Gender-neutral bathrooms?

[kryptonite]

Maybe we don't have these where I live, as I'm struggling to figure out what these are.

Obviously, we have M and F restrooms and we have the private rooms with one toilet and one sink and a mirror where parents can take their five-year-old son and/or three-year-old daughter to make things easy. Maybe you're a dad to a four-year-old girl and if you both need to use the toilet, you wouldn't want her walking past urinals.

Just walking by in busy areas, I've seen parents put one kid in there and stand outside. I guess if you were trans or "sexually confused" or whatever, then you could use these...really, there's no rule to who can and who can't use these private restrooms.

The signs for those private restrooms usually say "family restrooms" but apparently, there's some restrooms where girls and guys can do their business in adjoining stalls? Are those like private rooms where the dividers go all the way between the floor and the ceiling? What about urinals in these rooms...are those in with the toilets and the sink area is common?


Help me figure out...please...

[Neverender]

but apparently, there's some restrooms where girls and guys can do their business in adjoining stalls? Are those like private rooms where the dividers go all the way between the floor and the ceiling? What about urinals in these rooms...are those in with the toilets and the sink area is common?

That's generally the claim, usually by not-very-well-tempered student unions or transgendered groups trying to shove Ze and Zhe down our throats.

Essentially Gender neutral bathrooms can take any shape or form, it's just a bathroom able to be used by both men and women. There may or may not be urinals, there may or may not be fully-walled stalls, etc.

What truly constitutes a real gender-neutral bathroom is finicky. At my University, a handful of members of our Transgendered community started angering people by covering the Male-Female signs on our bathrooms with signs that said "Gender Neutral"
So by their own definition, any bathroom can be constituted as Gender neutral and there is no concrete definition of the term.

So far as I'm concerned, I don't see a real need for gender-neutral bathrooms beyond any family bathroom (or family changeroom for instance at a local pool). I would go with the bathroom you identify with.

I have a hard feeling any true purpose-designed Gender Neutral bathroom will ever really catch on. Mainly because I, as a gay male, would feel just as uncomfortable urinating in the presence of women as they may be uncomfortable with my presence. (And it would require renovations everywhere segregated bathrooms are already located)

I hope I answered this fuzzy topic with my blurry, fuzzy response.

[kryptonite]

Maybe it's just me, but I have a hard time wrapping my mind around a bathroom where guys are using urinals and there's girls in there between the ages...well, over the age of say 4-5 (in other words, anyone who can use the bathroom without parental help.) If it's say a 9-10 year old and her dad in the "men's" room, well, that just seems awkward. If it's a mom and her daughter of the same age in a room with urinals, well, that's equally awkward.

If a 12-year-old girl and her 8-year-old brother go into the same bathroom where adults are allowed in...yeah...sounds kind of risky.

And like I said, if someone needs the help of an opposite-gender parent, such as young age or disability or whatever, well, the private bathrooms are on the rise.

Maybe this is just outside the USA...where things seem to be less focused on sexualized atmosphere.

Do these also have showers or are shower facilities still separate?

And yeah, I do feel a bit odd if I'm in a locker room and someone young opposite gender comes in with their parent. But, part of me also says that they're too young to fully "realize" what's going on.

IMO, transgender is a tricky situation... you should use whatever "parts" you have... and if you don't feel right in either, well, the private one is also an option. I know someone who switched and saw them once enter a private bathroom (although that was also the closest one) and a few years later, saw them enter the bathroom which they "switched" to. But I also realize that transgender is becoming more and more common/easy to talk about, so five or ten years from now, who knows what the situation will be like.

[Neverender]

I think you're thinking of "Gender Neutral" bathrooms as a specific definition of what the room is, and how its designed or set up, to make it Gender Neutral.

All it really means it a bathroom in which both men and women (and by proxy transgendered) can use. The layout or design or purpose is not important, because you can have a bathroom designed for both sexes and have it labeled "Men's Room" or you can have a men's bathroom and throw on a label that says "All sexes"

I wouldn't think there's any specific design or common motif when it comes to say, a real "designated" gender neutral washroom

[Sasha M]

What is all of this talk about family stalls and kids of varrying ages, aren't we talking about gender-neutral washrooms? Use the family room if you want, but I define a gender neutral bathroom very simply. A bathroom were anyone can use it. (A family room is technically for "families", often a child with a parent.)