The term gender-neutral is a misleading term. It is because gender neutral spaces almost always become male spaces due to the previously existing imbalance in society. Because many women still rightly fear men in restricted spaces, many women avoid gender-neutral spaces because those spaces give males access to them. These are cultural, as well as structural differences that need to be addressed first before simply slapping a ‘gender neutral’ sign over the ladies sign in public spaces.
“In April 2017, the BBC journalist Samira Ahmed wanted to use a toilet. She was at a screening of the James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro at London’s Barbican arts centre, and it was the interval. Any woman who has ever been to the theatre knows what that means. This evening, the queue was worse than usual. Far worse. Because in an almost comically blatant display of not having thought about women at all, the Barbican had turned both the male and female toilets gender neutral simply by replacing the “men” and “women” signage with “gender neutral with urinals” and “gender neutral with cubicles”. The obvious happened. Only men were using the supposedly “gender neutral with urinals” and everyone was using the “gender neutral with cubicles”.
Rather than rendering the toilets genuinely gender neutral, they had simply increased the provision for men. “Ah the irony of having to explain discrimination having just been to see I Am Not Your Negro IN YOUR CINEMA”, Ahmed tweeted, suggesting that turning the gents gender neutral would be sufficient: “There’s NEVER such a queue there & you know it.”
On the face of it, it may seem fair and equitable to accord male and female public toilets the same amount of space – and historically, this is the way it has been done: 50/50 division of floor space has even been formalised in plumbing codes. However, if a male toilet has both cubicles and urinals, the number of people who can relieve themselves at once is far higher per square foot of floor space in the male bathroom than in the female bathroom. Suddenly equal floor space isn’t so equal.
But even if male and female toilets had an equal number of stalls, the issue wouldn’t be resolved, because women take up to 2.3 times as long as men to use the toilet. Women make up the majority of the elderly and disabled, two groups that will tend to need more time in the toilet.
Women are also more likely to be accompanied by children, as well as disabled and older people. Then there’s the 20–25% of women of childbearing age who may be on their period at any one time, and therefore need to change a tampon or a sanitary pad.
Women may also require more trips to the bathroom: pregnancy significantly reduces bladder capacity, and women are eight times more likely to suffer from urinary-tract infections. In the face of all these anatomical differences, it would surely take a formal equality dogmatist to continue to argue that equal floor space between men and women is fair.”
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
6 comments
September 9, 2019 at 6:42 am
jim-
As a binary gender male I can only speak to fairness. Let women decide what they need and non-binary genders’ decide what they need. I would hate for anyone to sit-out an event because of bathroom anxieties. I have stood outside the door waiting for my preteen daughter to navigate her way safely in and out of crowded public restrooms and it can take for friggin ever sometimes.
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September 9, 2019 at 11:26 am
The Arbourist
@ Jim
Hi Jim. Coming from a radical feminist perspective, there is really no such thing as ‘non-binary’ because in reality we are all mixture of traits that populate both sides of the gender-binary. No one possesses just all male gender traits, or exclusively female traits.
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September 9, 2019 at 11:30 am
jim-
Certainly. I have some feminine traits as well. I think when we can really accept those varieties will we truly make progress and not have to take sides, embracing the whole as it should be. Thanks for clarifying.
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September 10, 2019 at 1:22 am
MMarg
Toilets have just about everything to do with a woman’s freedom of movement in public (male) space. Lack of toilets discourages female participation, turns women’s lineups to the loo into a joke for men to enjoy and so women can listen to their witty repartee about “just go faster” in response to women’s complaints about the wait time. All intermissions are spent in the toilet line while men can zip in to the men’s and be out in time for an actual drink at the bar. Have they not thought of losing profits from all those lost sales to women? The fact that discrimination is codified in building codes as if there’s no F’ing thing we can do about it….Don’t get me started, ha! This problem is so easily solved it’s a no-brainer but it continues… At festivals, in concert halls, and late at night toilet access shuts as buildings do and that leaves street urinals – another man-only facility. Woman must not be allowed out late at night…
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October 18, 2019 at 4:12 pm
maddie
I’m a bit late to the party here, but am climbing over a new hurdle on this one. I am old.
Up to now: I do not want to use toilets that men use (no matter how they dress or ‘feel’) and I have been threatened and harassed in a public women’s toilet when males came in just because they could. The worst: a toilet with three stalls, me and my menstruating, cramping daughter in two, and a man in the third, entered after we had. Another time I quietly waited outside the restroom entrance, and they played around with their hair, make-up, giggling and peaking to call back to the others “Hi!” giggle giggle. I was afraid, because although they were giggling, it was “at” me, and it was with malevolent eyes.
Now I am old and I have to plan when I last pee with what I need to do, or find a one person locked door bathroom where I frequently have to wet wipe the seat before I can sit. I can’t hover. The old part. I also can’t manage more than 2 hours at best without a toilet, but I have errands to do. Fortuntely, I am one of the lucky ones. I have a little car. Eighteen years old, but it gets me back home to pee, and I go out again and finish my errands. If I can’t get back home there’s a coffee shop I know has clean one person room style locked door bathrooms and I DRIVE out of my way to get there, pee, buy coffee because guilt. The next hurdle is wearing a diaper. I am old. I am poor. And I am always in pain for other reasons, but having to hold my pee can make me sick after. I don’t think the men I’ve seen in toilets are there to pee. They are they to play around, be agressive and enjoy our fear and use us for their fetish.
I can go fewer and fewer places without being afraid. I used to like walking in the river valley, short walks, maybe 30 mins. But I will inevitably need to go to the bathroom and am afraid to use the bathrooms there. I have to drive out, and come back. I have to know all the time, where a safe(ist) bathroom is. Because as it stands, none are.
Campus is the worst.
Thanks for listening.
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October 22, 2019 at 9:12 am
The Arbourist
@maddie
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences on this matter. It is important for people to see that they are not alone in this fight and that other people are going through similar situations with legislation like this. Women won’t take the short end of the stick on this one for long. :)
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