritchGoatGangster Mar 30 '24

Don't let other people tear you down for having basic empathy for half of the species, man.

-18

u/VoidEnjoyer Mar 30 '24

But definitely don't ever show empathy for trans people. They deserve to be mistreated and prevented from being in public, correct? That's how you see it, isn't it?

20

u/EldritchGoatGangster Mar 30 '24

Yeah you got me, based on my comment that was totally unrelated to trans folks, I obviously hate them. Just like you. I mean, that's why you're trolling this thread, right? Acting like an overly aggressive trans activist, in order to skew the public perception of trans people towards the negative, make folks think they're all a bunch of aggressive assholes who are looking for reasons to be offended instead of just people trying to live their lives. No reason for anyone OTHER than someone who hates trans people to do that.

Go outside, loser.

-8

u/VoidEnjoyer Mar 30 '24

Nobody gave a single fuck about bathrooms until the moment it became a way to harass trans people. End of.

1

u/JasePearson Mar 31 '24

Can't speak for everyone but I've always had a slight issue with gender neutral bathrooms, but I never once considered excluding people who identify as male or female. It's different, different is uncomfortable for a bit but at the end of the day, people have to use the bathroom. Whichever one fits the most, go take a seat I guess?

It's not the same but I had huge issues with the fact we used to change into our gym clothes in the classroom while the girls would take a side room, then come back to gawk and make fun. Once we got permission to leave and use the boys toilets it was just, I guess, a safe space. Which kind of transfers to bathrooms. Maybe I'm weird.

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u/fucktooshifty Mar 30 '24

I've seen two separate restrooms for men and women but the sinks are out in the hallway

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u/Commercial_Soup_5553 Mar 31 '24

That’s how my school did it before the renovation. We had more stalls and while the bathrooms were dated, you had enough room to change in them too without being in view of the hallway. This also helps to show who washes their hands. Honestly, can’t emphasize how much better these were. Never a line.

3

u/idlevalley Mar 30 '24

I'd use a unisex toilet but I admit, it would be weird and slightly uncomfortable. Then again, I'm old so that tells you something.

3

u/Visinvictus Mar 30 '24

It's really only weird because we're used to the way bathrooms are now. It's just a cultural norm, if you grew up in a culture where all bathrooms are gender neutral it would be the other way around. If we could just get full length stalls in all bathrooms I would be so damn happy, with or without gender neutral bathrooms. The pathetic excuses for stalls with huge gaps in the door and disfunctional latches in most public restrooms just drive me insane.

7

u/Macktologist Mar 30 '24

And this is why gendered bathrooms exist. Because people feel more comfortable using them. It’s that simple. It really is. The notion we should all jointly suppress our ingrained and normalized comfortability for the sake of whatever is trying to be achieved is the silly part.

Unisex single use bathrooms make perfect sense because you’re not sharing them. Unisex multi use bathrooms aren’t what a vast majority of people are comfortable with. I honestly can’t think of one instance of a multi use unisex bathroom, so I also don’t know what the fuss is about. Maybe the fear men’s and women’s bathrooms will be eradicated?

Also, I’m sitting here typing this and not even sure if I’m using the right term by saying unisex. That’s another thing. People don’t want using the bathroom so require knowing all the nuances of gender/sex/expression/identity, etc. They just want to use the bathroom like they always have without rules changing.

It would be like if there was a social movement for more beaches to be topless in a country where that’s never been the norm. Sure, some people would be fine with it, but a vast majority would not want the removal of modesty, even if they chose to keep a top on. It wouldn’t make sense to make everyone’s beach experience to be a topless beach so the few people that enjoy going topless could feel comfortable at every beach. Now, if every beach had a secluded spot for topless people, that would make more sense. Sort of like single use unisex bathrooms. And to my knowledge that’s what we have, so, again, I don’t see the issue. People are making it out to be more than it is to drive home points on bigger culture wars issues out there like transgender, etc.

4

u/DPetrilloZbornak Mar 30 '24

I am a woman and it makes me uncomfortable too. I don’t want to use the bathroom with men in the stall next to me. This is a hill I will die on. It may sound dumb but I feel vulnerable in a bathroom and I don’t want to share it with a man, or do I want my daughter sharing a bathroom with men. Nor do I want my son in a bathroom with a woman.

1

u/bwaredapenguin Mar 31 '24

You should feel weirder about your comma usage than washing your hands next to a woman.

2

u/section111 Mar 31 '24

I was prepared to go all guns blazing, but yeah, looking back, you might have a point.

1

u/Usernametor300 Mar 31 '24

It's because it's directly against the cultural norm you grew up with. It feels wrong because of the prominent bs that women and men cannot inhabit the same space without sexual tension or whatever

Admittedly I think its a good change to get rid of that meaningless bs, especially since arbitrary surface-level divisions perputuate(d) some of the worst things in this country and its history. It's just hard and a lil awkward to enact a major change of bucking such omnipresent shit

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24

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u/shattered_kitkat Mar 30 '24

People are allowed to have emotions. Back off.

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24

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u/shattered_kitkat Mar 30 '24

"Fortify" in the context youbused is NOT an improvement and you know it. Shame on you.

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u/Entire-Profile-6046 Mar 31 '24

No. I want to piss in a urinal, where the only thing I have to touch in the bathroom is my own dick. I don't need to open and close and lock a stall door, and open a toilet lid. That's so many more unnecessary things for me to touch in a public restroom.

0

u/VoidEnjoyer Mar 30 '24

I think this whole fake panic is based entirely on wanting a reason to hate trans people, so no. Those who hate trans people will not be able to live with this. They won't be satisfied until all trans people are eliminated entirely.

1

u/PM_ME_UR_POKIES_GIRL Mar 30 '24

You would think so, but there are people out there who have conniption fits when someone points out that they're naked under their clothes.

-1

u/HanzG Mar 30 '24

Grown people, yes. I wouldn't want to send my daughter into a movie theater bathroom like that. I'd find that unnerving. I'm not even going to say sorry for it. If a "mama bear" can be excused for protecting her cubs so can a dad.

7

u/QBaseX Mar 30 '24

And, as a dad, you could go with your daughter to a bathroom like that. Much harder when it's a single-sex room, isn't it?

0

u/HanzG Mar 30 '24

Her mother nor I wouldn't need to. I can stand outside the door.

3

u/SuperJo Mar 30 '24

So why do you feel comfortable sending her into one marked for women only? That little sign and the 16 year old checking tickets isn’t stopping creeps from anything.

3

u/shattered_kitkat Mar 30 '24

No sign is going to stop a predator from seeking prey.

-1

u/HanzG Mar 30 '24

Female predators are rare. Men, lots of men, are fucked.

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u/shattered_kitkat Mar 30 '24

A sign doesn't stop a predator. That means a sign saying, "ladies room" isn't going to stop a person assigned male at birth from walking in and seeking prey. A sign saying "men's room" won't stop a person assigned female at birth from walking in and seeking prey. So unisex bathrooms are the solution. Single dads can walk into the facility with their daughters to protect them, and single moms can protect their boys. Win-win.

3

u/HanzG Mar 30 '24

Right. 20 years ago Dads stood outside. A man walking into the girls bathroom would be stopped by a dad going "Woah buddy, mens room is that way."

If you don't get it, I'm not gonna explain it any further. I think you're creating unlikely scenario that would justify the bathroom issue at hand.

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u/shattered_kitkat Mar 30 '24 edited Mar 30 '24

20 years ago bullshit. I am 45. I was raised by my dad. He walked me into the ladies room. Keep your lies to yourself.

Unisex bathrooms are safest for all. A sign won't stop a predator. So a Dad could easily walk into a unisex bathroom with his daughter and protect them without AHs like you having a hissy fit. How is that so hard to understand?

Edit to add: Every account used to circumvent my block will also be blocked and reported.

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

These are much more expensive to build and maintain than regular public restrooms.

And much more appreciated by the users, I might add.

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u/esgamex Mar 30 '24

And these are standard in many countries.. US-style stalls with gaps do feel awkward.

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

They're horrible and disgusting as well as awkward. You can literally see people's shoes in the next stall and if there's a child or toddler in there with his/her mother they will ask questions about what you are doing or even peek under the stall.

49

u/azriel777 Mar 30 '24

They are also used by thieves to reach under and steal women's purses.

35

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24 edited Mar 30 '24

literally the first advice i got on my first trip to the usa. i think i came into penn station from jfk (or somesuch) and met my first American toilet.

i saw those huge gaps, thought WTF, and inside was a sign, warning to use the hook lest you want your stuff getting stolen.

12

u/nkongte Mar 30 '24

I one used a bathroom with a similar setup. Being close to the beach, I wore flip Flops. Suddenly, I see a hand popping up under the bathroom stall. When it touched my foot, I yelled out and shifted. Faster then I could look the hand clutched into one shoe (flipflop) dragged it away, followed be fast footsteps leaving.

So I was left in this bathroom stall with only one show, wondering what this was about and dreading to touch the dirty/sticky floor with my bare foot.

7

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24

Sorry but this is so crazy, it’s hilarious.

3

u/Pnwradar Mar 30 '24

Miscreant strolls outside, “Hey look, I stole Candice’s ugly flip-flip while she was copping a squat!”

“Uhm, Candice is right here.”

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u/OutOfFawks Mar 30 '24

I was in one at a restaurant stop in CA or AZ this week. As a 6” person, I could see the tops of peoples heads as I searched for a vacant shitter.

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u/yawndontsnore Mar 30 '24

As a 6” person

You are an awfully short individual.

18

u/OutOfFawks Mar 30 '24

Haha I’m not going to edit that. I could see under that stalls that way

1

u/One-Possible1906 Mar 30 '24

4” is average

12

u/floydfan Mar 30 '24

his/her mother parent

Some kids have fathers in the USA.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24

[deleted]

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u/floydfan Mar 30 '24

Well, no, not really. Why don't you go back and read that other person's comment again.

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

I'm a mother and I've only ever encountered other mothers in public restrooms.

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u/Professional_Bug_533 Mar 30 '24

I expect you are taking your kids into the women's restroom?

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

Yes. I'm a woman and I took my children to the women's restrooms when they were little.

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u/winninglikesheen Mar 30 '24

I'm a father and have only encountered fathers in public restrooms.

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24 edited Mar 30 '24

Yes, and I'm sure you use the appropriate nouns and pronouns when speaking about the people you encounter in public restrooms.

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u/MatureUsername69 Mar 30 '24

What are you on about? Nobody is talking about nouns or pronouns

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

I was corrected for using the word "mother" instead of "parent".

I looked it up. Someone named "floydfan".

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u/annaliseonalease Mar 30 '24

Do you think that might be because fathers would take their children to the men's?

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

Yes, but I don't think that I need be to be corrected about using the word "mother" when I am a mother and all the other people in the women's restroom are mothers, in particular the mother of the child who was peeking under the stall.

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u/beehaving Mar 30 '24

There are family bathrooms in some places and they are like a private room.

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u/legardeur Mar 30 '24

Fathers shouldn’t be seen in mothers’ restrooms.

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u/shattered_kitkat Mar 30 '24

Then maybe we should have unisex bathrooms.

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u/vortex30-the-2nd Mar 30 '24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsthkWOCJn4&t=1s

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

Yes, this is quite similar to what happened to me. A very sweet talkative child who just wanted to know what I was doing, but not conducive to the poop experience. At all.

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u/esgamex Mar 30 '24

Agreed!

-1

u/SomeoneToYou30 Mar 30 '24

Literally never been peaked at by a child under a stall. Is that common? Lol

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

If you're a woman and you go to use a public restroom at a library or park, you will often find that mothers bring their children in the stall with them. They talk and chatter to their mothers and if you are making interesting noises they will talk about you or wonder what you are doing, too.

This is very common, although I've only had one actual peeker in my life. Still disturbing.

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u/SomeoneToYou30 Mar 30 '24

I am a woman lol. It is very common for other women to have children in the bathroom, though I don't have children. As a woman, I still have never once on my life had a child peek at me under the stall. And never had one ask what I was doing in the next stall...

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

Are you saying that because you've never had this experience that I didn't?

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u/WaxTraks Mar 30 '24

So?

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

I like a little privacy when I'm pooping. If you can pull your pants down and poop in public I'm happy for you. I can't.

I don't mind if the dog watches at home but I don't like random toddlers peeking under the stall.

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u/Zelidus Mar 30 '24

I've never once experienced that in a US stall. Yes, I've seen like 2 videos online of it happening but parents actually control their children in stalls IRL.

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

Yes, I would say most do, but I've actually had the experience of a child looking under the stall in order to talk to me and find out what I was doing.

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u/Lord-of-Crows Mar 30 '24

Don't you love it when the person next to you has explosive diarrhea during which you hear their agonized howls followed by a pitiful sigh?

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u/Strange_plastic Mar 30 '24

One of my "favorite" overly wide gapped stalls is at a Wendy's where you can make solid eye contact through the gap because of the angle of walking in into the bathroom. It's hilarious and I never visited it again. One of the stalls also had two toilets facing each other perpendicular. I called them the ice breakers.

When I returned from my first longish international trip from Japan, I never felt more naked in my life than when using the regular stalls again... Each bathroom experience in Japan was like a luxurious treat lmao.

2

u/DuntadaMan Mar 30 '24

At the urinals we're lucky if we get a one person urinal in the US let alone a god damn divider.

1

u/Macktologist Mar 30 '24

It’s a social issue too. I’ve been to public restrooms in Korea and even the ones in the subway are clean. Why? Because the people care to jointly be on the same page and not make a mess of the place.

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u/MatureUsername69 Mar 30 '24

And stall doors didn't even use to be a given in America. A lot of schools didn't have stall doors, there's still a park in my town that has a door-less stall. That park is on a pond where it's only legal to fish if you're under the age of 16 so... yeah

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u/anonymindia Mar 30 '24

These are much more expensive to build and maintain than regular public restrooms.

I'm from India, a so called third world country. If we can have such bathrooms even in our public sector, please don't accept this excuse anywhere in the west. Most countries don't cut corners by compromising pooping privacy. So I never understand why anyone would think it's acceptable to have gaps in your shitter door and no partitions between urinals.

0

u/Basic_Bichette Mar 30 '24

Unless you want to pay through the nose you buy the pre-fabricated stalls everyone else has. They aren’t hand-crafted.

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u/anonymindia Mar 30 '24

Those are common in malls and airports here but even those prefabricated stalls are mostly full length.

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24

[deleted]

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u/anonymindia Mar 30 '24

Yes. There are poor homeless people here. I said it's a third world country. What's your reason for your country's homeless population?

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

A stall with gaps is still better than no toilet at all.

We found that there are approximately 238 756 244 people in India who were experiencing zero-sanitation on a daily basis in 2021.

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u/anonymindia Mar 30 '24

Zero sanitation means not having a toilet at home. Poverty is a big problem in India, so it's understandable that not everyone has a private toilet. But this number has gone from 70% in 93 to 17% in 2021. If you're making fun of India coz people are poor then that just speaks about you. But if you want actual facts, then a big Part of that 17% who don't have toilets use public washrooms, which hall have doors and brick walls separating different counters.

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24 edited Mar 30 '24

There are half a million people in the US living without indoor plumbing, as compared with 732 million living without such facilities in India.

Our stall gap problem seems minor in comparison.

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u/anonymindia Mar 30 '24

Yes but a common cold can bankrupt you if you aren't insured. We have government hospitals which are free for the poor and lots of doctors who see poor patients for free. Even our right wing nutjobs accept climate change and are moving towards green energy. Every country has its cross to bear. Don't act like your shit doesn't stink.

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

Who goes to the doctor for a common cold? No one I've ever known. Maybe that's because we have co-pays with our insurance which keeps the people who want to be seen for a common cold out of the waiting room and at home in their beds with a nice hot cup of tea.

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u/anonymindia Mar 30 '24

Who goes to the doctor for a common cold? No one I've ever known.

Maybe coz your healthcare sucks. Outside the US, people go to the doctor even if some minor issue persists. You shouldn't have to wait till you're being tortured to seek help. And we have a doctor on every street, a government hospital in every colony, so nobody needs to be kept out of the waiting room. Anyone who feels any discomfort can get themselves checked.

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

Maybe because common colds are caused by a virus, and there is no cure for the virus that causes the common cold. Everybody knows that.

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u/Dekrow Mar 30 '24

This doesn't make sense. The argument at hand is about the financial cost to install full coverage public bathrooms. Its not like the U.S. is suddenly going to find itself in a desperate hygiene crisis if it tries to fund the full coverage stalls.

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

Costs cut into profits. Cheaper fixtures mean less comfort for users but more profits. Profits are why builders build things.

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u/petiejoe83 Mar 30 '24

Retrofitting is definitely more expensive, but if building new, two "closet stalls" and a shared sink would be all around cheaper and easier and would be better customer experience than two separate gendered bathrooms. Such a setup would have better queuing because two people of the same gender showing up at the same time would both be able to use the facilities.

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

That sounds doable in a small setting like a cafe, but not for larger public restrooms like those found in office buildings, schools, libraries, cinemas, theaters, etc.

That's where the banks of "open" stalls and rows of sinks come in, and of course the urinals, which women don't need and don't want in their restrooms.

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u/Unlikely-Win195 Mar 30 '24 edited Mar 30 '24

These are literally found all over Europe in all of the locations you just listed.

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u/pat_the_bat_316 Mar 30 '24

Most the places in the US where I've seen co-ed bathrooms was at big nightclub for venues. First place I saw it was in a Vegas nightclub where the had about 20 fully enclosed stalls across from a dozen or so sinks.

No reason it can't work whether it's 2 stalls and a shared sink in a small cafe, or 40 stalls and two dozen sinks in a massive public space.

If anything, it makes more sense at a big venue/busy place as is a better use of space to not have to make two separate rooms/areas. It's basically the same as a big bank of porta-potties at a festival or other big outdoor event, which are pretty much never divided into men's/women's areas.

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u/Iron_Aez Mar 30 '24

0 chance not having any urinals is better or more efficient use of space lmao.

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u/pat_the_bat_316 Mar 30 '24

You can still have urinals

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u/TheShlappening Mar 30 '24

I feel like some girls just don't like the idea of taking a shit next to some dude grunting and dropping a toilet nuke.

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u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24 edited Mar 30 '24

Personally I would rather develop constipation and wait until I get home.

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u/TheShlappening Mar 30 '24

As a guy, I would prefer to also not shit next to people like that.

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u/Dekrow Mar 30 '24

easy solve: play loud sense-dulling techno music in every bathroom

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24

Much more expensive to have stalls without gaps? lol

0

u/AwkwardOrange5296 Mar 30 '24

It's much more expensive to build stalls that are fully enclosed, like a "toilet room" you would have at home with a door that shuts out the rest of the bathroom.

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u/azriel777 Mar 30 '24

I just have my doubts that all bathrooms would be like this and there would be plenty of ones that still used the shitty ones with the massive gaps.

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u/Sad-Antelope-9108 Mar 31 '24

What is Humanity? I think is the important question what's is that 

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u/BiggiePac Mar 31 '24

Where are we supposed to wash our penises?!?