'Genderist' restrooms...

[Rovi]

With my sincere apologies to my benighted friends and neighbours across the Irish Sea, but you guys just have to see this:
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7643136.stm

Ridiculous in the extreme, but I can't believe that similar stuff hasn't happened in the loonier areas of the U.S. too; anyone know of an examples?

[MicroBalrog]

I happened to accidentally wander onto the premises of Israel's LGBT Film Festival two years ago (it was held on the premises of the country's largest DVD rental store). They had unisex bathrooms. That solved it.

[Kwelz]

Yeah I have never seen the point behind separate Mens and Women's Bathrooms.  Then again I have never been as Prudish as the country as a while seems to be. 
That being said, this story is enough example of countries going off the deep end. 

[Boomhauer]

Yeah I have never seen the point behind separate Mens and Women's Bathrooms.  Then again I have never been as Prudish as the country as a while seems to be. 
That being said, this story is enough example of countries going off the deep end. 

Separate restrooms mean us men don't have to wait on the women to finish their business.

If you know anything at all about women, you know they take FOREVER in the restroom. And they can't go to the restroom without another woman

[MicroBalrog]

While separate restrooms generally do make sense (mostly due to people's sensitivities), obviously in a place with a lot of LGBT people it makes sense to cater to THEIR sensitivities and have unisex bathrooms.

[Manedwolf]

While separate restrooms generally do make sense (mostly due to people's sensitivities), obviously in a place with a lot of LGBT people it makes sense to cater to THEIR sensitivities and have unisex bathrooms.

No, it doesn't.

It's a violation of the rights of people who want gender privacy.

But they don't matter, right? Is that not "sex-positive"?

Granted, if someone owns a business, they can do what they want with their own restrooms. But if it's a venue paid for by taxpayer dollars, absolutely not.

[MicroBalrog]

It's a violation of the rights of people who want gender privacy.

I am sorry, but no. If I risk my money and livelihood to start a restaurant or a DVD rental place, it is my right to build whatever bathrooms I choose to build there. Don't like it? Patronize a different business.

Naturally the notion of genderist loos in Manchester Uni is ridiculous, but then so is the notion of public universities in the first place.

[Manedwolf]

It's a violation of the rights of people who want gender privacy.

I am sorry, but no. If I risk my money and livelihood to start a restaurant or a DVD rental place, it is my right to build whatever bathrooms I choose to build there. Don't like it? Patronize a different business.

I would patronize a different business.

Around here, so would everyone else. Some parts of Boston, maybe that'd fly. But not here.

Plus, lawsuit hilarity would ensue the first time a pervert was spotted trying to spy on young girls. Which would happen.

[MicroBalrog]

Don't such places already exist?

[Manedwolf]

Don't such places already exist?

Not here.

Providence, Rhode Island, where any straight couples derisively get yells of "breeder", probably.

[MicroBalrog]

It appears that multiple US colleges have unisex bathrooms - among them are Beloit College in Wisconsin, Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

More here.

At the City College of San Francisco, a community college with more than 100,000 students, about 10 percent to 12 percent of the students are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. After complaints of harassment by a transgender student, campus administrators recently transformed some men's bathrooms into gender-neutral ones.

Note that this article is from 2005.

Plus, lawsuit hilarity would ensue the first time a pervert was spotted trying to spy on young girls.

None of these colleges have been sued yet. Probably because no plague of perverts has occured.

[Manedwolf]

College is not the real world.

[MicroBalrog]

College is not the real world.

So people in college are less perverse, somehow?

[FTA84]

I was wondering when this would happen as a fall out of gay rights. (Don't get me wrong, I am not against gay rights).  However, it seems to me that female/male seperation of restrooms basically had to do with keeping peeping tom boys away from your daughter.  In today's culture, where love 'knows no such bounds', boys can peep on boys and girls can peep on girls therefore some believe we should all just peep on eachother.  Maybe to be safe, all multi-user facilities should be turned into "one hole"ers.

[makattak]

College is not the real world.

So people in college are less perverse, somehow?

You will note, his post said the college converted a number of MALE bathrooms to "gender neutral"

If you're a guy, who cares if someone "peeps" on you? (It'll just be other guys anyway, even if dressed as girls).

If you're a girl and don't want to get peeped on? Go to the girls bathroom.

It's perfect liberalism: they get to be "inclusive" and STILL have a protected class! WIN WIN!

[MicroBalrog]

Around here, so would everyone else. Some parts of Boston, maybe that'd fly. But not here.

A brief web search found multiple NH-based businesses with 'Genderfree' bathrooms.

No pervos in evidence.

http://www.safe2pee.org/

[MicroBalrog]

You will note, his post said the college converted a number of MALE bathrooms to "gender neutral"

That was one college. We don't know what the other ones did.

[MicroBalrog]

In today's culture, where love 'knows no such bounds', boys can peep on boys and girls can peep on girls therefore some believe we should all just peep on eachother.

The real 'culprit' is the concept of 'gender' itself. Essentially, the term 'gender' implies an identity that is psychological rather than physical in nature (rather than using the term 'sex'). So you can have 'transgendered' people who are male in female bodies etc, or even more complex stuff. Some of them get operations.

Of course, some people believe that you are what you're born as - even after you've had your parts reshaped.

Don't know what I think of this, though the argument for modern gender theory makes sense to me.

[Manedwolf]

Around here, so would everyone else. Some parts of Boston, maybe that'd fly. But not here.

A brief web search found multiple NH-based businesses with 'Genderfree' bathrooms.

No pervos in evidence.

http://www.safe2pee.org/

I am certainly not clicking on that link at work, but I will evaluate it later to see if that information need be forwarded to the State's Attorney in terms of violation of the state obscenity laws regarding such things. Unless they are single-use door locking bathrooms, they might need to investigate said businesses.

[MicroBalrog]

It contains a Google-map of bathrooms across the North-American continent, searchable by city and state (or Canadian province). Perfectly SFW.

[Manedwolf]

It contains a Google-map of bathrooms across the North-American continent, searchable by city and state (or Canadian province). Perfectly SFW.

Those are pointing to single-use locking restrooms. In the case of the mall, that's the single-use one that is INTENDED for handicapped people or families with small children for privacy. It's not meant for that.

Multiple-fixture public restrooms without gender division would quite easily fall under NH's Indecent Exposure laws, I believe, and the State's Attorney would likely close the business until they complied.

New Hampshire is still conservative and Republican for the most part, and lacks the liberal permissiveness of MA. We'd like to keep it that way.

[MicroBalrog]

Mmm, it is possible I was wrong.

Although wouldn't indecent exposure mean that people at least get to see you nekkid?

At any rate, unisex bathrooms (i.e. bathrooms wherein a single room has many enclosed stalls that can be used equally by men and women) have existed across the US for years. Please point to incidences where the establishments that use them have been sued due to the actions of these mythical 'perverts'.

I take it 'perverts' are the new 'paedophiles' and the new 'terrorists'.

[De Selby]

Mmm, it is possible I was wrong.

Although wouldn't indecent exposure mean that people at least get to see you nekkid?

At any rate, unisex bathrooms (i.e. bathrooms wherein a single room has many enclosed stalls that can be used equally by men and women) have existed across the US for years. Please point to incidences where the establishments that use them have been sued due to the actions of these mythical 'perverts'.

I take it 'perverts' are the new 'paedophiles' and the new 'terrorists'.

The mythical "pervert behind every bush" has been the whipping horse for all sorts of madness for longer than terrorists.

[never_retreat]

I don't want to have to share a bathroom with women. They are pigs when it comes to public bathrooms.
I had a first hand experience of this this weekend. 2 brand new bathrooms, 1 mens, 1 womens, add 2 thousand people for a festival (prob equal men and women). (There were also port johns also)
I had to go into both to look for a electrical problem that was in the drop ceilings.
It looked like a bomb hit the womens room. Stunk to holy high hell, tp every were and so on.
Mens room an overflowed trash can, thats it.

[mtnbkr]

SS:  As the father of two girls, I don't feel like taking the chance that the "mythical pervert behind every bush" is anything but a myth.  As a male child, I had enough run-ins with public restroom perverts to know they are real.

Never_Retreat: When I worked for Parks and Rec during college (4 summers), it was always the women's room at various parks that were the foulest.  My experience mirrors yours.

Chris