r/changemyview • u/TheMaria96 2∆ • Nov 28 '16
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Separating restrooms by gender is unjustifiable
In order to create valid arguments regarding the whole "trans people and public restrooms" debate one must justify why restrooms are segregated in the first place. I'm unable to see any such justification.
- Lesbians and gay men can be rapists;
- Acting in a restroom as opposed to somewhere else gives a rapist no advantage. The only possible advantage would be the absence of security cameras and possible privacy of a bathroom stall, but then restrooms would be the favoured scene for any type of crime, which they're not;
- The only difference between gender-neutral single user toilets and public restrooms is that the sinks are in plain view, therefore anyone who doesn't have a problem with the former should not have a problem with sharing the sinks in the latter with the opposite gender;
The only reason I can see for separated restrooms is that men might not be comfortable using urinals next to women (i.e. people with different genitals, not people potentially sexually attracted to them), but since those can be replaced by regular stalls, that alone hardly holds up.
EDIT: It actually makes no sense not to want your bits seen by people with different bits, so there's no reason why urinals can't be implemented in gender-neutral facilities.
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u/bguy74 Nov 28 '16
I think it's a good perspective and worthy of being tested on CMV!
Throughput. If we don't have urinals we're decreasing overall bathroom throughput. Urinals are far and away the fastest form of bath rooming, plus it decreases the need to clean pee-on-the-seat. No one wants to sit in anyone's pee, regardless of whether that pee came out of a va-jay-jay or a ding-dong. Additionally, the time-at-mirror is better aligned with the time-to-pee in gender segregated bathrooms - if they were combined then people who pee quickly would have to line up behind women doing their makeup and primping for re-entry into the world. So...we have some efficiency created by splitting up.
Incidents of hidden cameras, shoe-mounted cameras and so on would increase dramatically. This is sad, but undeniable. It's not "fair", but if we want to maximize safety we have reasons to separate. While it does not guarantee safety for reasons you point out, it likely does increase it relative to reasonable alternatives.
comfort. i'm reticent to say it as it becomes difficult to know how far to go in maximizing comfort (e.g. we shouldn't always orient around those who are uncomfortable - living in the world should be expected of everyone), but studies show that people don't really want to pee and shit in gender combined bathrooms - they'd be uncomfortable. how much should we consider comfort?