User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Wyoming

Public toilets in Wyoming are found at a rate of around 44 per 100,000 people. Public toilets began to appear in the 1930s. Public pay toilets disappeared by law during the 1970s. The lack of public toilets along Interstate 90 caused problems for long haul truckers.

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 44 public toilets per 100,000 people. Public toilets are often located in semi-private public accommodations like hotels, stores, restaurants and coffee shops instead of being street level municipal maintained facilities.

History
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 late 1960s and early 1970s, public pay toilets were viewed by feminist activists as sexist because public urinals were free but public sit style toilets were not. The Committee to End Pay Toilets in America, more commonly known as CEPTIA, tried to change this by getting municipals on public pay toilets. Their first success was in Chicago in 1973. This was then followed by municipal and state wide success in a strong of additional states including Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, and Wyoming. It remains illegal to charge people to use toilets or require people to buy something before using a toilet.

The lack of public toilets along the western part of Interstate 90 during the 2000s caused problems for long haul truckers. Their solution was often to pee into bottles and then leave them along the road in bushes. Sometimes, road maintenance crews and mowers would run over them as they could not see them in the high grass, resulting in a shower of warm, stale urine.

Arkansas, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming sued the Obama administration in July 2016 over the administration's requirement that children be allowed to use school toilets based on their gender identity instead of their sex.