Bathrooms

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Proposal:

New buildings shall include private bathrooms that are large enough for one person only and shared bathrooms that are large enough for two or three people only. These private and shared bathrooms would not be designated for any sex or gender, they would be time-shared by anyone who wants to use them.

Buildings which include designated-sex bathrooms must also include private bathrooms and shared bathrooms in equal capacity.

Entry into designated male-only bathrooms shall be restricted to males while in service. Entry into designated female-only bathrooms shall be restricted to females while in service. Entry into private bathrooms and shared bathrooms shall not be restricted by sex or gender.

A bathroom with a window shall be designed such that the window does not allow people outside the bathroom to look into a private space within the bathroom. Existing bathrooms with windows that don’t meet this requirement can install curtains in front of the window to obscure the view and bars on the window to prevent people from easily reaching in and moving the curtains, or they can replace the window with a vent such that a person peering in can only see the up towards ceiling of the bathroom.

A private shower stall shall include a place to change clothes in private and a way to keep the clothes dry during the shower such as a curtain separating the private shower space from the bench or shelf where the clothes can be stored, or some other non-curtain cover for the bench or shelf where the clothes can be stored during the shower to keep them dry.

Intent:

In this proposal the word bathroom is meant to include urinals, toilets, showers, and changing rooms.

The intent of this proposal is for everyone who needs or wants to use a bathroom to be able to do it with privacy or to be able to share the space with someone they’re comfortable with, without assumptions about who would or wouldn’t be comfortable with someone else.

Discussion:

Designated-sex bathrooms and showers are the only facilities in public life where we expect people to segregate themselves to use the facilities. This expectation causes anxiety and conflict for people in a variety of situations, such as: a male or a female who doesn’t feel comfortable getting naked in front of others regardless of their sex, a male or female adult who is caring for an opposite-sex child, a male or female who is homosexual may be shunned by others in a same-sex shared bathroom or shower, a transgender male or female who is required by the rules to use the bathroom they don’t identify with, a male who is bullied by other males, a female who is bullied by other females, or a belligerent male or female who enters a bathroom against the rules.

Reasons for building designated-sex bathrooms could be saving time and money in construction, or it could be for some other reasons. If people want designated-sex bathrooms, they must consider the right of equal opportunity of everyone who would be excluded from those designated-sex bathrooms or who would be mistreated if they entered those designated-sex bathrooms, and provide an equal opportunity for everyone to use the facilities. This could be in the form of time-sharing, where the same facility is designated differently depending on the time, or building additional bathrooms for people who don’t want to use the designated-sex bathrooms, or some other solution not mentioned here.

The only two kinds of bathrooms that are needed are private bathrooms that are large enough for one person only and shared bathrooms that are large enough for two or three people only.

The one-person bathrooms are for anyone who wants privacy while using them, regardless of sex or gender.

The shared bathrooms are for families or any other combination of a person and their caregiver, who need extra space for both the person using the facility and the person assisting them, or any small group of two or three people of the same or different sex who want to use it together as it if were a designated-sex bathroom, or as if it were a shared bathroom at home. The point is that this small group of people is comfortable with each other and won’t mistreat each other — because if that’s not the case they wouldn’t be entering together, they would be waiting their turn and using the bathroom separately.

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