Unisex Bathrooms: Flushing Away All Restroom Controversies?

Author, April Rose Scnheider, of the article, "Unisex Bathrooms: The Controversy. One for All? Why Unisex Bathrooms May Help Transgendered People," argues that unisex bathrooms are the solution to the urgent issues of personal safety and transgendered inclusion in regards to segregated bathrooms. I find that unisex bathrooms are a ridiculous solution to a problem that effects less than one percent of the US population. 

A boy walks into the room with the image of a pant-legged stick figure;
a girl walks into the room that shows the stick figure in a cute
little stick dress; this everyday, given no thought, human instinct
action has become as natural as brushing your teeth in every morning.
From the first “sanitary facility” in China dating back
to 206 BC, within the tomb of a king of the Western Han Dynasty,
bathrooms have been a place of privacy and safety. Despite bathrooms
(head, privies, latrines, powder room lavatories, johns, loos, and
outhouses) being a place of refuge, a reading room, etc, they entail
one major issue: segregation. April Rose Schneider, writer of the
article, “Unisex bathrooms: The Controversy” believes
that “the solution may be unisex facilities…"
(Schneider, paragraph 2). Bathroom segregation origins are difficult
to discover, but this segregation ended with the Civil Rights Act of
1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion,
sex, national origin-in voting, employment, and public services. This
act is currently outdated as it fails to define the category of sex.
“Definitions of men and woman that vary from culture to culture
– and the emergence of third and fourth genders in global
society – create the need for a new approach to an old problem
(Schneider, paragraph 4). There are many reasons to justify unisex
facilities: both mothers and fathers could care for there baby in the
bathroom at the same time, opposite-gendered caregivers could stay
with their ward, and there would be a greater prevention for
man-on-women crime. The main reason of this article is to introduce
the fact that bathroom segregation has become a catalyst for
transgendered people to feel uncomfortable and face dangerous
situations. While one tries to “pass” as the sex that
matches the stick figure upon the bathroom door, for a variety of
people, “from butch lesbians to transitions trasngendered
people, the bathroom hold the same potential for violence as it does
for safety” (Schneider, paragraph 7). Unisex facilities have
been gaining popularity in modern day. Are unisex bathrooms truly the
solution?

Being disloyal (just for a moment) to my open-minded and feministic
approach on life, I have to strongly disagree that unisex bathrooms
are the solution to bathroom segregation. It’s understandable
that transgendered people are at a high risk of facing danger in the
place of privacy, but it is not necessary to make the rest of the
population uncomfortable, just so the .25% of transgendered people in
the U.S. can be safe. Many people today- for those pee shy people-
have enough trouble sharing a bathroom facility with others of the
same sex; I don’t see how adding members of the opposite sex
into the room would make their situation any easier. Transgendered
people make the choice (key word choice) to change their body types
and present themselves as how they perceive themselves to be. By
making this choice, and following through on it, they also take on
the hardships that being a transgendered person involves. One of
these hardships includes facing adversity in the bathroom.

Don’t get the wrong idea about my morals and views of the LGBT community;
I’m all for equal rights for same-sex marriages and
transgendered rights, but I just don’t believe unisex bathrooms
are the solutions. Granted, transgendered people will be satisfied,
but on the other contrary, unisex facilities are creating an
uncomfortable environment for the majority of the people. I don’t
think the fact that “bathroom segregation simply divides the
girls from the boys,” (Schneider, paragraph 6) from a
superficial perspective, is the most horrible situation in the world.

Don't Play With Boys

Using the poem, "Girl," by Jamaica Kincaid as inspiration, I looked deep into my past and attempted to pick out a unique characteristic that sets me apart from other people; my poem entails the rules of a little girl, who for 9 years, struggled to earn respect while playing on the boys' sports teams. Not all the boys or their parents were very supportive, so to say. In this poem, there are various rules, (some funny, some serious) that I had to follow. The moral of the story is, don't give a second of thought to what insults ignorant people throw at you; it's not worth it!

But I’m just one of the guys. Walk onto the field with confidence and prove you belong here. Okay Dad. What’s a girl doing here? Don’t listen to their parents. Don’t waste your time. Leave! You’re not good enough. You must still act somewhat feminine. You’ll never be able to keep up. We don’t want her playing with our sons. Qué es una chica haciendo aquí? I love when the Jersey City soccer team makes fun of me in Spanish and thinks I don’t understand. Don't stay in the hotel room with the boys; they might run around naked. You’re a girl; you can’t strike me out- I just struck you out! This is how far you have to hit. This is how fast you have to run to first base. This is how fast you have to pitch. This is how hard you have to kick the soccer ball- if you want to keep up with the boys. This is how much passion you have to play with to earn a smidge of respect. I just knocked a twelve-year-old boy on his ass. Does he respect me now? This is how you maintain your composure on the mound. This is how to shake hands after the game like a competitor with the jerks who scrutinized you. Don’t strike out or they will never respect you. Make the throw home or they will never respect you. Score this goal or they will never respect you. This is how you hit a foul ball at an opposing jackass coach where it hurts. Don’t quit. When do they shut up?  While they are thinking of ways to intimidate you, you work that move you been working on and score. She can’t play boy’s rec basketball. This is how you make a petition and fight what is wrong. And this is how you stay strong from failure due to ignorance. This is how you make baseball pants, button down jerseys, and high socks look good while all the other girls are running around in skirts; either way, black pants are always slimming. Don’t ever cry in front of the boys. Don’t ever let them get to your head. When you cry, don’t hide in your shirt. They win. After all these years of fighting and proving yourself and having fun and winning you are really going to be the kind of girl/athlete who the boys can talk away confidence and pride from? No!