User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in North Carolina

Public toilets in North Carolina, commonly called washrooms, are found at a rate of around five per 100,000 people. Public toilets were created to improve public health. They were also created more generally to improve public access to them. Public toilets have been involved in segregationist policies in the state. In the 2010s, public toilets were also at the center of discussion regarding transgender people's access to public spaces.

Public toilets
washroom is one of the most commonly used words for public toilet in the United States. Euphemisms are often used to avoid discussing the purpose of toilets. Words used include toilet, restroom, bathroom, lavatory and john.

A 2021 study found there were five public toilets per 100,000 people.

History
The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission was founded in 1909 to combat hookworm disease in the South. A survey was done of 11 southern states, which confirmed the presence of hookworm in 700 countries. A chief cause of spread of hookworm disease as open defecation in farmland. The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission program helped install public toilets and promote their use as part of their efforts to reduce hookworm disease. This was coupled with offering free exams and health treatment for hookworm disease.

The Works Progress Administration during the 1930s tried to increase access to public toilets across the United States. Their focus though tended to be on building such facilities in national parks and other civic areas, not at improving access in urban environments. In the end, they constructed 2,911,323 outhouses, which they officially called sanitary privies. Colloquially, they were referred to as Roosevelt rooms. The greatest number of these facilities were constructed in West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Mississippi. One of the consequences of the large number of additional public toilet facilities in these states was the number of cases of typhoid fever dropped.

There was a push back against building public toilets in Jim Crow states during the period between 1865 and 1960, because it meant that local governments were not just required to build two toilets, one for men and one for women, but four toilets, one each for men and women who were white and who were colored. Racially segregated public toilets were very common in the 1960s.

Florida and North Carolina had dealt with the desegregation of public toilets. This likely made state residents more open to claims by Equal Rights Amendment opponents to the passage of the constitutional amendment on the grounds it would lead to unisex public toilets. Illinois, Oklahoma, Florida and North Carolina did not ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. It is possible the opposition framing the constitutional amendment as requiring all public toilets become unisex played some role in the lack of ratification.

Republican Governor Pat McCory said in February 2016 in response to the Charlotte City Council trying to pass a local nondiscrimination ordinance that it would “create major public safety issues by putting citizens in possible danger from deviant actions by individuals taking improper advantage of a bad policy.”

State law was changed in 2016 requiring transgender people to use the public toilet that corresponded with their sex and not their gender identity. The law, approved by Republican Governor Pat McCrory, also banned local municipalities from having a law that contradicted the state law. In response, the Obama administration threatened to cut off federal funding to the state. The law was called HB2. As a result of the bill, the NBA decided not to host their 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte.

Gavin Grimm filed a lawsuit challenging Gloucester County School Board's rule that said students must use the public toilet that matches with their sex and not their gender identity or use a single occupancy toilet in 2016. The case saw an appeals court decided that the rule was in violation of Title IX. An earlier court had said it was not a violation. An appeal was made to the Supreme Court decided in June 2021 not to look at the case, and instead left in place the 2020 Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said it was a Title IX violation. Failure to take the case, with Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito indicating they would have liked to, meant that the decision was only applicable to Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia whose jurisdiction is covered by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Because a restroom in North Carolina had no public toilets, an 89-year-old woman from Charlotte ended up peeing herself in public.