cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/65235734
On August 8, police arrived on the scene of Long Branch Lagoon Water Park in Dodge City, Kansas, to the sight of three self-described “bearded, burly men” who had been in the women’s bathroom and changing area. The manager of the municipally run property allegedly screamed and rushed children out the door.
The men knew this was likely. They didn’t agitate any of the women; they didn’t remove their clothes or make crass comments. They simply used the gendered spaces that the state of Kansas requires them to use by law, because these men are transgender.
“Supporters of SB244, including Attorney General Kris Kobach and Senate Majority Leader Ty Masterson, billed it as a way to keep men out of women’s spaces; it clearly requires some men to enter women’s spaces,” a press release sent to news outlets reads. So, these men took action—using malicious compliance to prove their point.
“Segregating people by suspected genitalia does nothing to improve public safety; it does quite the opposite by opening Kansans up to sexual harassment and discrimination. At no point should anyone be asking anyone else what genitals they have in public.”
The men, dressed in yellow “Compliance Crew” shirts, were part of a small group of trans-masculine Kansans who used the women’s room at facilities across the state that day in a coordinated action. They were also spotted at a zoo, a library, a museum, and other parks. They were in Emporia, Great Bend, Garden City, and Dodge City. At the library, at least one patron complained; at other places, the men used the bathroom and received dirty looks, and simply left the space without confrontation.
But at Long Branch Lagoon, members of the Kansas Compliance Crew resorted to having to describe their genitals to police in order to resolve the matter and avoid arrest.
“The men had a discussion with the manager and police and explained the situation, including uncomfortable descriptions of their bodies,” the press release said. Furthermore, both the manager and the police reportedly said “they had never heard of SB244 nor been notified by any government entity of its passage.”
“I could easily continue using the men’s restroom under the radar,” said Ray Vieux, who participated as one of the demonstrators.
And you think this would be easily resolved with well designed unisex bathrooms where each stall is completely private.
But then what if people do the drugs!??!?!?!
Gotta have those stall gaps to make sure nobody ever gets high.
Clean needle dispensers and needle disposal bins?
I thought the gaps were there because it’s cheaper to install and easier to clean. The drugs thing is going to happen regardless of gap.
Maybe if we installed some flock cameras in the stalls to screen for drug abuse
But those are only for reading license plates right? No way they can used to ID people /S
Hey as long as people are washing their hands then it dont matter to me.
So often the person next to me walks out without a rinse even lmao
Well in that case you can have the trashy gay bar version of unisex bathrooms. Very little privacy, but people are still doing drugs among other things
Then we all get to share the drugs in a communal area!
true good thing we fixed that problem
Ally McBeal’s law firm had one like that almost 30 years ago. You’d think there would have been more of them popping up, at least in law firms.
Thats what they did at my climbing Gym (Urban Climb). They’re full length cubicles and seem soundproof pretty much.
Gendered bathrooms only triggers homophobes in practice. If you had a unisex bathroom, they wouldn’t even notice. And on facebook at least, it always seems to be the people who seem highly abusive, who you wouldn’t want near your kids anyway who make a big deal about it.
At concerts here in Australia, nrgptr switching to unisex, it was fairly common for many women to line up for the mens bathrooms (as they they were often less busy)
If your first instinct is that “they’re going to rape your kids”, the problem is you
Exercise can make people need to poop as it gets stiff moving throughout the body
The Museum of Sex in NYC has a unisex bathroom similar to this. TBH I’m not sure if it has urinals tucked in it somewhere (since I don’t use them, I didn’t look for them.) Otherwise, it was one open place without an entry door, with full-length stalls, and communal sinks just like in your diagram.
It also had a temporary exhibit that was a bouncy castle where all the floor and walls were tits. It wasn’t as fun as it sounds, though, since if you jumped on a tit you fell through to the hard floor beneath. Still a fun concept! Just needed a little work to make it safer.
I love this. The one time I used a gender neutral bathroom I was annoyed because there were no urinals. Meaning I had to wait for the slower sitting pissers.
95% of the time I’m using a public restroom it’s to drain the main vein in the piss trough and move on.
Half the public washrooms in Toronto are like that. Many of them have a sink in the booth itself.
I’ve actually used a bathroom designed exactly like this before. Was definitely weird experience as an American
It’s strange people of a different sex can’t wash their hands next to each other.
Also there really no difference between the picture/layout above and going to a concert and seeing this.
Communal sinks and seperate “stalls”.
It’s not so much about washing hands next to each other itself, but rather that that never happens here. Either you wash your hands alone or next to somebody your gender. It feels weird because bathrooms have become safe spaces of sorts for each gender, that are enclosed rooms.
At a concert the bathroom area is just the entire concert area and then the bathrooms. In the coed bathrooms pictured above the sinks are located in what is very much still “The bathroom”.
It’s not that there’s anything actually wrong with the coed design, but it’s just sort of a culture shock thing. It feels weird to me because it’s a novel situation I hadn’t ever found myself in before. I would also argue that people wouldn’t like it because of that alternate usage bathrooms have evolved to be, which is that gender-separated safe space. A small group of women could separate from the men they’re with and have a private conversation at a social venue for example.
Preserving this is not worth perpetuating a strict gender binary.
I’ve known people who don’t even feel comfortable walking by a person of a different gender as they exit a restroom.
Those people are fucking weird and need to grow up.
It would not be completely solved. Women are often harassed by men unwilling to leave them alone. The women’s bathroom is used as a safe space to basically hide from men.
Yes a woman could hide in a stall, but there’s less plausible deniability for a man waiting in front of the door of a woman’s bathroom (which looks and is creepy as fuck) than for a man inside an non-gendered bathroom
I hate that this is how things are, but women have very few places free of the patriarchy.