From the Harvard Crimson:
"So many people I know, including many women who are not trans-identified but whose gender presentation to some degree transgresses the gender norms of their context, have had the experience of being asked if they are in the ‘right bathroom’ or told they are in the ‘wrong’ one..."
The current solution is single stalled bathrooms with no gender designation. There are 73 on the Harvard Campus, but there are complaints that it's not enough.
“So many people take it for granted that they can use a public bathroom,” [says Trans Task Force student leader Jia Hui Lee ’12.] “For those who are trans and gender non-conforming, it’s much more difficult to use a bathroom in public.”
Critics of expanding access to gender neutral bathrooms say that they increase the likelihood of sexual assaults in such spaces, but the concept of individuals of different sexes sharing the same restroom is not all that radical, according to Marco Chan ’11, Queer Students and Allies Co-Chair.
“Everyone lives their gender in different ways, so this is everyone’s business,” he says with an uncharacteristic note of anger. Chan is arguably the most prominent face of the gay rights movement on campus, and this media-savvy spokesperson rarely gets angry in interviews. This is an issue, however, of paramount importance to his organization. “We all know people who bring their small children of a different sex into the bathroom, people who have caretakers of a different sex assist them in the bathroom. Gender neutral bathrooms will simplify the way we all live our lives. This is not just transgender or queer people’s business.”
In the early 90s, I visited Harvard Law School and met some women who were extremely concerned about men getting into the women's bathroom. You needed a code to get through the lock on the door. Interesting how these issues cycle around over the years! Thoughts of the
likelihood of sexual assaults in such spaces stirred up
notes of anger. But now, it seems that what the good people are supposed to believe is that only retrograde women are worried about sharing the bathroom with men.
Posts
160 comments:
"...only retrograde women are worried about sharing the bathroom with men."
Only retrograde women still believe in the concepts of "women" and "men".
Sorry if this is the first thing that came to mind, and possibly slightly off topic, but I would dearly love to see a cross-referenced list of those who are against gender-neutral bathrooms, but for the repeal of DODT for the military and all the co-mingling of straight and homosexuals in the bathrooms that entails. Seems to me that list of people might be talking out both sides.
"So many people I know...have had the experience of being asked if they are in the ‘right bathroom’"
I must live a very sheltered life. I don't know anyone who's had that experience.
“So many people take it for granted that they can use a public bathroom”
Yes, isn't the 21st century wonderful?
"“Everyone lives their gender in different ways"
Everyone? What an interesting place you must live in.
I like those single use bathrooms because I like the privacy. It is a rare moment of quiet contemplation. So I am all for this.
If bathrooms were gender neutral, would women ever use public restrooms in unfamiliar places?
I would feel uncomfortable doing that.
For young women, the idea is even worse. A twenty year old woman is at the height of her attractiveness and gets attention all the time. She's supposed to go into an enclosed space where men can enter unnoticed and remove her pants? That's insane.
I appreciate the difficulty these transgender students face, but they need to appreciate the difficulty they seek to impose on masses of women.
"So many people I know...have had the experience of being asked if they are in the ‘right bathroom’"
Never happened to me either, but that may be because I do not go in the ladies room. I have heard rumors that they are really fancy and you gals have couches and all kinds of stuff in there.
Frankly, I think most men and women would love to go through their whole lives without knowing what the other is like while taking a dump.
Ruins the whole fantasy, ya know.
Hell, they might as well be married.
Althouse said...
"Interesting how these issues cycle around over the years! Thoughts of the likelihood of sexual assaults in such spaces stirred up notes of anger. But now, it seems that what the good people are supposed to believe is that only retrograde women are worried about sharing the bathroom with men."
Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3
The answer is porta-potties. Just line 'em up in the common.
The local children's museum has all single-stall family bathrooms. When my kids (boy-girl-boy) needed assistance in the bathroom I certainly appreciated it.
The local Y has family shower rooms. The biggest problem there is keeping non-families from using them. Not trans-identified. Just freeloaders.
"they need to appreciate the difficulty they seek to impose on masses of women"
They don't give a shit how their demands impact others. Bow before them, your Transgressive Leaders, those Breakers of Imperialist Norms.
This is the focuauldian nightmare come to life:
No norms allowed.
None.
I am what I say I am, and that can change from moment to moment. My right to be an aardvark shall not be infringed.
A girl is a boy is a rat is a pig is cow to be milked.
Where restrooms are in remote, deserted areas, it seems like folly to think that a sign will keep out rapists.
Where there is a high level of traffic, one would think that the prospect of the next person through the door being on average relatively bigger and stronger would deter rapists.
And we all know women who use the Mens room when the line is otherwise too long.
"Thoughts of the likelihood of sexual assaults in such spaces stirred up notes of anger."
Don't get angry. Take control. Concealed carry.
This is the sort of thing that makes you wonder if the Taliban isn't right.
How can this sort of stupidity be even a matter of discussion at Harvard?
These morons need something to do to occupy their time.
Single-stall bathrooms? That's great -- but also terribly impractical considering the additional space used, and, hence, additional cost. But this is Harvard -- cost is the furthest thing from their minds!
How things change indeed. When I was in high school, our "Trans Task Force" consisted of the football team dressing up like cheerleaders at the annual Variety Show. And we liked it!
they are really fancy and you gals have couches and all kinds of stuff in there.
Don't forget the chocolate fountain and the cabana boy dropping peeled grapes into the mouths of the reclining women. And the masseuses. And the pedicures. That's the real reason women take so long in the bathroom.
What is the position of the Harvard Womyn's Center on allowing males to us the Womyn's rooms?
So can we still call people who urinate in public places "drunks", or is that too hateful a word?
So can we still call people who urinate in public places "drunks", or is that too hateful a word?
Only if they're over 12.
What is the position of the Harvard Womyn's Center on allowing males to us the Womyn's rooms?
They can't be bothered with this issue right now. They're busy raising money to install female urinals in all the womyn's bathrooms. If it's good enough for men...
Where restrooms are in remote, deserted areas, it seems like folly to think that a sign will keep out rapists.
Where there is a high level of traffic, one would think that the prospect of the next person through the door being on average relatively bigger and stronger would deter rapists.
It's the places with a middling amount of traffic that you'd have to worry about. Certain mall, park, and rest stop restrooms for example. As of now, if a man enters the women's room in such a place, he is likely to be seen by one or more other people who can then alert women who approach the restroom. Also, if a man follows a woman into a restroom at such a location, others are likely to see it and take action.
If the restrooms are gender neutral, there will be nothing strange about such incidents and women will be more vulnerable for it.
We need four public bathrooms where now there are two. One for men. One for women. One for transgendered. One for conflicted.
Problem solved.
I think there is a big difference between allowing gender-neutral single-stall bathrooms--such as the ones being proposed here--and gender-neutral multiple-stall bathrooms. I, for one, don't mind the single-stall bathrooms being gender neutral, because you can still lock the door while you're in there. That is, of course, assuming that they are like gas station bathrooms, in that they are literally a tiny room with a toilet.
I don't like the multiple-stall gender neutral idea at all. That, to me, seems to beg for sexual assault. What is to stop someone from lying, and saying that they are transgendered, if they are actually a sexual predator looking for a victim? Scary thought.
What a younger generation who recognizes pc as logically inconsistent, but has it ingrained anyways will be interesting to see play out in our politics.
Single stall gender neutral bathrooms (water closets)? What silliness.
Just have one big bathroom here and there for both genders and those in-betwixt, period.
Anyone who has lived in countries where all bathrooms are "gender neutral" should understand it.
I have, and I do find our gender specific lavatories quite quaint ... in an amusing old-timey way.
" . . . women who are not trans-identified but whose gender presentation to some degree transgresses the gender norms of their context . . . "
Oh, dear God.
Aridog, that's easy for a man to write.
"If the restrooms are gender neutral, there will be nothing strange about such incidents and women will be more vulnerable for it."
This.
But that doesn't matter to people who's first priority is their "rights".
Betsy wrote: Single-stall bathrooms? That's great -- but also terribly impractical considering the additional space used, and, hence, additional cost.
But here's the deal. We're talking Harvard. And beyond Harvard we're talking about a society that has a lot of money to spend on luxury goods. Single-stall bathrooms may be one of them, if that's what enough people demand.
Certainly there are time and space constraints in big public venues. All single stall bathrooms at Fenway Park would double its size. But in a typical lecture center, all you need to do is crowd the adjunct professors into smaller offices and carve out a space here and there.
wow I really didn't know that we men have separate bathrooms to keep us from raping women. I thought it was about privacy and common courtesy.
So many people I know, including many women who are not trans-identified but whose gender presentation to some degree transgresses the gender norms of their context,
Someone actually put those phrases together in their brain and then voiced it? Nobody talks that way in real life.
Pretension University, Cambridge MA.
SGT, it's not about protecting women from men. It's about protecting women from sexual predators.
TWM said...
Frankly, I think most men and women would love to go through their whole lives without knowing what the other is like while taking a dump.
Ruins the whole fantasy, ya know.
Hell, they might as well be married.
5/11/11 8:44 AM
This is true. I want a man cave that is nothing more than my own toilet so I can be left alone in peace for a few minutes a day. I suspect my wife wants the same day, but her's will have a massive vanity and mirror (with proper lighting).
Time to shut down the humanities departments in our universities and send the morons home.
These departments serve no useful purpose, and are actually harmful in that they transform people who could actually be useful citizens into useless grievance mongers.
Right on cue, Thomas Sowell and "The 'Education' Mantra."
I don't understand the big deal. I don't have the bathrooms in my house labeled. Common sense and common courtesy go a long way: knock to see if the bathroom is occupied and adjust the seat so that you don't piss off the ladies.
When I was in college over 30 years ago, it wasn't a big deal to use the bathroom closest to you, regardless of its gender designation. Why is it now? Oh yeah, vicitmology and political correctness that demands no one be inconvenienced, offended, or irritated.
We've raised a nation of whiners like the princess and the pea.
Freeman, you are correct. A group same sex toilets may work in a few selection locations in Denmark, Harvard, or in some location where there is plenty of traffic and a group of people who want to show how progressive they are, but beyond that all you do is make women and children have to look for a private toilet.
You also have no idea how disgusting mens rooms can be. Men truly are pigs and generally have horrible aim.
Chan really sounds like a special pleader when he tries to convince us that it isn't just a boutique issue for transexuals who would have a much more convenient life.
He's angry? But he's juts proposing a neutral technocratic fix to make your life a bit easier. Why get angry? Because its a total sham for his seething resentment at a putative injustice.
So many people I know, including many women who are not trans-identified but whose gender presentation to some degree transgresses the gender norms of their context,
The SGT's translation:
She dresses Butch.
Consider this:
"...and adjust the seat so that you don't piss off the ladies.
and this:
"We've raised a nation of whiners like the princess and the pea."
Discuss.
As for the specific issue of Harvard and single stall restrooms (which is not the full scope of this article,) that's a cost issue. If Harvard wants to waste money on that, that's Harvard's prerogative.
Social policies should always be dictated by people with serious psycho-sexual problems. Ha ha. That article reminded me this:
Chinese Gossip Blogger Fights For Freedom To Post Celebrity Up-Skirt Photos
We should have bathrooms for men, woman, and then a separate room for those that have mutilated their genitals.
Chaz Bono may have had it's sex re-assigned, but I can't believe it's getting any. I mean, what woman would want to....
Hmmmm....that makes me think, maybe sexual gratification is not the goal.
Wow!
That's fucked up!
"women who are not trans-identified but whose gender presentation to some degree transgresses the gender norms of their context"
So why don't they like, try harder to not do that?
Not it's not like "hey, have you tried being not gay".
You COULD shave, and wear a skirt.
You COULD let your hair grow a bit, and wear some lipstick.
or whatever.
"...including many women who are not trans-identified but whose gender presentation to some degree transgresses the gender norms of their context...
Google wasn't able to translate that into English.
Isn't everyone smiling in the whole show?
Except for the suffering and injustice of the aggrieved group, whose suffering and injustice must be lessened by forcing the larger group to accept their suffering and injustice through appeal to authority, and campus speech codes, demands for rights wrapped in relativist logic positive "rights" rather than freedoms against the gender hegemony...riding and stirring public sentiment and protest...
Isn't someone on the verge of a laugh?
Somebody does not understand humans very well. What a surprise, they are university educated.
They should have some real people in cages at the university so the people there can study them and learn what makes them tick.
The only takeaway from this is to understand why there can never be a truce with leftists on social issues. This issue is manufactured and hyped orders of magnitude beyond its relevance.
The only reason to pay attention to this issue is as an example to those on the right who recommend compromise on social issues. No matter how much you compromise with the left their response will only be to invent new issues on which to base the same attacks they always have. So you end up in the same place, except you're out the billions of dollars wasted.
It's been quite a while since Harvard University had any positive press. This is another example of bad press. I'd think they'd be concerned. But like the movers and shakers at the NYT, the powers that be seem unconcerned.
The only reason to pay attention to this issue is as an example to those on the right who recommend compromise on social issues. No matter how much you compromise with the left their response will only be to invent new issues on which to base the same attacks they always have. So you end up in the same place, except you're out the billions of dollars wasted.
Exactly... which is why conceding on gay marriage will do absolutely no good.
The spoiled brats will just ante up a new set of demands.
Several years ago, while studying at the Divinity School, Partridge medically transitioned from female to male, but before that procedure
wow... I had to google that, I didnt thin k you could do that or that anybody would want to go through that much pain... however there are clearly some folks at the tail end of the distribution who want it badly...
I will spare you the link, but give you the caption:
Patient come to us for urethral extension, insertion of penile prosthesis, testicular implants and glans plasty (a recent post op photo).
wv:skinfi
the skin needed to cover the urethral extension
Reallly??? This is a topic of discussion an one of the elite schools??? Honest to God - to hell in a hand basket, to hell in a hand basket!
If Harvard wants to waste money on that, that's Harvard's prerogative.
Agreed. I think it would be a silly waste of money.
When the daughter and I toured U of M, I used a bathroom there that was bigger than my living room. Talk about palatial! (And echoes!)
Old buildings have nice big bathrooms.
Harvard and the other schools that support this drivel deserve bad press.
"“Everyone lives their gender in different ways, so this is everyone’s business,” he says with an uncharacteristic note of anger."
Uncharacteristic my ass.
Queer studies my ass.
Oh wait, perhaps I should rephrase that. Ah what the frack, I am sticking with it.
Trey
I think its great. The same people who claimed it was no biggie for gays to share bathrooms, showers, berthing spaces with straits finally get it.
Make them shower together too.
Frickin hypocrites.
TWM said...
Frankly, I think most men and women would love to go through their whole lives without knowing what the other is like while taking a dump.
Ruins the whole fantasy, ya know.
Hell, they might as well be married.
I nominate TWM's comment as the funniest and yet apropos of the lot. I expect, because this is a proverbial "crapper thread," that it will go near viral. :-))
This is what happens when words lose their meaning.
Norms are dismantled without understanding their importance.
What could possibly go wrong?
Your attention please! If anyone sees Mr./Mrs/Ms CommonSense, please tell him/her/it to return to Harvard. They are in dire need of a clue-transfusion.
That is all.
I don't like the multiple-stall gender neutral idea at all. That, to me, seems to beg for sexual assault. What is to stop someone from lying, and saying that they are transgendered, if they are actually a sexual predator looking for a victim? Scary thought.
Are there bathroom rapists stalking the halls of Harvard?
I think there is a big difference between allowing gender-neutral single-stall bathrooms--such as the ones being proposed here--and gender-neutral multiple-stall bathrooms. I, for one, don't mind the single-stall bathrooms being gender neutral, because you can still lock the door while you're in there.
Nope. Open toilets, no stalls. Just like the Marine Corps.
Single use bathrooms
porta-potties?
Gender-specific bathrooms are so ... heteronormative.
As if that reflects real world conditions.
"women who are not trans-identified but whose gender presentation to some degree transgresses the gender norms of their context"
22 years old and he already sounds like a pompous ass. You don't get an education at Haavahd, you get an indoctrination.
The obvious solution is for men to be accompanied by their mother.
Funny, but this stuff only happens in college. Once you leave, the real world doesn't seem to struggle with restroom questions.
I'm glad I graduated years ago.
"women who are not trans-identified but whose gender presentation to some degree transgresses the gender norms of their context"
It's the "of their context" that loses me.
Where restrooms are in remote, deserted areas, it seems like folly to think that a sign will keep out rapists.
Or bears.
22 years old and he already sounds like a pompous ass. You don't get an education at Haavahd, you get an indoctrination.
When you sign up for classes each semester at Harvard, do they send you to a separate room where you're sprayed down with another layer of insulation from reality?
"Or bears."
I'm tellin' ya: Concealed carry.
Freeman Hunt said...
Aridog, that's easy for a man to write.
How so? Seriously.
Why is that all these various gender driven groups seek "equal rights & access" yet when it comes to the most fundamental of bodily functions ... they go all "Jim Crow" on the subject of segregated poop facilities?
What? We need 5 separate facilities: Male, Female, Gay, Lesbian, and Trans-gender in order to be "liberated" and gentrified? "Need" as distinguished from "convenient" that is.
I may be a barbarian, but all I care about when a high colonic or 10 beer whizz moment arrives is that there IS a open stall to utilize. It's so crude to use a washbasin, ya' know. :-))
Too much of my time in wilderness Montana, et al., perhaps? It ain't just bears who do it in the woods. "Tension" is when a bear wanders up when youse doin' it.
Come on, now ... we should all share those Eu du Rip-Your-Face-Off moments. Bwahahahaha.
Don't most places have a separate handicap toilet? Those that are conflicted/transgendered could use those.
For men, lets have pissoirs in scenic locations. As a trade off, we could give up some stalls for others.
why does Harvard have such high concentration of abnormal, er.... deviant, er .... unusual .... that's it .... "unusual" students enrolled? Do they add points ACT or SAT points for being "unusual"?
That woman is very obviously a woman.
And no matter their appearance, a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, and these things cannot be changed. Surgically altered appearance is just an expensive form of transvestism.
That such people seek to control the rest of the society is just another symptom of our dying culture.
@Quasimodo: It must have something to do with "context".
What? We need 5 separate facilities: Male, Female, Gay, Lesbian, and Trans-gender in order to be "liberated" and gentrified? "Need" as distinguished from "convenient" that is.
No. Just male and female.
I think anyone who advocates for universal unisex bathrooms fails to appreciate the intensity of attention that attractive young women receive.
Fen sez:
Open toilets, no stalls. Just like the Marine Corps.
Amen.
Isn't our culture cruel - forcing people to be a gender that they aren't?
It is the ultimate imperialism, that American was able to reach back into time and impose physical gender markers on people so that now we are able to enforce our hegemony.
God doesn't exist to consult, and Darwin's outcome was tampered with.
It all sucks.
Quasimodo said...
why does Harvard have such high concentration of abnormal, er.... deviant, er .... unusual .... that's it .... "unusual" students enrolled? Do they add points ACT or SAT points for being "unusual"?
actually they do. You don't think that your admissions essay detailing your struggles as a "?????" person, the discrimination you have experienced, your inner feeling at the injustice, and your desire to help other people like yourself.... won't score better than, "I want into Harvard to meet chicks and get a good job"??
"This is an issue, however, of paramount importance to his organization."
I can well imagine. Large grants, political power, media exposure (no pun intended) to follow!
Freeman Hunt said...
I think anyone who advocates for universal unisex bathrooms fails to appreciate the intensity of attention that attractive young women receive.
You may have a point there, but using the "Fen Model" of just open stools, I can't figure the "attention" part where one is greeted with the visage of a lady squatting on a stool grunting like the rest of us.
Maybe it's just me.
Back to TWM's "just like being married" concept?
Scott M said...
22 years old and he already sounds like a pompous ass. You don't get an education at Haavahd, you get an indoctrination.
When you sign up for classes each semester at Harvard, do they send you to a separate room where you're sprayed down with another layer of insulation from reality?
They're getting them ready to work for Little Zero. The Feds assign jobs based on how many oppressed minorities you're in.
A black, female, disabled, trans-gendered worker is the Federal employment equivalent of the Million Dollar Wound in WWII.
I have shared a bathroom with my wife for years. It works out just fine.
However, we respect each other's privacy, rather than invade it to score agenda points.
Back to TWM's "just like being married" concept?
True dat.
You know the romance and the mystery is over and you are now truly an old married couple, when your spouse freely farts in bed or you have a conversation with each other while one of you is on the can.
And by the way . . . .
The obsession with these and similar issues at Harvard and other "elite" institutions is pathetic.
An entire world is in need of improvement, starting with less trendy "rights" like clean drinking water, free elections, freedom of expression, the right to earn a decent living without engaging in bribery of officials or being subject to confiscation by government or criminals, etc.
They are up in arms over bathroom rights at Harvard.
Utterly pathetic.
Dust Bunny Queen said:
...when your spouse freely farts in bed or you have a conversation with each other while one of you is on the can.
Now there's an image I didn't need this morning :-)
Psssst ... I agree with you.
But that is a bit beyond the public restroom "context."
Can women piss standing up? Or if they do does it just tinkle down her leg?
What is to stop someone from lying, and saying that they are transgendered, if they are actually a sexual predator looking for a victim?
Could a person who is raped in such a bathroom sue Harvard (successfully) for providing an environment conducive to Rape? Especially, given althouse's note about how this topic cycles through the years, if note is given how you used to have to enter a code to get in!
Popeye the Trans Sailor Man sez:
I yam whatever I sez I yam.
Could a person who is raped in such a bathroom sue Harvard (successfully) for providing an environment conducive to Rape?
I don't see why not, when you can sue for bears being in the woods.... and win.
Student wore a female rubber mask and wig to spy on women in public toilets
A student who wore a female rubber mask while spying on women in shopping centre toilets has escaped jail.
Joel Hardman, 22, also put on a jet-black wig so he could slip into the women's toilets unnoticed at the Bullring, Birmingham.
The MA student, described in court as an intelligent man, got sexual gratification from listening to women use the toilet - and even made audio recordings.
Hardman, who had previously admitted watching someone during a private act for his own sexual gratification, said he initially went into the University of Birmingham's women's toilets."
All he had to do was say "I feel pretty".
According to Harvard.
All he had to do was say "I feel pretty".
According to Harvard.
I'm betting the university is reserving the right to spot check for Judy Garland on your Ipod before you're allowed in.
Freeman Hunt ... just to clarify, I am not "advocating" for unisex restrooms, just suggesting that the issue is spurious. It isn't a "need" ... it is a wish, and is a form of privacy courtesy I think. Where it exists, fine. I just can't calculate how it is a University issue of any magnitude otherwise.
Seriously, in "need" terms, the "Fen Model" (aka USMC) is all that is necessary.
We're used to "Male" and "Female" segregated facilities, but his thread began on the subject of valid identification there of and just who could use what ... or did I misread it?
I even think women have a valid argument about the abundance of facilities shortage in public places versus men, who are urinal use endowed.
This is all about the dominance of the majority culture by the weirdos. As someone said, if this point is conceded, another will appear. This sort of thing is more common at Harvard, for example, because those kids think they have it made and have plenty of time for such twaddle. At junior colleges kids are working harder because they know it is not friendly out there in the world.
I even think women have a valid argument about the abundance of facilities shortage in public places versus men, who are urinal use endowed.
A valid argument against who? God? Mother Nature? Darwin? Our respective plumbing is what it is. Apart from that, I seriously doubt women would undergo the bullshit we're forced to in a men's room at some place like a concert hall or sports arena.
Scott M said...
A valid argument against who? God? Mother Nature? Darwin? Our respective plumbing is what it is ...
No argument from me.
My reference was to the older facilities, such as Hockey arenas to cite one example I'm familiar with. The number of toilets for women are usually not equal to the number of urinals and toilets aggregate for men.
All considered for nearly $100 a decent seat rink side, women might expect expanded facilities. That's not to say it's required by any Darwinian measurement.
Elsewhere I've said one jumbo unisex lavatory is fine by me. Then, again, I've lived where that was the norm.
I can't explain or understand the individuals of either sex who get gratification from anal and/or urinary sounds and action. Call me naive...or sheltered. Being around and cleaning up after horses and large dogs for much of my life, among other things, leaves me with interest in it beyond the necessary sanitary considerations.
I am also NOT going to "touch" the subject of just why women take more time in general in the Loo. Not into self-crucification today :-))
I realize I am stupid as a bag of rocks for just "mentioning" that "time" issue.
Ducking now.
Cameron Partridge pulled over on the highway to use a rest stop bathroom. He crossed the lobby and headed toward a restroom. At the time, Partridge identified as transgender but had yet to transition and therefore did not feel comfortable using the men’s restroom. So as he opened the door to the women’s restroom a man yelled, “Hey buddy—wait!” The man walked over with a dim-witted grin on his face and said to Partridge, “You’re about to go into the ladies room!”
Dim-witted! For trying to save someone the embarrassment of using the wrong restroom.
that time issue
Women: Pantyhose down. Sitting. Pantyhose up. Tucking in. Flushing. Washing hands.
Men: Unzip. Zip.
Single stalled bathrooms have several advantages. Either sex can use the bathroom so there is more flexibility. There is more privacy. A child can use the bathroom by himself without worry of predators. Because the bathroom is so small, there is no place for a predator to hide in it. A parent or grandparent with a child who is not the same gender as the parent or grandparent can go into the bathroom to help the child with much less weirdness for the child. I really hate the idea of taking one of my grand daughters into a large men's bathroom.
The biggest downside is that women are not going to enjoy using a bathroom that is also used by boys because it tends to be not very clean.
who are not trans-identified but whose gender presentation to some degree transgresses the gender norms of their context
Golly, I just love Orwellian-speak!
As long as even one transgender feels better about the many many changes we make to accommodate their whims, then it's all for the good.
The biggest downside is that women are not going to enjoy using a bathroom that is also used by boys because it tends to be not very clean
The biggest downside is that men are not going to enjoy getting into a serious relationship with women because they tend to be very psycho.
There. Now the cosmic balance is equal.
"The biggest downside is that..."
The biggest downside is that it costs 5 times as much to build single stall bathrooms.
Open toilets, no stalls. Just like the Marine Corps.
Amen.
I wasn't serious. My point is that the Harvard crowd called us homophobic simply because we didn't want to share our bathroom with other-gender.
Good. Goose. Gander.
"The biggest downside is that men are not going to enjoy getting into a serious relationship with women because they tend to be very psycho.
There. Now the cosmic balance is equal."
Hilarious.
"The biggest downside is that it costs 5 times as much to build single stall bathrooms."
5 times as expensive seems way high to me. I'm not an expert but I have done a couple of bathroom remodels and a kitchen remodel (the fun never ends), including doing all the plumbing changes, and I don't see where converting the typical small unisex bathroom to serving both genders is going to increase the cost of that bathroom by 500%.
Obviously, converting a big unisex bathroom is more challenging because the depth of the room makes it harder to configure for external doors.
This is the next thing for the left. Now that they have pretty much won the gay thing, now they are working on doing away with genders.
"5 times as expensive seems way high to me."
You have to consider the large increase in square footage to provide multiple units. This ain't your house, it's a public building.
Here's the sequence I'd expect:
Marco Chan is angry about something! So...
1. Carve out and install new single-stall unisex restrooms.
2. All campus restrooms become unisex. Except those over there, of course.
3. Women who glimpse briefly exposed male body parts in the formerly male, now unisex restrooms are overcome with attacks of the vapors.
4. Urinals are removed to prevent such legally dangerous encounters, and to eliminate gender bias to facilities access. Use of enclosed stalls now mandatory. Urinating in the standing position strongly discouraged by new gender neutrality equality enforcement staff.
5. Women / Allies complain of sexual harrassment resulting from heterosexual male behavior, conversation, presence in unisex restrooms. Studies cite ickyness, fears of cooties.
6. With great gravity, Harvard announces the groundbreaking Restroom Freedom Initiative requiring registered heterosexual males to wear blindfolds, bell collars, and obtain permission slips from a Trans Task Force certified attendant prior to each restroom use.
7. Marco Chan is angry about something!
Fen said...
I wasn't serious.
I was ... but I'll admit a bit of tongue in cheek.
The image just cracks me up of men, women, and whomever, all squatting, farting, and gasping in an un-cloistered group. The self-conscious aspect is the thing ... so many illusions demolished.
That said, societies should build what ever they want and can afford vis a vis privacy for restroom moments. Just realize it is pleasant convenience, not absolute necessity.
"5 times as expensive seems way high to me."
"You have to consider the large increase in square footage to provide multiple units. This ain't your house, it's a public building."
Yeah but 5 times is still way too high. A certain amount of space in the large public bathroom is to accommodate traffic. That space can be used for hallways. Extra space will probably still be required for hallways but it is not going to double space requirements (more like an additional 25% to 40%), let alone be 5 times bigger.
The additional hallway space will be cheap to build, compared to the cost of building the bathroom.
A nice compromise solution would be to reuse some of the existing large bathroom space that fronts on a hallway and convert that space into single unit bathrooms.
This would leave large unisex bathrooms (albeit smaller than previously), while still permitting space for the single unit bathrooms that have the extra privacy that some members of the public need.
I don't like transgender people and resent them being included with gays.
Trannys are gross.
I'm gay and reading stories like this makes me wonder: How the fuck (pardon the language) did I ever get lumped in with these morons? PICK A FUCKING GENDER AND STICK WITH IT! This notion of gender as a social construct is so vacuous, so intellectually insipid, only a place as high-minded as Harvard would be dumb enough to entertain it.
(It's simply delicious, though, when I meet politically active gays who insist that bathroom discrimination and inability to marry are comparable to the Nazi's treatment of homosexuals. To the gas chambers, go! It just proves that the gay rights lobby has lost whatever little usefulness it once had.)
My mom watched Chaz Bono on Oprah and informed me that Chaz does not have a cock yet.
Thanks Mom.
Weren't there warnings of gender-neutral bathrooms if the gay-rights agenda succeeded?
I remember people being mocked for making that claim.
Much like they were mocked for claiming that gays would want to get married.
This notion of gender as a social construct is so vacuous, so intellectually insipid, only a place as high-minded as Harvard would be dumb enough to entertain it.
I've always wondered how someone with such a worldview as mentioned above reconciles gender in animals. Social construct? If not, then to be intellectually consistent, you would have to admit humans are exceptional. If you admit humans are exceptional, you're going to undermine a whole pantheon of greenie poo poo.
The image just cracks me up of men, women, and whomever, all squatting, farting, and gasping in an un-cloistered group.
Not me. My imagination auto-visuals whatever sounds I hear. Its why the wifey isn't allowed to talk to me while she's on the toilet.
We can solve the problem by reverting back to outhouses. One person per outhouse reduces the risk of sexual assault. And the doors will be marked by either a crescent moon or a star, and the user can choose which shape best represents the gender norms of their...context.
The cover story of the latest Isthmus is on a transsexual. It's extremely sad, with pouty, whiny photos.
Life is so tough for transsexuals that they're the victim's victim.
@Titus: Thank your mom for that juicy bit of info. I was curious about that. Even so, after Chaz's "transition," she still just looks like a fat dyke.
@Scott: The liberal answer would be, "Stop asking perfectly logical questions!" Or they just find some obscure family of animal that supports whatever it is they're trying to say. Apparently we have the sexual appetites of ducks, the violent propensities of apes, the gender constructs of wrasses, and the socio-economic structuring of ants. See? It's found in nature, therefore it's how humans should behave.
Coketown said...
And the doors will be marked by either a crescent moon or a star, and the user can choose which shape best represents the gender norms of their...context.
You forgot about pink hearts and green clovers...
Titus, coketown, these are your people.
If you oppose people whose gender idenity changes from day to day, then you are just like the KKK denying African-Ameircans the right to vote.
You know, at one time we didn't have full bathroom rights for Blacks. This is just like that.
(for those not too observant, I am mocking the gay-rights crowd)
@Chuck: Blacks have Uncle Toms and the GLBTQQ lobby has "self-hating gays." If you don't support the most ridiculous manifestations of identity politics--like seeing public bathrooms as a mechanism of oppression--then you're not 'one of us.' Which is fine with me. Au revoir, losers!
Will unisex multi-person restrooms have urinals in them? Or will women have to arm themselves with toilet paper in advance of sitting down?
Just asking the important questions here.
Actually, my own experience of restrooms used by both sexes shows that there are no problems of that kind. Unfortunately, the sample size is small, as it's limited to bathrooms owned by my own immediate family. I haven't Harvard's 73 single-occupancy restrooms to reference.
wv: sawavuln. Not sure I want to think what that might mean.
@Chuck: Blacks have Uncle Toms and the GLBTQQ lobby has "self-hating gays." If you don't support the most ridiculous manifestations of identity politics--like seeing public bathrooms as a mechanism of oppression--then you're not 'one of us.' Which is fine with me. Au revoir, losers!
Geoff Matthews,
Weren't there warnings of gender-neutral bathrooms if the gay-rights agenda succeeded?
There were warnings of gender-neutral bathrooms if the ERA succeeded. Which it didn't, but that was thirty-plus years ago.
I think Freeman Hunt has it right: The problem with multi-stall restrooms accessible to both sexes is the risk of sexual assault. In comparison to that, the risk of a lady with a super-butch haircut being asked whether she's in the right restroom looms ... well, doesn't loom at all, to be honest.
wv: pronelst. I may be prone, but rarely pronelst.
three types of rest room
a. men
b. women
c. ?
They will be self policing
I love this line from the Crimson article:
"With simplistic stick figures adorning its doors—a woman in a dress and the outline of a man—the public bathroom is one of the last remaining institutions that sifts men from women."
Doesn't that just prove how *ridiculous* that whole 'gender' thingie is?! I mean gosh, it's like we're still living with this vestigial thing from, idk, the 20th Century?
I know that, thanks to my Higher Education, I don't even **see* gender anymore! Whew! Thank Gaia for that! The blinders are off of me!
In a thousand years, if some anthropologist digs up your bones and analyzes them, the card next to the display in the museum will read either "Male" or "Female". Regardless of your confusion, rebellion, or disappointment regarding your gender, you are what you are, not what you want to be.
In the meanwhile, piss where and when you need to do so, drawing as little attention to yourself as possible, please. Someone several dozen comments back mentioned convenience (I think). It's nice to have designated bathrooms for every preference, but when nature calls, it's quite possible that you may have to squat in the parking lot of the stadium, balance by your car on the side of the road, duck behind a bush, or just shit yourself when you hesitate too long.
Shit happens.
three types of rest room
a. men
b. women
c. people who are not trans-identified but whose gender presentation to some degree transgresses the gender norms of their context
I know that, thanks to my Higher Education, I don't even **see* gender anymore! Whew! Thank Gaia for that! The blinders are off of me!
It's either that, or they force you to use the reactionary knuckle-dragger-bitter-clinger bathroom. The symbol on the door is the outline of a man with a club over one should, dragging the skirted outline of a woman by the outline of her hair.
Mc Sorely's fixed this problem back in the day when feminists forced themselves into the bar. They had only one bathroom, they just took the doors off the stalls.
Knock yourself out.
I hate the word transgressive.
So.......we have to turn our lives upside down and start sharing bathrooms with the opposite sex (embarassing and potentially dangerous to women) to make "transgendered" people feel good? Why are we constantly catering to the lowest possible denominator? Why should a group that is perhaps one tenth of one percent of the population dictate bathroom etiquette?
Argh.
"Why should a group that is perhaps one tenth of one percent of the population dictate bathroom etiquette?"
Because they can. This is all about power.
If these university people are so bright, they should know that words have gender, people have sex.
But love has pitched his mansion
In the place of excrement.
Poor Yeats: our elites have made a religion of what for him was an inescapable dilemma and now find their highest meaning in the loo.
Fen said...
... the wifey isn't allowed to talk to me while she's on the toilet.
Good rule.
Around here the better half only tries to speak (she actually curses loudly) to me through the bathroom door if I have forgotten to replenish the bun wad supply and left her with a Sheryl Crow ration to work with.
I frequently stop at various small convenience store/gas stations on my travels through rural parts of Iowa. They almost always have restrooms that are essentially single-occupant only yet there will be two, segregated by sex, and people will wait in line to use the appropriate facility even if the other one is unoccupied.
Well, with the exception of Iowa City the state is still pretty sane.
"I want into Harvard to meet chicks and get a good job"??
How things have changed. Recently, JFK's application for admission was put up on the Internet. He said something to the effect that he wanted to be a Harvard Man. Short and sweet.
But, he got in anyway. He listed his father's job as Chairman of the SEC (apparently before he became Ambassador to the Court of Saint James). And, said father said something like that John was smart enough, but he didn't work hard enough.
The biggest downside is that women are not going to enjoy using a bathroom that is also used by boys because it tends to be not very clean.
Yes and no. It turns out that the average public women's room apparently has significantly more germs than the comparable male facility.
I would suggest that that is because men typically only use the stalls to #2, not #1, while women use them for both. Thus, when they do #1, they pick up and share the germs from someone else's #2. (And urine is much cleaner in terms of germs than feces). And, this is probably even more true today, with automatic sinks and towel dispensers in many public rest rooms.
But, yes, outwardly, bathrooms used by males tend to appear dirtier than those used by women.
That reminds me of something I saw a bit ago in a medical facility - parts of well known stories through the ages that involve people getting sick, and often dying, due to germs from bathrooms. You mostly miss them, because euphemisms are used that aren't used any more.
This reminds me of a story I think I related before here of something that happened in Scottsdale a couple of years ago.
Apparently, there were several guys dressed as women hanging out in the women's room at a club. When they refused to stay away from there, they were banned from the club.
Apparently, the guys still needed to shave, had not undergone reassignment surgery, and were in general freaking out the women who would find them there.
Don't know what ultimately happened, but the club has my sympathies here.
And this is the place that furnishes our leaders?
One thing to keep in mind though is that college is different from real life. A freshman co-ed a year or two ago was on a co-ed dorm wing, where rooms were single sex, but tended to alternate (don't know how those who can't figure out their sex fit in the rotation though). They supposedly had single sex bathrooms, but often the close one was not gender appropriate. And, yes, there is a lot of drinking freshman year. So, the guys, in particular, well into their cups, would use the closest bathroom, which statistically would be the women's room roughly half the time.
The first time a lot of the women encountered this, they were a bit taken aback. But, by Christmas, they mostly didn't care any more.
Now, this isn't the sort of thing that Freeman Hunt was talking about, since the guys were known to gals. Probably too well (it was often the same guys who were drunk most every night, and they lived a couple doors down from the girls involved).
Where there is a high level of traffic, one would think that the prospect of the next person through the
one of my alumni suffered an ttepnt to rpe in the biggest mall here at noon. She was saved because ,the entrance is common and a man run to call guards that were coming anyway because there are cameras in the bathroom.
Another one was asked by a female profsesor if she was in the wrong bsthroom. She is straigh with a daughter but with hands that would be the envy of a MLB or NBA playe rand a little to strong looking chin
the intensity of attention that women receive.
As soon as she breaths and is legal she will receive attention
The 'broken windows' theory would note that the degradation of these norms will result in more crime.
People with gender identity problems are mentally ill. Gender reassignment surgeries should be a crime.
Breast implants, hormone treatments and the like are weird but reversible and relatively harmless, but carving a penis into a nub and turning a section of intestine into a "vagina" is monstrous and doctors who so mutilate their patients should be ashamed. I don't know how they do the female to male but I'm sure it's equally gruesome.
I'm not even sure we should be reassigning babies who are born intersexed.
"“Everyone lives their gender in different ways, so this is everyone’s business,” he says with an uncharacteristic note of anger."
No mister, your queerness is none of my business. I couldn't care less if you want to turn your penis into an L.E.D. glowstick.
The onus is on the gender-confused community to either use their own bathroom or conform to separate gender bathrooms as best they can, as they currently exist.
Look, if some 'chick' pulls up next to me in the adjacent urinal and displays a rocket for excreting waste, I'm going to be a bit uncomfortable. But the chances of it actually happening are almost nonexistent.
Clearly there is a certain class of folks that are determined to make the 'normal' majority conform to their altered lifestyles.
Ridiculous.
Christine Jorgensen was the first well known transexual.
I learned about her from my late father, here.
Just how difficult is two sexes? Only a mental midget wants to talk themselves into six more sexes and than pretend that the harmless and common sense rules developed for two sexes are somehow being mean to them. Remember, there are only two no matter how much pretend you play.
When you bring your little boys into the ladies room when you've gotta go, just keep 'em from peeking their heads under the stalls while you're wiping yourself or the other, eh?
Yes. They don't do it because they've been trained not to do it. I'm exceedingly vigilant about my children as concerns other people's space.
And yes, the bloom has faded significantly on this flower, but when I was a teenager and later a college student, men followed me around a lot. If they'd been able to follow me into the bathroom, I would never have gone into one.
Please note that my arguments are not in opposition to single, unisex restrooms. Those are perfectly safe and only an issue of cost. My arguments are against unisex, multi-stall restrooms.
Hmmm, when I was a freshman we had shared bathrooms on our floor. It just wasn't an issue, even though it wasn't uncommon to be in the shower and have women come in to brush their teeth at the sinks or use the stalls. We just had a floor meeting at the beginning of the year and everyone was cool about it.
It did cut down on intra-floor dating though--nothing ruins mystery like seeing a hungover girl stumbling to the bathroom in the early morning.
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