Today’s article tackles the subject of gender-neutral restrooms. This is a serious issue that I’m attempting to honestly work through. I’ll do my best to convey the pros and cons of each viewpoint without resorting to strawman arguments. In today’s uber political climate nuance is not always appreciated, so I can only assume many people will be upset by this article simply for my attempt to see both sides fairly. Such is life.
As always I attempt to bring some levity to the article so please do your best not to be offended. If you find yourself offended please read the entire article before casting judgment. Once you’ve done that feel free to lob any and all complaints my way via Twitter @MrBurritoBowl or in the comments.
I also venture into the cold, unforgiving waters of discussing concerns for safety with concerns over the treatment of the transgender community. I’m sure that will go super well for me.
Anyway. Let’s get to it.
I ran a couple of polls on Twitter to see where everyone stood on the issue and how that correlated to their political leaning. If I could run as many polls as I wished- with no worry of annoying my followers- I would also like to know the vote breakdown of men/women for/against gender-neutral restrooms as well as how the urban/rural for/against vote breaks down.
I assumed people on the left would be more in favor of gender-neutral restrooms while people on the right would be opposed. Here’s how that poll played out.
I was surprised to find nearly 2/3 of people were against the idea of gender-neutral restrooms. Some of the louder voices on the left suggest that everyone is on board with gender-neutral restrooms except those on the far-right. As is typical, the left tends to eat itself by labeling anyone not as progressive as them as ‘far-right,’ even if they themselves claim to also be on the left. That’s for another day.
Only 6% of total voters were both conservative AND in favor of gender-neutral restrooms. This didn’t surprise me, although I think more conservatives would be FOR gender-neutral restrooms if they really thought it through.
I was surprised that 22% of voters considered themselves liberal AND against gender-neutral bathrooms. This is where my vote would be if I were to vote.
I also asked whether or not urinals should be taken out of gender-neutral bathrooms.
60% said to take them out while 40% voted to leave them. I vote to leave them. Again, I’m part of the minority, but not alone. I waffle between thinking gender-neutral bathrooms are an overall good idea but my feet are firmly planted on the side of leaving urinals for people to use. The argument against urinals seems to be more of annoyance over men being able to get in and out more quickly than women, and not one of practicality.
We’ll dive into urinals in more depth because I know it’s a hot button issue for many people.
Gender-Neutral Restrooms in Public
There’s a very well-intentioned movement to remove gender signs from public restrooms. However you fit into the world, we all use the same bathroom. Ostensibly the reason for making gender-neutral restrooms is to make non-binary people feel more comfortable. I love the intention and empathy, but I don’t think the unintended consequences should be ignored.
There are a lot of real-world positives to making restrooms accessible to both men and women. Parents can share the burden of taking their children to the potty, transgender people can feel included- and just as importantly NOT feel excluded- fathers can watch over their daughters and mothers can watch over their sons without the awkwardness of not being sure whether your child is too old to follow you into your restroom while simultaneously being too young to venture into the other restroom alone.
There are a lot of positives to well-constructed gender-neutral restrooms.
[Well constructed meaning floor to ceiling stalls to ensure privacy as well as any other concerns people might share.]
For this article, I’m mostly referring to public restrooms where multiple people are in them at one time. For the record, I’m 100% in favor of making single-person restrooms gender-neutral across the board. My one request is, where possible, make sure each restroom has a toilet AND a urinal. This is more for women’s benefit than for men’s. I know including a urinal makes many people want to blow a gasket so I promise I will unpack my rationale in a minute.
Hopefully, we can all agree the annoyance of being lined up waiting for one single-person restroom while the other gendered restroom sits empty is a waste of time for everyone involved. At the very least we should make single-person restrooms open to everyone regardless of their gender. I hope we can all get on the same page there.
Multi-Person Public Restrooms
As for multi-person restrooms, I’m genuinely conflicted. I can see the rationale for keeping them separated by gender, but I also see where that leaves the transgender community out in the cold. I want to be empathetic to the idea that for an entire section of the population this is a large issue that causes much angst.
The main argument in favor of gender-neutral restrooms is the desire to be inclusive to everyone, regardless of where you fit on the gender spectrum. The main argument against gender-neutral restrooms is a concern for safety. Sorting out which concern is more important is difficult, if not impossible.
The Fear of Attack
With gendered restrooms there are likely to be more attacks against the transgender community then there would be if all bathrooms were gender-neutral. How do you weigh this against the idea that gender-neutral restrooms allow predators a safe place to hang out and wait for potential victims? Anyone with empathy wants to avoid both outcomes. How do you compassionately weigh one against the other?
Before the hate starts, let me implore on you my motivations and empathy. I hate the idea of someone being in a public area and not knowing which bathroom to go into for fear of being ridiculed or attacked based on how they look or where they fit on the gender spectrum. This type of behavior makes me sick and we need to do a better job at treating everyone how we ourselves wish to be treated.
On Twitter, ArchiFinance pointed out this prototype gender-neutral restroom. If you’re someone who has no idea how a gender-neutral restroom could possibly work you should check it out. I don’t know how feasible this prototype is, but it seems to alleviate many of my concerns.
Making restroom gender-neutral would take some retrofitting. It’s not as simple as just removing the signage and calling it a day.
What’s this about urinals?
Urinals aren’t gender-neutral so why the insistence on them? To explain why urinals are so important, allow me to highlight some of the differences between men’s and women’s restrooms.
My stance against gender-neutral restrooms has to do with the general grossness of men’s restrooms. Making gender-neutral restrooms with no urinals will not go well for one simple reason…
Men are disgusting.
I know this because I am a man. I feel like women intuitively know that men’s bathrooms aren’t as nice, but I feel like you guys don’t understand the breadth of the differences.
Here’s a standard women’s restroom.
It’s clean and welcoming. There’s probably a couch and some flowers. The paper towel roll has been refilled at some point during the last several days and there’s a cabinet of extra toilet paper if you run out. Someone comes in to clean and check on stuff in the women’s restroom. It smells surprisingly nice for a place people poop.
By contrast, here’s a standard men’s restroom.
It’s important to notice the subtle difference. Instead of fresh flowers, men typically have something that suspiciously resembles poop somewhere on the floor. The urinals are covered in pee as are the toilets. At least one of the urinals is probably out of order. There’s still pee in it.
There’s usually no barrier between urinals and occasionally toilets are out in the open. To be fair we usually have stalls for toilets; some of them even have doors. This is not always the case, but sometimes. It’s hard to draw smell and cleanliness, but those are also different in a men’s restroom.
Instead of motivational posters, someone has scratched the words, “F*ck You (insert various slurs)” into the mirror. Similar phrases are also drawn on and around the toilets as well as any stall walls that exist.
This classic male graffiti design is drawn in every men’s restroom that’s ever existed.
This is all well and good. Men are disgusting and we don’t seem to mind.
Here’s how I imagine gender-neutral restrooms with no urinals playing out.
[I realize true gender-neutral restrooms would have floor to ceiling stalls, but the cartoon wouldn’t be as funny that way.]
Progressive Portland Pee
In real life, they’re updating the restrooms of the Portland Municipal Building to be gender-neutral. Part of making a restroom gender-neutral is the removal of urinals. This is not an episode plot for Portlandia, this is a real thing.
Women can’t use urinals and we’re trying to be as inclusive as possible. This feels like a great idea. In fact, according to many people, if you aren’t on board with the removal of urinals you’re a far-right shitty person.
In an office environment, you’re far less likely to deal with men making a mess of the toilet, and far less likely to deal with sexual harassment. Anywhere that serves alcohol the aiming rate of the male population goes down substantially, as well as our ability to not sexually harass other people. Admittedly we are the less housebroken of the sexes.
Several people on Twitter mentioned that urinals aren’t gender-neutral, so if you have urinals in a restroom it’s just a men’s bathroom that you’re letting women use. These people seemed to all be women. I’m not downplaying their concerns, I just don’t know if they appreciate just how poorly many men aim while relieving themselves.
Ideal vs. Reality
In a perfect world, everyone sits down to pee so there’s no mess. This is not a perfect world. The sentiment from ladies seems to be, “Urinals aren’t inclusive, we’re taking them out. Men can just sit to pee.” The problem with this line of thinking is men won’t sit to pee. We’ll stand because it’s easier.
We try our best to aim at the target in a urinal because someone is usually standing next to us, and peeing on them would be awkward for everyone. If you give us a toilet, most of us will do our best to hit mostly water, but when we do hit the sides we’ll be hesitant to clean it up. We don’t want to touch someone else’s pee that was already there. This is a sad fact of life in men’s restrooms.
If you remove urinals from restrooms and make them all truly gender-neutral, men will end up peeing on and around the toilets that ladies have to sit on. This will result in a net loss for women.
If we do decide to remove urinals there needs to be more attention to dedicated cleaning, otherwise, things will quickly get out of hand. In places where dedicated cleaning is harder to come by, I beg you- for your own good- leave a few urinals.
The unintended consequence of gender-neutral, urinal-free restrooms is women sitting in pee. Men’s pee.
For men, a gender-neutral restroom is all positive. Maybe someone will finally clean the place if they know women will be there. Our paper towel roll may even get refilled from time to time.
For women, it’s entirely negative. There have been a few times I’ve walked into the bathroom at home and thought, “Hmmm, Mrs. Burrito Bowl may have just pooped. I guess she does poop. I think.” By contrast, there have times I’ve made myself gag from my own defecation. It should be noted that I’m one of the good guys. I’m healthy. I drink kombucha and my gut bacteria is on point. The smells you encounter in a public men’s restroom will melt your face.
The bottom line is men have to pee and they WILL stand. It’s not fair, but it’s life. If you remove the urinal- because urinals are sexist- you’re not helping women. Women still have to sit on the toilet to pee. Giving men a separate urinal to destroy with splatter means less splatter ends up on the seat that women and poopers have to sit on.
Here’s how adding a urinal would look to this same bathroom set up. 
It’s super gross. The dude is missing the urinal like crazy. BUT, as a woman, you don’t have to touch the urinal. You DO have to touch the toilet. Once the cowboy is done he’s out of your way and the toilets remain clean. Think long and hard about this before you decide the only course of action is to remove the urinals.
Safety and Grossness
Okay. So by now, I hope I’ve conveyed the cleanliness reason for being against gender-neutral restrooms. I’m concerned with how gross men are and I don’t wish to subject the female population to our grossness.
My reasons against gender-neutral restrooms have nothing to do with any kind of malice towards the transgender community. I don’t care who comes into the men’s restroom. As far as I’m concerned any and all are welcome to enter. But please think about the unintended consequences before you let your average football watching, beer drinking, nacho eating, man into the women’s restroom.
I think nuance is missing from a lot of our discussions. While I can see the benefits of having gender-neutral restrooms I can also see some pitfalls. There are some additional downsides that shouldn’t be ignored. Most notably- safety.
In high traffic areas safety isn’t as much of a concern because there are more people around to stop a crime from taking place. It would be harder for those with ill-intent to wait around for a victim in a high traffic gender-neutral restroom. In less crowded areas it would be fairly easy to wait around for someone to come in and attack from there.
Side note: It makes sense that conservatives- being by and large from more rural areas- are more concerned with the safety issue where liberals- being by and large from more urban areas- are more concerned with the inclusion of transgender people. I think it's tempting for the liberal side to label the conservative side transphobic on this issue but that doesn't accurately reflect their concerns. From the rural-living conservative's standpoint, they might be far more likely to run into a would-be attacker than they would be to run into a transgender person. The two- would-be attacker and transgender person- should not be conflated. For most of those against the idea of gender-neutral restrooms, the reasoning isn't one of intolerance towards the transgender community, but rather one of safety. Not safety from transgender people, but safety from anyone wishing to do harm. From a risk to reward ratio standpoint there's an argument to be made that it makes sense to error on the side of caution by being against the idea of gender-neutral restrooms. This is not meant to excuse bigotted viewpoints but rather to shed light on an issue that is more nuanced than many of the loudest voices will let on.
Back to the main post.
The concern for safety shouldn’t be discounted out of hand. In a gender-neutral restroom, you can escort your child and ensure their safety. At least as long as they don’t deem themselves ‘too cool’ to use the restroom with a parent present.
At some point, your child will want to use the restroom without you. Knowing there won’t be a creepy guy waiting for your daughter, wife, friend, etc., on the inside is the reason a lot of people are against gender-neutral restrooms.
The counter-argument to this is that with gender-neutral restrooms you can always go in as well to ensure safety. The problem is you won’t always be around. If my wife and daughter are on a road trip without me they are in less danger if the restrooms are separated by gender.
The concern for safety.
Picture this situation involving a wife and her daughter
A wife and her daughter are at a rest stop with one other car in the parking lot. Gender-neutral restrooms are the norm. The wife enters the restroom with her daughter and notices a sketchy looking man hanging out inside. Since this is a gender-neutral restroom he has just as much of a right to be there as she does. This is a great fear among people who oppose this idea.
If this were a women’s bathroom she would immediately know for certain something was up. In a gender-neutral restroom, she really has no recourse.
In urban areas, this isn’t as much of an issue as any restroom will be filled with other people. The alarm will be sounded that there’s a man hanging out in the woman’s restroom and any potential assault will likely be avoided.
In rural areas, you don’t have that luxury. This is the exact situation that could play out. It’s a coin-flip whether the man is an honest person- who just needed to use the restroom- or a predator looking for his next victim.
Now picture this situation involving your relative
A family member you care very deeply about- maybe a child or sibling- decides to make the transition from male to female. Whether you personally agree with their choice is irrelevant. The fact is you love this person.
Imagine they’re on a road trip and need to use the restroom. There’s a group of college guys who immediately start harassing her. Their girlfriends are in the women’s restroom and they tell your relative they’ll beat her up if she goes in there.
If that were the case, would you be on their side or hers? At that moment if you could snap your fingers and make that restroom gender-neutral, would you?
Any transgender person you come across is somebody’s family member. Someone loves that person.
Solutions.
So what is the best answer? If we don’t want gender-neutral restrooms, how can we be inclusive to everyone? If we do want gender-neutral restrooms how can we ensure men don’t ruin everyone’s day with their splatter? How can we ensure transgender and non-binary people feel safe to use whichever restroom they identify with? How do we protect those who can’t protect themselves both from emotional and physical harm?
There are a couple of things we can do.
For restrooms separated by gender:
If you’re someone who easily fits into the male/female spectrum and you see someone walk into your restroom who you assumed was the other gender- unless you feel physically unsafe- just roll with it. Don’t be an asshole about the situation because they probably have people being unkind to them all the time. Don’t be dickish.
For gender-neutral restrooms:
In high traffic areas I’m open to the idea of making as many restrooms gender-neutral as you want. I recommend leaving urinals in them, but I’ll let the city planners make the final decision. Just don’t be surprised if the removal of urinals has some less than ideal ramifications.
In more remote areas it becomes a trickier situation. I get how people can decide the safety of their loved ones outweighs the desire for inclusion. Even having gendered restrooms doesn’t negate all concerns, but it at least provides an extra layer of protection against men hiding out waiting to attack someone.
Even your transgender relative might be safer seeing the transphobic guys out in the open instead of meeting them in the confines of the restroom. I think it’s a nuanced issue that takes us honestly looking at the ramifications and not just jumping to the conclusion that happens to work best for us.
I’m attempting to have a nuanced viewpoint that bridges the gap between both sides, so I won’t be surprised if everyone hates it. I assume I will simultaneously be called far-right for making the case against gender-neutral restrooms and a liberal hippie for even suggesting gender-neutral restrooms have some advantages. This has been an excellent use of the last several hours of my life.
So those are my thoughts on gender-neutral restrooms. What are yours?
If you enjoyed this article- or hated it for that matter- feel free to share it with your friends and enemies.
Here are a few more articles that have words and cartoons.
On God Part II- God Floods the World
Thailand FI- Bridging the Gap Between Zero and FIRE
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