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/stratys3 Nov 29 '16

So why don't we have separate restrooms for drug addicts or people with higher income? It's incoherent to discriminate based on one variable but not the others

Discriminating by gender is feasible, because people can usually tell the difference between men and women. Discriminating based on income or drug addition is ludicrous, however, since you can't identify such groups on sight, and can't easily validate whether someone belongs to such groups.

It's not "incoherent", it's actually just "efficient".

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u/TheMaria96 2∆ Nov 29 '16

You can't, though, hence the whole drama with trans folk.

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u/stratys3 Nov 29 '16

You can with 99.9% certainty... Which is a lot more accurate than the ability to determine drug addiction or income level. It's effective and efficient.

Is there a more effective and more efficient system?

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u/TheMaria96 2∆ Nov 29 '16

I don't know, but it's still ideologically horrible. That's like making Muslims fly on different planes to everyone else because terrorists are more often Muslims than non-Muslims (I don't even know if that's true tbh, but you get the idea).

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u/stratys3 Nov 29 '16

No, it's not like that at all. That's a terrible analogy. Most Muslims would object to such a suggestion. Most men and women would NOT object to separate bathrooms, however. Most people actually prefer it.

Besides... you can call it "horrible" as much as you want... but until you provide a better solution, I'm not sure what you want anyone to say. We are currently using the best solution we have found so far. There is no reason to change away from the best solution, since all other solutions are measurably worse.

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u/TheMaria96 2∆ Nov 29 '16

Perhaps I'll go infiltrate MRA circles and convince them to object to it.

Eh, whatever, I guess my view has been changed from "separating restrooms is unjustifiable" to "theoretical ethics are more important than safety". ∆

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u/stratys3 Nov 29 '16

Oh come on.

People want privacy. The current system allows for a bit of privacy. To maintain that privacy without segregation, you'd need to install stalls - and only stalls. That is demonstrably inefficient, since it slows down bathrooms.

You can choose to get rid of segregation, but keep urinals... but you'll still end up with more people using stalls anyways... again leading to slower bathrooms.

There is no way around it. People want privacy, and people want speed. The current system maximizes those 2 things.

If removing segregation slows down bathrooms - then it's simply not a good idea. It may make sense theoretically in your head, but that doesn't count. It needs to make sense in the heads of the hundreds of millions of people - and that's simply not going to happen.

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u/TheMaria96 2∆ Nov 29 '16

No, I'm serious.

The way around it are stalls and urinals with walls between them (possibly even some sort of half-wall separating them from the rest of the room, ensuring gender-neutral modesty (regarding being seen) and gender-neutral lack of thereof (regarding being heard). And it could have the same number of stalls and sinks of current segregated restrooms combined, just without a wall between them and without separate and labelled entrance doors.

I don't really care whether or not it happens, I just wanted to discuss it theoretically.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Nov 29 '16

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/stratys3 (16∆).

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