Something my husband ran across in Orlando Florida last week caught my eye. Especially after Kal’s post this week:
This was posted in the NASPA Conference in Orlando earlier this month.
I love gender neutral restrooms, so does husband. I would go further to remark that I also prefer gender neutral locker rooms--but that is another post.
Yes, I am cis-gendered, but I am also a mom. What strictly gendered restrooms mean to me is that I have had to hover outside the men’s room while waiting for my six or seven year old son uses the restroom. Or take him to the ladies room and have said ladies glare at me.
The same thing happened to my husband when he took daughter out. Worse yet, when she was tiny, he discovered that most men’s rooms didn’t have things like changing tables,so he would be stuck changing daughter on precarious counter or filthy floor.
Then of course, there is the sheer ableism of this. I have spent some years of my life being disabled and one of the real problems that one runs into, if one requires help in the restroom, is the absence of gender neutral or disabled facilities. My husband would be unable to help me, if I were to need it, and I certainly would be unable to help my husband.
Oh yes, if one is in a wheelchair or using a cane, one can generally get a manager or a server to check if the coast is clear and allow opposite gender caregiver into rest room, but if one has an invisible disability (like they’ve had a colostomy and are still sore from the surgery, as happened to my stepmother) one does not necessarily appreciate having to reveal details of one’s intimate life to total strangers.
In my town, I know all the gender neutral restrooms. Mostly because of the child thing, but also because of my association with a lovely lesbian couple, one of which was trans*, the other of whom was disabled. Gender neutral restrooms were a godsend for all of us.
Years ago, I asked my mother what she did forty years ago with my brothers. She said she took them into the ladies room until they were 7 or 8 and then just sent them into the men’s room without supervision.
The few times my father took me places without my mother, my father just used to ask some nice waitress or store lady to take me.
This makes my 21st Century parenting blood run cold. We are so much more protective of our children now, but paradoxically (perhaps because more adults choose to be childless) I started having women make judgy remarks to each other when my son was barely potty trained about how I shouldn’t be bringing a boy into the Women’s restroom. God forbid my husband should take a girl into the Men’s and can you imagine the looks one would get from asking many young women to take your daughter to the Women’s?
I remember standing in a woman’s restroom some years ago with my friends Rose and Kathy. Rose was somewhat genderfluid at the time, and her expression that day was on the butch side (can old Queer ladies say “butch” anymore? Anyway, Rose referred to herself as “kinda butch”). She was helping Kathy with some personal matters. Kathy was not wheelchair bound, but she required some help.
I was leaning against the sink as I waited for them, having completed my business. An older woman came in, gave me a little smile, went into a stall. Did her thing.
She came out at the same time Rose and Kathy emerged from the handicapped stall. She gave them an evil look, as if they’d just basphemed the gods of her house.
I don’t know if Rose and Kathy were oblivious or merely chose to ignore Ms. Gender Police, but they washed up and left ahead of me. Ms. Stinkeye lingered, just so she could mutter, as I went past her, “You might have said something.”
I didn’t pretend I didn’t know what she meant, I don’t like confrontation, so I said this very quietly, and very firmly, “You mean my friend? She's got a hormonal problem. It's a little rude to comment on it.” This was how Rose characterized herself: She viewed the mismatch between her “equipment” and her gender as just a little too much testosterone at a crucial phase of development.
Ms. Stinkeye blinked and looked sheepish.
“And Kathy is disabled, she needed help in the bathroom.”
“Oh I am sorry...I thought...” Ms. Stinkeye became all sympathetic and embarrassed..
Yeah. Whatever.
In true Spirit of the Stair fashion, I picked that interaction apart over the years. The irony was that this was a hospital restroom and there were no disabled restrooms near this particular office.
I wonder if it would have been better if I had educated Ms. Stinkeye more directly. Or been more confrontational. I wanted to protect both of my friends, but was explaining it as a hormonal problem the right move? As it was, Rose and Kathy complained about the lack of gender neutral disabled restrooms on that floor for the caregiver angle. Last I saw, there was a new one there after the hospital had some renovations.
And then, I wonder what got Ms. Stinkeye’s knickers in a twist? Was she afraid that a man would see her wash her hands? Perhaps she didn’t like to disabuse the male of the species of the notion that women have no bodily functions?
I have never entered a women's restroom that didn’t have stalls. When people talk about the men’s/women’s restroom thing, it has never made much sense to me. For goodness sake, people, go in. Do your business. Get out. Don’t judge everyone else on their presentation. How hard is that?
I hear the objections now, about privacy, safety, blah blah blah. So, opportunistic rapists are going to respect “women only” signs? So, decent men will be driven mad with lust when they hear women pee?
On the reverse, I don’t think I am going to faint with shock at seeing a urinal. Or even some guy using one for that matter. Put a door up and I’m not going to notice a damned thing. Plus, I will be able to wait around for my young son without being afraid he's been kidnapped and taken out the back door, when he's merely dawdling in there.
Talking about this with Husband, he remarked that on his last trip to Austria, he realized that the gender neutral restrooms were all unmarked, because no one thought anything about it
The thing is, the people who would be helped by this outnumber the people who would be offended. Our public library has TWO gender neutral restrooms and riots have not broken out. Wouldn't it be great if that were just normal?
For those people who truly have issues with it, a discreet "ladies only" or "gentlemen only" could be hidden at the back.
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