Last week, the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) was
defeated because of concerns criminals might dress like women to get into
women’s bathrooms.
Never mind that twelve
states and hundreds of US cities, including Dallas, Fort
Worth and Austin, have laws just like HERO and none have seen a surge in
crime in women’s bathrooms.
Perhaps I hang out in a better class of bathroom than
HERO opponents do, but I am not concerned about crime there. (Being grossed out, yes, crime, no.)
I was struck, however, by
readers’ comments, even at the New York Times,
admitting they’d feel funny using unisex bathrooms and, especially, locker
rooms.
Many were aghast at the thought of seeing a penis in the
ladies’ room. In my 50 years of using ladies’ rooms, however, I have yet to see
anyone’s genitalia. There are stalls, people, and even in men’s rooms with urinals, my
guess is nobody's swinging his penis around.
Locker rooms are different. In those, you do see other
people naked and they see you naked – and I don’t think anybody likes that.
We should get rid of group showers. They were invented to
save money when building facilities but, since people then try not to use those
facilities, they’re a total waste. We need private showers, particularly
for self-conscious middle and high schoolers.
And therein lies the silver lining.
Maybe accommodating transgender people will lead us to design
better bathrooms and locker rooms!
Unisex bathrooms might have floor-to-ceiling doors on the
stalls with those vacant/occupied signs, for example.
Voila! No more peering under the doors to see if there
are feet.
As is often the case, when we finally begin
to think about things in order to address the concerns of a previously
ignored group, we all benefit.
There is a woman at my gym who sits naked on the bench in the locker room after she's showered. All parts of her body have headed south a long time ago, and the result is not pretty. I would take a man in a dress any day instead of having to look at that.
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