Add this one to the no big deal vs. slippery slope files. According to the Cornell Daily Sun:
The Student Assembly passed a resolution Thursday calling for the conversion of every single-stall bathroom on campus to a gender-neutral facility and prescribing the inclusion of gender-neutral bathrooms in all future University buildings.
Policy that supports converting all single-stall restrooms will not engender the same opposition as one that creates a free-for-all in all bathrooms. But, when the sponsors of the resolution base their support on positions such as “something so seemingly simple as a bathroom could make someone feel uncomfortable,” we have to wonder how far the university will go to make sure that everyone is “comfortable.”
Future headline: "Cornell students locked in violent turf battles over competing campus 'safety and comfort zones'".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWho, praytell, is made uncomfortable by single-sex bathrooms? "Transgendered" fruitcakes? Apparently it us unacceptable that a tiny, lunatic minority be discomfitted but completely acceptable that the more or less rational majority be incommoded--so to speak.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI worked at a place with "unisex" single stall bathrooms, and the women who worked therer clamored to make them single sex. The reason: there was at least one man, possibly more, who was a pig, and urinate on the floor. A little bit, but enough that the women did NOT appreciate having to pull down various pieces of clothing within a short distance of the piddle puddle in order to use the toilet. What the hell does it matter to have separate men's and women's bathrooms? It's not like all men's rooms have fancy waterfall urinals, and velvet covered toilet seats. Or that women's room have a live string quartet playing to ease the bowels.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI use the male-only men's room, and I hate the pigs who pee on the floor in front of the toilet! If only they could be forced to use a separate bathroom...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, given we have gays openly serving, i.e., living, berthing, showering, etc. in the military, you cannot make a logically consistent argument for the separation of the sexes, in housing, bathroom and shower facilities, etc. Why are men and women provided separate facilities? Sexual attraction? Open homosexuality belies that argument. We could offer single sex only facilities to heterosexuals, mixed sex facilities to homosexuals and bisexuals we'd have to give them a room alone.
But comfort isn't the argument. It is sex organ discrimination.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe ratio of homosexuals to heterosexuals is well below 10/100 while the ratio of males to females is roughly 50/50. Thus, same-sex bathrooms would result in tremendously more discomfiture than the current allowance of homosexuals using bathrooms with those of the same sex.
Then there's the obvious matter of, well, obviousness. We all know a man and a woman when we see one, but the homosexual is nowhere near so obvious. We can thus bar the opposite sex from restrooms where banning homosexuals is not quite so easy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseImagine my embarrassment : I realize I have three unisex single-stall bathrooms in my own home! Chalk that one up to liberal home-builders.
Yeah the students were sanctimonious. But if bathrooms are single stall anyway, making them unisex is just common sense.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe issue is that this may well be a precursor to making multi-stall bathrooms unisex as well. I mean as long as bathrooms remain "exlusionary" then somebody, viz the so-called transgendered, will play the victim card.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhile there is no theoretical reason why a single-stall bathroom shouldn't be used by members of either sex, real-word experience suggests that its a bad idea.
We had 2, "gender-neutral", single-seat bathrooms at work. Within a few months employees begged them to designate male and female.
The women didn't appreciate the fact that so many men have such poor aim. The men didn't appreciate a trash can of used menstrual supplies.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMany years ago, I accompanied a (female) friend to go use a multi-stall single sex bathroom. And just for fun, she shouted out from the stall, "Hey! Anyone got a spare tampon or something? I just started my period, and am bleeding like you wouldn't believe." People tend to think it is only women who might be uncomfortable in a unisex bathroom, but her antics cleared the room of the men.
The segregation of sexes for bathrooms has little to do with sexual attraction issues, and more to do with the fact that men and women are DIFFERENT. And heterosexual women and homosexual women are still part of a same sorority.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExactly. But some people are so blinded by the desire for absolute equality among groups of people that they cannot see there are other concerns that need consideration as well. And allowing people their dignity is one of them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat were men and your female friend all doing in a "single sex bathroom"? -- I'm confused by this story.
Anyway, I have to say, in 40-odd years of femalehood, I have never ever heard anybody shout something like that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMark Steyn in another place at this website makes the following observation.
"When people get used to complying with micro-regulation, it’s but a small step to confusing regulatory compliance with the right thing to do — and then arguing that, in the absence of regulatory guidelines, there is no 'right thing to do.'"
I agree with those who see this bathroom branding as a slippery slope of p.c. bs. Why don't the kids at Cornell just go outside and find a wall? like their friends who occupy Zuccotti Park.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTen comments so far and nobody seems to have thought of another reason for a single-stall gender-neutral bathroom? In stores, churches, and medical buildings -- but I will admit, far less needed in the average university -- such are sometimes found, labeled as "family" restrooms. They are useful for a) a dad with a very young daughter; and b) a physically challenged individual with caregiver (e.g., spouse or other family member) of the opposite sex. Lack of such facilities make people in those situations "uncomfortable" while having NOTHING to do with homosexuality and transgender issues and all the rest of that stuff. And this, too, is a matter of dignity.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAt first, I thought, "Ah, true human progress; I'll never have to put the seat down again!"
But then it hit men -- a true MENS room has urinals, so what's the point of gender neutral.
Although, on a related note, my back yard functions as a gender neutral restroom for all of our Pomeranians but Duke (6.1 pounds of manly stud muffin) has marked all of the trees and the swingset as HIS.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh good grief. A single stalled bathroom being unisexual is somehow an issue? How utterly silly.
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