Shared, genderless restrooms

[Planogirl]

Wait until men have to wait in long lines with the women once bathrooms become one fits all.

 

[disneychrista]

One positive I have noticed of non-gender specific restrooms (from working in a place with one) is they seem to stay cleaner / less smelly. Guys seems to know not to mess with a the restroom they share with women but don't seem to care when it is a men's room.

 

[Skippy918]

I like the idea especially if I am with my son in a busy place and not comfortable with him using the men's room by himself.

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

At my work we recently had to label all single use restrooms as all gender, which is the triangle in the circle (male and female restroom symbols) only in our California restrooms. We had to do this for all of our buildings.

I recently was in Canada, and found the one washroom in a restaurant there interesting as it had multiple stalls, but was for males and females. It didn't bother me, and I think I would only find it awkward the first couple of times there was mixed company.

 

[mamacatnv]

DD just transferred to UNLV and said that the there are gender neutral bathrooms all over the place. She thought it was pretty awesome. I'll have to ask what kind of symbols they have on them. I've noticed a lot of the newer hotels and restaurants here have the closet like stalls rastahomie describes. (hey, when I type ras- rastahomie pops up in my suggestions. You're now iPad famous rastahomie!)

As a NV Wolfack fan I must Go Pack!

The ADA mandates the signage since braille must be included and then Calif has Title 24 I believe it is that also has some say into signage. I looked around on the web and there are all kinds of various signs that state they are ADA compliant.
I rarely see gaps in stalls so large one can make eye contact. Personally, I think they need to do away with the urinals or put them behind doors and turn all restrooms into gender neutral or all inclusive or whatever the proper term of the decade is going to be and be done with it.

I've used the men's room many times when the ladies room had lines that were just stupid long - Usually Hubby or Son would run recon and in I would go, often with DD.

Interesting that the plain triangle that BCLA saw was at the DeYoung (Love that museum) perhaps San Francisco has taken things even further, who knows, they do tend to do that BUT signage must still comply to ADA.

 

[wenrob]

As a NV Wolfack fan I must Go Pack!

Ah, if only I had some kind of school spirit. I did very briefly way back when Tark was kicking butt and taking names. It was short lived though. I lack the dedication it takes to be a sports fan.

 

[bcla]

Wait until men have to wait in long lines with the women once bathrooms become one fits all.

They still have urinals. I don't know exactly how that would work if there's a huge line. Typically men's rooms with long lines develop an informal system where everyone gets in one line, but once inside it might break off depending on who wants to use a urinal or who's dropping a deuce.

Interesting that the plain triangle that BCLA saw was at the DeYoung (Love that museum) perhaps San Francisco has taken things even further, who knows, they do tend to do that BUT signage must still comply to ADA.

I thought they took it one step beyond by keeping the urinals while making them open to everyone. Even then I didn't notice too many women using that particular room. I'd think most women don't want to see any random guy's junk.

I actually dragged my wife in there for a look. Nobody was using them at the time, but even then the rules said she could walk in there.

Not to get particularly political, but I guess a lot of people remember HB2 in North Carolina. I rather thought that the bathroom part was kind of senseless since there were no enforcement provisions, and the meat of the bill was about other things. I found that there were multiple public places in NC that went to genderless restrooms in protest. This place had stalls with glass doors that turn (more or less) opaque electronically with a switch.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

Once I was using a women's restroom somewhere and the gap between the door and the stall wall was so wide that a very little girl came up and put her lips through the opening and made kissy noises. I was like,"get out of here, kid that's disgusting!" I didn't care that she could see me, but the rest was gag-inducing. Imagine putting your lips there. She moved away but when I got out I looked for her and whoever she was int here with to tell them so she could get her face washed. Blech.

As to gender-neutral-inclusive bathrooms, *shrugs* I couldn't care less. So long as nobody cuts in line in front of me when I have to go, no probs.

 

[mmouse37]

So, saw this beauty recently in Europe..... have no idea if I was in a gender neutral bathroom or not but this cracked me up!!!! LOL

MJ

 

[bcla]

View attachment 259434


So, saw this beauty recently in Europe..... have no idea if I was in a gender neutral bathroom or not but this cracked me up!!!! LOL

MJ

The upper left symbol is in response to Asian tourists who may be used to using squat toilets. I've been on vacation in China when I had to go at a KFC in a major city. I gave up when I saw it had a squat toilet.

They have the opposite problem in Asia.

Japan is overwhelmingly using the Western style toilet now, but there are still public restrooms with squat toilets. In China there's increasing use of Western style toilets, but not as high as Japan. Actually in China most public restrooms don't even have free toilet paper. People either carry their own or buy it from coin-op machines. There were places that had free toilet paper to use, but they had issues of people taking wads of them home. Several tourist destinations in Beijing went to facial recognition equipment to ration toilet paper.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/soci...hinese-toilet-paper-thieves-face-their-crimes

 

[bcla]

So, saw this beauty recently in Europe..... have no idea if I was in a gender neutral bathroom or not but this cracked me up!!!! LOL

As a follow-up, this is becoming an issue in the United States too. Of course we know that the porcelain throne isn't designed to support the weight of a human being on the tank and standing on the seat might damage the hinges.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/08/01/are-asian-tourists-breaking-utahs-toilets/

The previous article mentioned national parks. This is becoming one heck of an issue at various national parks. Many of them use "vault/pit" toilets. If anyone stands on the seat and manages to break it, the consequence could include falling in.

http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/...cle_a64d8bb5-9455-5dd9-a420-65103167c2f8.html

But perhaps the most unexpected consequence of the lingual and cultural barriers for Chinese and other Asian visitors who flocked to northwest Wyoming this year played out in the pit toilets around Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks.

“Our maintenance staff was seeing basically broken toilet seats, especially in the vault toilets,” Teton park spokesman Andrew White said.

In all, about a dozen of the 42 vault toilets in Grand Teton park wound up broken this summer, he said.

What was happening, park officials discovered, is that tourists from Asian countries were squatting, with their feet on the lids, and the shuffling of legs bearing a body’s full weight was causing toilets to snap where the hinges connect the lid to the bowl.​

 

[Gumbo4x4]

One positive I have noticed of non-gender specific restrooms (from working in a place with one) is they seem to stay cleaner / less smelly. Guys seems to know not to mess with a the restroom they share with women but don't seem to care when it is a men's room.

I've had to do maintenance in many public restrooms over the years. The women's restrooms were almost always WAY filthier than the men's.

 

[LYSE]

There seem be variations on it. Often there's a triangle with some symbol on it representing a man/woman/wheelchair. This one was just a triangular shaped piece of plastic mounted on the door. Here's one photo I found of a white triangle in a blue circle:

I found an article on the New York Times on this subject. They have a photo with several signs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/style/transgender-restroom-all-gender.html

The place I went to was the de Young Museum at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. There were a lot of visitors who didn't speak much English, and I think even some who can speak conversationsl English might have difficulty understanding the text. That sign had zero symbols. Also - the urinals in the one that was previously a men's room didn't exactly have "privacy stalls". They had partitions, but they stuck out maybe 1.5 feet from the wall and didn't really block much. The one thing I noticed was flowers. Definitely not used to that. Guys usually don't care about that kind of thing.

NOOOOOO!!! I used to love going to DeYoung when we lived in CA. Now I will not be going because I'm not trying to walk into a bathroom with open urinals and explain that to my very young daughter. I have no problem with a shared bathroom if all the stalls, including urinals, are private.

 

[disneychrista]

I've had to do maintenance in many public restrooms over the years. The women's restrooms were almost always WAY filthier than the men's.

Guess we just have different experiences.

 

[bcla]

NOOOOOO!!! I used to love going to DeYoung when we lived in CA. Now I will not be going because I'm not trying to walk into a bathroom with open urinals and explain that to my very young daughter. I have no problem with a shared bathroom if all the stalls, including urinals, are private.

They do have a "family/accessible" restroom with a lock. We'll go in there together as a family of three. They also have the former ladies room that only has stalls, so you can avoid seeing the urinals if that makes you uncomfortable.

The whole idea of someone using one of these places to be a peeping Tom is just crazy. Anyone trying a stunt like is risking arrest.

I do remember the last time I took my family to see Disney on Ice, I went into the men's room which was pretty barren. There was a long line at the ladies room. On the way out I mentioned something about it, and a woman in line jokingly asked if I could wait outside the door and keep any guys from entering so she could use the men's room. It may just be a matter of time before they go genderless. Stadiums and arenas are kind of an exercise in variable male/female ratios, so that kind of flexibility might be useful. I'm pretty sure for most sports it's at least 2/3 male, but if it's a concert or (my example) ice show it may be closer to 50/50 or even skew towards more women.

 

[wenrob]

I've had to do maintenance in many public restrooms over the years. The women's restrooms were almost always WAY filthier than the men's.

Women can be nasty, no doubt.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Guess we just have different experiences.

Have you spent much time in men's restrooms?

 

[disneychrista]

Have you spent much time in men's restrooms?

I work in a bar, so yes. Men's room is always messier and smells. Guys is it that hard to flush the urinal?

 

[MillauFr]

I work in a bar, so yes. Men's room is always messier and smells. Guys is it that hard to flush the urinal?

I used to work in a movie theater and had to clean up both bathrooms after the movies let out. The men's was always stinker, but the women's was always messier with paper scattered everywhere.

 

[disneychrista]

I used to work in a movie theater and had to clean up both bathrooms after the movies let out. The men's was always stinker, but the women's was always messier with paper scattered everywhere.

That's because guy don't wash their hands

It is the smell that gets me. In a gender neutral restroom there was no urinal and it never smelled, like the gender specific one with a urinal.