User:M4M3M2M1/Unisex public toilet


 * Article Evaluation

Under "society and culture" there is a subsection on "gender nonconforming people." It's a good start, but could be elaborated upon. When discussing the traction it is gaining as a controversial topic in US politics, it could link to other Wikipedia articles such as Bathroom Bills. The following subsection, "criticisms," reiterates previous arguments about violence to women (cis-gender I assume, because these people don't seem to consider the fact that trans-women are women too). Although I disagree with these claims, this section does a better job at presenting them as arguments made by various people, rather than as 'facts.' It could use some adjustments however to make this more clear, and to remove more insertions made by the previously mentioned author. Moral Panic might be worth linking as well. And TERF should factor in there too. On a historical note, it should be inserted somewhere that women stopped equal rights for women (ERA) because they didn't want same-sex bathrooms... Images of flyers decrying this outcome could be inserted as well.



THINGS THAT BURLETTE DELETED:

"These advocates argue that for many genderqueer people and people of the third sex, such as intersexuals, butch lesbians or people with a non-binary transgender identity, it is difficult or even impossible to go to a gender-separated toilet, as they do not feel that they belong clearly to any sex. Sometimes these groups of people are even exposed to hostility when visiting the toilet. Parents of small children also face a dilemma if they want to accompany their small (opposite sex) child to the toilet."

"Butch women are often run out of 'women's restrooms', gender non-conforming people lack safe space to pee, trans women who do not experience passing privileges on a routine basis are discriminated against."

"Many questions concerning exactly how social and legal enforcement of the division should take place has been the subject of much debate. Transgender people often face harassment based on their choice in public toilets regardless of whether they use the toilet room corresponding to their gender identity or their sex assigned at birth, which has led many activists in the transgender community to call for legal protection for people wishing to use restrooms which most accurately reflect their gender identity. Others have questioned the need for gender-based toilet segregation in the first place. In addition to transgender issues, those questioning the need for gendered bathrooms cite dilemmas caused by the need for caretakers of dependents (who include children, the elderly, and the mentally and physically disabled) to enter the toilet room used by their charge, regardless of which toilet rooms they may use themselves. "

[Lead needs altering]

[The historical purposes of sex-separated toilets in the United States and Europe, as well as the timing of their appearance, are disputed amongst scholars. Safety from sexual harassment and privacy were likely two main goals of sex-separation of public toilets, and factors such as morality also played roles. Paternalism and resistance to women entering the workplace might have also played a role. Some women's groups are worried that unisex public toilets will be less safe for women than public toilets that are separated by sex. The push for gender neutral bathrooms is driven by the transgender community to combat harassment and violence against these populations. Unisex public toilets may benefit a range of people with or without special needs (e.g. people with disabilities, the elderly, and anyone who needs the help of someone of another gender or sex), as well as parents who need to help their infant or young child with using the toilet.]

Transgender and gender nonconforming people


Advocates argue that public toilets and sanitation facilities have historically not met the needs of the LGBTI communities. They maintain that this is an issue with respect to the human right to water and sanitation and also from the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goal 6, which aim for universal access to sanitation and their vision of gender equality. All-gender public toilets are designed to ensure that toilets are fully accessible to all members of society.

Transgender and gender non-conforming persons are at a high risk of violence without access to gender-neutral bathrooms (see: trans bashing). They are often be subject to embarrassment, harassment, even assault or arrest, by others offended by the presence of a person they interpret as being of a different sex than themselves. It has been argued that walking into a toilet separated by sex requires people to self-separate and that some transgender people report being challenged on what public toilet they choose to use and subsequently "do their best to forego use of public toilets altogether". Providing unisex toilets can eliminate discrimination and harassment for people who may be perceived to be in the "wrong" toilet.

A 2015 study by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 59% of transgender American avoided using public facilities for fear of confrontation. This landmark study, which included 27,715 respondents, found that 24% of respondents had their presence in the restroom questioned, 12% had experienced verbal harassment, physical assault, or sexual assault when attempting to use the restroom, and 9% were denied access entirely. Several studies have found that preventing transgender people from using public toilets has negative mental health impacts, leading to a higher risk of suicide. Without gender-neutral facilities, many people are unable to fulfill a basic need.

Many hate crimes have taken place following transgender people using a bathroom. Alexa Negrón Luciano of Puerto Rico was shot and killed just hours after being reported to police for using a women's bathroom. Hate speech and gun shots can be heard in a video of the killing, causing investigators to treat this incident as motivated by transphobia. There are several news reports of transgender people being denied access, being forced to leave after appearing to have used the "wrong" bathroom, being made to use a bathroom that does not align with their identity, getting harassed, getting beaten,   and getting arrested.

In the early twenty-first century, with increased coverage of the transgender community, there have been some initiatives calling for unisex public toilets, instead of only male and female ones, to better accommodate genderqueer individuals. Sex-separation of public toilets began gaining traction as a controversial issue in US politics in 2010. This has become an increasingly contentious issue, as shown in the battles over North Carolina's 2016 Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, among other bathroom bills. Several groups and organizations, whether in person or online, exist in order to combat attitudes and bills that oppose transgender individuals. For instance, the Transgender Law Center's "Peeing in Peace" is a pamphlet that serves as a resource guide full of information on harassment, safe public toilet campaigns and legal information.

While transgender public toilet usage has been labelled by many as a moral panic, the ongoing discourse continues to have significant impacts on this group.

Criticism
Some opponents of unisex public toilets argue that eliminating sex-separation entirely or identifying unisex spaces as the norm is not inclusive to (cisgender) women. They believe that women and children are more likely to be harassed and sexually assaulted there compared to sex-segregated public toilets. Safety in public toilets remains a serious issue for women. The recording of people in private spaces without their consent is also an issue.

Supporters of single-sex toilets point to the specific needs of women, such as menstrual hygiene, and argue that these require sex-segregation in public toilets, for reasons of personal comfort and privacy, and argue that this is especially true for teenage girls. Other concerns include that unisex toilets may be avoided by women, leading to both discomfort to women and wasting funds. Supporters of sex-segregated toilets argue that both males and females may feel "awkward" having to share a toilet with the opposite sex.

Some women's groups, have opposed making unisex toilets the norm, based on safety concerns for most women and a need for safe spaces. Groups like WomansPlaceUK have led a charge to secure "safe" spaces for women, arguing that sexual harassment dangers would be increased for women. They assert that they affirm the existence of transgender people and their right to protection but that women's rights, as they see them, must also be recognized. In this respect, debate has centred around UK proposals to amend the Gender Recognition Act to change the process of obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate to one of self-identification. Supporters of unisex spaces and access by self-declaration have rejected these claims. In the UK, trans people have for years been legally able to use the facilities that accord with their gender identity.

While cisgender women often complain that unisex washrooms will lead to violence, they frequently carry out this violence towards transgender women. In North Carolina, two cisgender women assaulted a transgender woman attempting to use the bathroom at a bar. In Maryland, two teenage cisgender women viciously attacked a transgender woman, to the point of seizure, after she had used the women's washroom. In Washington D.C., a cisgender woman, working as a security guard, assaulted a transgender woman in a grocery store bathroom. In Connecticut, a cisgender woman harassed another cisgender woman in a Walmart bathroom, because she mistakenly thought she was transgender. In California, a transgender woman was harassed out of the bathroom by congressional candidate Jazmina Saavedra.

In other instances, cisgender women get others to carry out this violence. In Oregon, a cisgender woman complained to her husband about a transgender woman in the women's bathroom, and he subsequently assaulted her. In North Carolina, after a complaint from his wife, a man harassed a transgender woman who had used the women's bathroom. The dispute ended with the transgender woman's arrest.

Statistics show no reports of transgender people attacking women. There has been no link between trans-inclusive policies and bathroom safety. A study conducted by the UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute found no significant change in the number of crimes since the passage of various laws that enable transgender public toilet usage.

Some religious groups have opposed unisex public toilets on the basis of morality. In 2017, a conservative Christian faith group leader in Texas has compared the introduction of unisex toilets with the abolition of Bible reading in state schools. However, there is energy for and against new bathroom bills by various groups of Christians.

In Germany, a member of the German right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) regards the unisex toilet as a danger for German women and relates it to sexual assaults by "criminal foreigners".

Protests and opposition
Backlash has sometimes occurred when unisex public toilets have been implemented without wide public embrace. After backlash, and complaints from (cisgender) women, the Barbican Centre in the UK was required to reconsider its original design. They later issued a statement promising that, in addition to unisex public toilets, they would keep sex-separated toilets as well. In Los Angeles in 2016, there were violent clashes between supporters and opponents of toilets. Students, who attended the school with unisex toilets, confronted the adult protestors who had been outside the school with signs and horns. In Germany in 2018, the newly installed unisex toilets at Bielefeld University have repeatedly been vandalized. In Toronto, also in 2018, people complained about a unisex washrooms in a mall. In May 2021, The Daily Telegraph reported that Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, was planning to ban unisex toilets in public buildings in order to "maintain safeguards that protect women". In the UK, the group Resisters plastered stickers all over the UK to protest what they called the confiscation of women's spaces. The stickers were in the shape of a penis and stated, "Women Don't Have Penises." These people would largely be described as TERF s. A number of local women's groups referred to the behaviour as insulting to transgender persons and hate speech.

[On a historical note, it should be inserted somewhere that women stopped equal rights for women (ERA) because they didn't want same-sex bathrooms... ]

women protesting https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bc-woman-human-rights-complaint-trans-bathroom

History of sex-separated toilets
There are competing theories regarding how and why public toilets (or "bathrooms" in the United States) first became separated by sex in the United States and Europe.

Western sex-separation as a modern development
Public toilets, part of the sanitation system of ancient Rome, were shared by many demographics. These latrines housed long benches with holes accommodating multiple simultaneous users. There was no privacy between users, as using the facilities was considered a social activity. This communal multi-seater typology continued until the 1800s.

By the Middle Ages, public toilets became uncommon. People had the legal right and social custom to urinate and defecate wherever they pleased.

Sociologist Dara Blumenthal notes changing bodily habits, attitudes, and practices regarding hygiene starting in the 16th century, which eventually led to a resurgence of public toilets in the 19th century. Civility increasingly required the removal of waste product from contact with others. New instruction manuals, schoolbooks, and court regulations dictated what was appropriate. With increasingly strict prohibitions on bodily display and the emergence of a rigid ideology of gender, visual privacy and spatial separation of the sexes were introduced into public toilet design. Several scholars note that it was not until the Victorian era, starting in Great Britain, that sex separation began in public toilets.

The earliest known example of a western sex-separated public toilet was a temporary installation that occurred in 1739 at a Parisian ball. This involved chamber boxes in separate rooms with attendants guiding visitors to the appropriate location. According to sociologist and author Sheila Cavanagh, this was seen by the guests as "sort of a novelty - something eccentric and fun." She argues that this was done to accentuate sexual difference, and project that difference onto public space.

George Jennings, the sanitary engineer, introduced public toilets, which he called "monkey closets", to the Crystal Palace for The Great Exhibition of 1851. They included separate amenities for men and women, and were the first flush toilet facilities to introduce sex-separation to the activity. London's first public toilet facility opened the next year with only provisions for men, although other facilities opened for women at other venues. From this point onward, sex-separation was a norm.

Many scholars note the practice of maintaining separate toilets coincides with early 19th century moral ideology regarding the appropriate role and place for women in society. According to historian Terry Kogan, this constructed women as "inherently vulnerable and in need of protection" and men as "inherently predatory." This sexist view was put forward as a "scientific" fact, to curb the emergent women's rights movement. Legislators and policymakers acted on protecting "weaker" women by limiting their work hours, requiring rest periods during the day, and prohibiting certain jobs. This also included architectural solutions to "protect" women such as separate toilet facilities with "fainting" couches.

In the United States, Massachusetts was the first state to pass a law mandating sex-separated toilet facilities in 1887. It was titled "An Act To Secure Proper Sanitary Provisions in Factories and Workshops". The act called for suitable and separate toilets for women in the workplace. By 1920, this was mandated in 43 states. This development is believed to be a reflection of women entering the workforce.

Western sex-separation as pre-modern
Under another view, offered by W. Burlette Carter, sex-separation has long been the standard in the U.S. and Great Britain. She argues that when people used chamber pots, sex-separation could be achieved by placing the pot in a separated space. In single-use privies and similar spaces, that separation was achieved by allowing only one "sex" to use the space at a time. In multi-use spaces, it was achieved either through the same means or by separate spaces for the sexes.

Burlette argues that, prior to the 1887 Massachusetts statute, across the United States and Europe at least, sex-separation was the norm already. The earliest written reference to sex-separation in the United States may be from 1786. A traveler described bathers using a public spring called Healing Springs, in South Carolina. The bathers would hang Aprons from a tree to mark when the women were bathing and used Hats to mark when the men were bathing. Within the culture of that time, this practice was tantamount to hanging "women" and "men" signs.

Primary rationales of sex-separation
One theory argues there were four primary rationales for sex-segregated toilets as detailed by state statutes and related literature in the nineteenth century: sanitation, women's privacy, the protection of women's bodies, which were seen as weaker, and to protect social morality especially as it pertained to the nineteenth century ideology of separate spheres. Subsequently, other states in the US created similar laws, often by amending existing protective labor legislation. Forty-three states had passed similar legislation by 1920. Others argue that safety and privacy were the two main goals of sex-separation (although factors such as morality also played roles). In New York in 1886, for example, factory inspectors asked for separate toilets out of concerns of women who came to them complaining of sexual harassment. Others argued for complete space separation citing the pressure on women to engage in sexual behavior to keep their jobs. Authorities who cared about these issues were trying to respond to those concerns by mandating separation. Indeed, these laws were likely among the first anti-sexual harassment laws in the nation. Many victims in the workplace were afraid to press charges for fear of losing work.

Some scholars have tied toilet sex-separation to segregation based on race discrimination in the US. Advocates of this view argue that these approaches share a theme in which a warning is issued against the looming threats: violence and sexual assaults would increase. Some political activists have drawn on the commonality between public toilets being segregated formerly by race and still by sex. On the other hand, while all discrimination has commonalities, the sex-separation within racial groups, even going back to slavery, suggests that the parallel regarding toilets is historically flawed. For example, slave ships were usually separated by sex. This fact suggests that racial segregation in public toilets and sex separation in them may not be as comparable as some suggest.

In prior cases where restrooms were separated by race as well as gender, white women have traditionally been given more amenities because they were white. This denial was a sign of discrimination against others based on race and/or poverty, and not automatically a sign of society assigning a lesser value to women in general. Men also experienced different treatment, not based on class, but based on race, with black men having less favorable facilities. There is evidence that when sexual minorities sought to create safe spaces that reimagined sex and gender lines their efforts were resisted.