CYA Disclaimers: If you want to bash people in the Transsexual Community, do it in the privacy of your own home. The ‘exclusive story’ cited in the OP comes from The NY Post (NYC’s version of London’s ‘The Sun’ tabloid). In my opinion, this isn’t so much a debatable topic as it is an “I feel’ topic; hence the IMHO forum.
Background (With the snide adjectives edited out):
[ul][li]Do you feel entirely comfortable with (what by all outward appearances appears to be a man) using the ladies facilities? (I asked my Grandmother this question today @ lunch, and her answer was she’d “prefer to pee her pants”) [/li][li]Is Semaj Bogan unintentionally hurting his own cause due to the fact he chooses to dress in men’s street clothes?[/li]Are we as a society getting closer to the day when unisex public facilities are the norm? (A concept I support because I’ll no longer miss an entire inning when nature comes-a-callin @ Yankee Stadium).[/ul]
**Do you feel entirely comfortable with (what by all outward appearances appears to be a man) using the ladies facilities? **
It depends. If the restroom is busy and there are lots of women coming and going, I’d probably be a little less uncomfortable–shocked, but not as uncomfortable. If the restroom were in an out-of-the-way location, down a dark hallway or just plain creepy, there would be no way in hell I’d use it with someone I perceived to be a man. My safety comes before your (hurt) feelings.
Is Semaj Bogan unintentionally hurting his own cause due to the fact he chooses to dress in men’s street clothes?
Yes.
**Are we as a society getting closer to the day when unisex public facilities are the norm? **
I have no idea. I’m all for unisex pubic restrooms as long as the option for male-only and female-only facilities remain.
Quite frankly, I find the entire concept of separate washrooms to be outdated. I’d prefer to wait the least amount of time to use the facilities and I think it’s time we go unisex. I’m female if that matters.
[QUOTE=JohnBckWLD]
[ul][li]Do you feel entirely comfortable with (what by all outward appearances appears to be a man) using the ladies facilities? (I asked my Grandmother this question today @ lunch, and her answer was she’d “prefer to pee her pants”) [/li][/quote]
Nope. When the line is too long, clothing adjustments sometimes take place outside of the stalls.
It’s sure not helping. If Bogan dressed in women’s clothes, I’d bet no one would say a thing.
. Maybe. If they are the single toilet and sink in a room type, just more of them. They’re more useful anyway, for the handicapped and people with opposite gender children. The current public facilities, with say ten stalls and two sinks, to be used by both men and women? Not a chance.
So long as there are stalls, what does it matter? For the highly private, intimate, and gender-segregated act of washing and drying your hands? I can understand why a man, using a urinal, would be uncomfortable if a woman walked in, but it’s not like you can see anything through a stall door.
Personally, I might be just slightly uncomfortable, but not enough to care. At this club I used to go to, the transvestites would use the ladies room and I really didn’t care. I figured if they are dressing and acting as women, they can handle what goes on in the women’s restroom. However, they were forced to stop using the ladies room due to complaints. I thought it was too bad, really. So I guess I’m saying no it doesn’t bother me, as long as I get to use the men’s restroom whenever I feel like it, which I have done and probably will do again. Anything to avoid those long lines.
If there are stalls, and gals and guys are all just using the bathroom for bathroomy purposes and not cruising or anything, it’s fine with me. Like I care if a guy hears me tinkle opposed to a woman?
The bathrooms at a building I was taking courses in in Amsterdam was like this (co-ed)-- the first time I found it I didn’t use it, not because it was co-ed, but because I didn’t know WHAT it was and the only person I saw in there was a guy so I assumed it was a men’s room.
Caveat-- I’m not a girly girl and don’t do any of the secret women’s coven activities like makeup and stuff in the restroom, so the secretive menstrual hut/ foundation application/ women’s club function doesn’t mean much to me. I have farted in front of men. I’ve been known to use the men’s room if I really really needed to pee and the boys’ was mostly empty and the girls’ was locked or out of service, like at university buildings on weekends.
I assume you mean the WNBA - because at any sporting event I’ve attended, it’s the ladies room that doesn’t have the line. That’s what makes proposed regulations & movements like this kind of ironic.
Read that to guys standing on line @ Giants or Yankee Stadium and I guarantee they’ll piss temselves laughing.
**Do you feel entirely comfortable with (what by all outward appearances appears to be a man) using the ladies facilities? (I asked my Grandmother this question today @ lunch, and her answer was she’d “prefer to pee her pants”) **
I feel a little trapped by this issue. In theory, I don’t care who I use the restroom with, so I support unisex bathrooms. However, if there is a men’s room and a women’s room right next to each other, seeing a man, or a woman who has the appearance of a man, makes me a little nervous because of the possibility that the person is in the women’s room for the purpose of preying on women. I’m not sure if that makes a lot of sense, because I guess women could also be preying on women, or men preying on men in men’s bathrooms. I would rather the bathroom be labelled as unisex upfront.
On a very selfish note, I have been in situations where I have entered the women’s room to find a transgendered person who identified as a woman, yet had a masculine appearing body (tall, even for a man, wide shoulders, narrow hips) and I was alarmed because for a moment, I thought I had walked into the men’s room by mistake, which goes to show that many people feel strongly about which bathroom they are in. I had that whole “mime walking into a glass wall” reaction, I was so mortified by the possibility of being in the men’s room. Needless to say, I felt very badly that the other person in the bathroom probably witnessed my huge reaction, and chances are she felt that I was reacting to her, as opposed to my own fear of the men’s room. If I feel that way about using the “correct” bathroom for my gender, I have to assume other people do as well.
Is Semaj Bogan unintentionally hurting his own cause due to the fact he chooses to dress in men’s street clothes?
Isn’t it “her own cause” if Semaj identifies as a woman who prefers to wear typically masculine clothes? I would like to think that I would be allowed to continue to use the women’s room no matter what I was wearing.
**Are we as a society getting closer to the day when unisex public facilities are the norm? **
I would like to think so, but I don’t feel like I’m seeing a lot of change in the type of public bathrooms that have stalls. My public restroom of choice is the single person room (even if the washing up facilities are in a common area), although those aren’t really practical for high traffic places like sports stadiums.
I prefer separate facilities when there are multi-stalls.
However, upon landing at the airport in Paris last year, I was forced by a woman with a mop and broom to use the busy men’s restroom. Fortunately, there was no actual line and I made a quick dash in and then out again.
I used to be a very shy young woman. Now I am getting old and the memory makes me smile.
Man, what events are you going to–and can I attend? Because at every baseball and football game I have ever attended, the line for the women’s room has been much longer than for the men’s.
As for the OP: I don’t particularly mind the idea of sharing the bathroom with men, as I’m in a stall anyway. I do think the person in question is not really doing his cause a service by wearing men’s clothes. And as for unisex bathrooms…I don’t know whether or not they’re in the future, but as others have said, if it’ll shorten the lines, have at it.
I don’t mind unisex bathrooms, as long as they’re labelled that way. Many of the bathrooms at my college were unisex, and it didn’t faze me in the slightest, especially because the shower stalls were intelligently designed - very secure, with stalls rather than curtains, and a little changing/towel area as part of each shower stall, which let me be fully clothed/robed whenever I was outside the stall. On the other hand, if it’s explicitly a women’s bathroom, I have more of a problem with it. Sometimes, if for some reason I need to change my clothes, I change outside of a stall, but inside the ladies room. (I don’t want to take up a stall if others might need it.) I have no problem doing this in front of other women, but I’m not comfortable changing in front of men. (I can’t be less than fully clothed in front of unrelated men for religious reasons.) If I weren’t changing, I’d be thrown if someone I perceived to be a guy walked into the ladies room, but I don’t think I’d make a fuss about it.
As a society, I think we are moving towards unisex. The majority of colleges have some unisex bathrooms in their dorms.
From what I’ve seen, what they tell TG folks is to go into whichever restroom fits your outward presentation at that time. The reason given had to do with men being more likely to become violent if they see someone dressed as a woman enter the men’s room. (This is just what I’m told; I cannot vouch for its accuracy.) They also say if you use the ladies’ room, to get in, do your business and leave as quickly as possible making as little noise as possible (and that includes sitting down) and if discovered, to apologize and get out. It’s pretty much a darned-if-you-do-and-darned-if-you-don’t situation; needless to say it’s generally easier to just hold it.
Are unisex facilities becoming the norm? I hope so. They do seem to be slowly becoming more common: there’s even a home improvement store in Phoenix that has one - it was probably added when the store moved in or around the year 2000.
I’m sure we’ve had threads about unisex bathrooms before…
I think the younger generation is more comfortable with the coed bathroom idea, but many, I think, don’t really think beyond college experience. College guys are, in general, cleaner and more reputable in terms of appearance than are many men of the general public. When I think of sharing a bathroom with men, I think of the worst offenders, the truck drivers, large skanky sorts, smokers, the poor and unwashed, etc. Maybe it’s inaccurate, but I trust the female population’s hygeine more than I trust the men’s. Plus, the nature of the act being that men have more a chance of making a mess than women… ehhh…
So that’s my thought about public restrooms being unisex. I’d be completely comfortable sharing a bathroom with men who were clean, well-dressed, and looked reputable. That being said, I don’t think I’d have a problem with this character or others in isolated incidents. I don’t change clothes outside of stalls or anything, so besides the hygeine issue I don’t really care one way or another.
Oh yeah, and for the record, I can see how it may be uncomfortable for a man in a dress to use the regular men’s bathroom. But for someone who has the physical appearance of a man, AND who chooses the clothes of a man, to nonetheless opt to use the women’s bathroom? That seems a little sketchy to me. What’s the problem with using the men’s bathroom, again? Because you don’t feel “manly”? I think that’s sort of ridiculous.
A predator may choose to attack women in a restroom. In traditional restrooms, a woman entering can immediately take alarm at the presence of a male and flee, or raise an alarm. In a unisex environment, that option is not available.
I am fine with sharing the bathroom with transgendered women. No problemo.
I am absolutely NOT fine with the concept of a unisex bathroom. No f’n way. If that ever becomes the norm, I will be forced to the locker room to use the potty and touch up my makeup. The bathroom is sacred, IMO. It is the only place I can go at work if I need to cry, the only place I can brush my teeth if I need to, the only place I feel like I can apply make-up, and it’s the only place I can go into with my co-worker to tell her something private.
In a world where men gawk at everything women do, the bathroom is the one place we can go to do our girly things and not be analyzed. Long live separate bathrooms!!!
(Oh yeah, and every men’s room I’ve ever been in has been a godawful, pissy, stinking mess. No thanks.)
I’d have no problem with it. Gender segregated bathrooms are kind of a strange concept anyway. I can cry and put on make up in front of random men just as easy as I can random women. I feel bad for this poor kid put in a no-win situation like this just because there are so many people willing to harrass and commit violence against transgendered people.
