Opposite sex using opposite bathrooms...okay in your area?

With the transgender bathroom debate in 2015/16 in the US, I’m a bit confused as to whether people can use opposite bathrooms now given that in some areas, gender declaration can be made without transition

I suppose there was never really a law prohibiting it even in many places across the Western world. In fact, NC seems to have made a law in reverse. But knowing very well that legal consequences do not negate the social consequences. There does seem to be a double standard with cis-women and bathrooms. I hear lots of stories of men either being arrested by security guards, shouted out of the womens bathrooms, or attack/confronted by men/women outside the bathroom.

Now, how exaggerated these stories are is up for debate, but the question is, could you as a male or female visit the opposite sex bathroom without someone batting any eye?

I’ve encountered a few non-gendered, multi-stall restrooms around DC. It was a bit confusing at first, but nobody’s had any problem.

Probably not in Scotland.

Anyway, Gender as an act of self-determination is mainly an American thing: using an opposite-sex public bathroom in Russia or Saudi when the persons in charge use the older method of evaluation will end in tears.

No, someone would bat an eye.

If what you mean by “double standard regarding cis women and bathrooms” means that women will use the men’s room if it’s empty and there’s a line at the ladies’–then yes, that very much happens everywhere I’ve lived in the U.S. (Midwest, Great Plains, Pacific Northwest). A man trying to do the same in the ladies would be in a lot of trouble.

Really? Even if he wasn’t the epitome of ‘sexual creepy coat trench’ people tend to envision?

In other words, a male of any age, race, and size?

yes, I think even here in the laid-back PNW, people would not accept any man (over the age of about 8) in a women’s room, absent some kind of welcoming sign letting everyone know it’s allowed.
As for the reverse, I don’t think anyone would care.

So…what would they do? Would men/women physically confront him? Would women inside the bathroom shout him out?

Hard to predict. Depends on the women in their at the time, I suppose.

Yes, that is exactly what they do. I am female, tall, wear jeans and tshirts most of the time, and wear my hair short. I have had more than one woman shout me out of a bathroom thinking I’m a guy. And the idiocy in NC has only made it worse, now men feel like it’s okay to try and stop me from entering a womens restroom. Traveling cross country is a very uncomfortable experience.

I couldn’t care less who uses which bathroom for actually voiding their bladders/defecating. As long as they aren’t lurking, I can understand “ya gotta go when ya gotta go” but please don’t make it a habit. That said, I have used a men’s room when I couldn’t get into the ladies room and I was desperate. However, I’d never do that in a school or kid’s camp or wherever there are frequently unattended children using the restroom, simply to avoid raising any unnecessary questions.

Same basic kinda reactions I’ve seen around PA.

No go in the Cayman Islands. Cayman has a criminal offence of “Insulting the Modesty of a Woman” and a male may be convicted of this offence if he enters a women’s restroom with “intent to insult the modesty of any woman”. This has been used to prosecute a man who hid in women’s restroom and spied upon those using the facilities. And the law is such that a male janitor can clean the ladies’ restroom without having the necessary intent to insult the modesty of a woman.

There is no comparable offence for insulting the modesty of a man. Apparently that is not possible. Though perhaps a woman could be charge under some sort of disorderly conduct offence if it was determined that she intruded into a men’s room for improper purposes.

I am always interested in learning new things about Saudi Arabia. I have lived here for almost twenty years.

We have no ladies’ rooms in our buildings. When women are present we put up signs designating the smaller restroom as the ladies’ room. None the less, this might be the only place I have ever encountered little girls in the men’s room. Fathers bring their little girls to the office for whatever reason and take them into the restroom when needed. I have been surprised a few times.

No tear though.

Because of real estate value, most of the restaurant johns in NYC are single occupancy. If the Men’s is occupied, I use the Women’s without compunction.

When Little Pianola was a small girl I took her to a concert at Lincoln Center. When she had to pee, I accompanied her to a stall in the Men’s. An elderly gentleman was shocked when she went to wash hands, and sternly told me that we were in the MENS’ ROOM. My response was “Why is an old fuck like you coming out to hear Peter and the Wolf?”

Sometimes I have thought the separation of bathrooms situation is an outdated concept, but I can also see some reasonable arguments to maintain the status quo. We do need to get over some ridiculous antiquated stigmas though.

If certain places designated their bathrooms gender neutral I’d be okay with it, but if in most places there were still separation by external biology I would understand. It’s a tradition that will take many years to change.

I’m a woman. I have seen men in the women’s restroom quite a few times, usually with a small daughter but occasionally with a disabled wife. Didn’t bat an eye.

A few times, I’ve been in a public place where the restrooms were one-holers, if you will, and I had to go REEEEALLY bad and ducked into the vacant men’s room. I could tell that whoever was in the ladies’ room was going to take a while, because the voice was that of an elderly woman, or there was a woman in there with more than one small child. Conversely, one of my Facebook friends took care of her father in the final months of his life, and was more comfortable with the idea of going into the men’s room with him than she was with taking him into the women’s room.

Ages ago, before AIDS, I had a girlfriend who liked to spend Halloween evenings on Castro St. because, she said, gays put on the best parties. She was in a gay bar that was absolutely packed and when she had to go, it took her about twenty minutes to negotiate her way to the woman’s room. It was locked with a sign, “Anatomical females* only; please see the bartender for the key.” Well, she didn’t have forty minutes of capacity left so she went into the men’s room instead. After the first shock (“Those are real!”) they gladly made way for her to use a stall. When she was washing her hands, one came up to her complaining he couldn’t keep his eyeliner from clumping so she started giving makeup advice and wound up staying there the rest of the evening.

I’ve wondered if the bathroom-billers have really thought through the consequences. I’m imagining someone pretty well finished an FtM transition going into the woman’s side armed with a birth certificate. When the screeching starts, “Sorry, ladies, but the law says I have to use this one.”

  • cis- hadn’t been invented yet.

Non sequiter.

As soon as we see this, we know your real motivation for posting. Too easy.

I’m a man and I’ve routinely used single female bathrooms at gas stations when I really had to go and also once when the men’s room stank so bad I couldn’t stand it, and that was oddly enough right after a woman walked out. I don’t think I’ve ever used a female bathroom for multiple occupants except once on accident, and remarked to myself how odd it was that there were no urinals, before realizing my error while exiting the bathroom.