Sidney Patterson
Mixed gender bathrooms do more harm than good
Consider the following: you are running your errands all by your lonesome in a large department store, when you need to use the restroom. You get to the back of the store, and one of several scenarios can occur. There could be a terribly long line consisting of not only women but men as well all waiting for the same restroom, or you could be there by your lonesome, only to get assaulted by a man. Both of these could be avoided had there only been segregated bathrooms.
I do not support instituting gender-neutral bathrooms because I think they would be doing more harm than good. No woman wants to use the same facilities as any man in the public, nor does any man want to wait in a line of both men and women due to the fact that women typically take longer in the bathroom. This is an argument purely based around desire and comfort for one’s self. In which case, shouldn’t we vote with the majority? There is not a single state of our nation (disregarding the District of Columbia) that meets or even surpasses a five percent rate of transgender population, so why would we go through the trouble to meet the needs of such a small population?
“We don’t need gender neutral bathrooms” suggests that transgender people are made to feel uncomfortable or shamed in the public bathroom environment and that making gender neutral bathrooms would solve this problem, but this is not the case. The leopard cannot change its spots, thus changing the style of public bathrooms will not solve the transgender shaming in said environment.
One point brought up by this resolve is an incident that occurred twenty years ago where a boy went into the men’s bathroom unaccompanied by his aunt only to be murdered. Although sad to consider, this is merely a freak incident that doesn’t support their cause. By making a transgender bathroom seem multi-purpose, they are trying to get more people to support their movement for causes not their own.
In my opinion, going through with gender neutral bathrooms would be a slippery slope. Small businesses cannot afford to renovate entirely for a mere fraction of the population. What’s next? Gender neutral locker rooms? Gender neutral products at the grocery store? At the end of the day, a change of environment will not change the problem of people discriminating against transgender people, transgender people make the decision of embracing the way they feel along with the consequences to follow. I do not think neutralizing bathrooms will take away the problem of harassment transgender people face, and thus do not support the implementation of their availability in public institutions. It is not like someone will be at the front of the bathroom asking for your license to verify your gender, so use the bathroom that suits you regardless of gender, even so, there are always handicap and family bathrooms, so if you’re that uncomfortable, that can be a last resort. Gender neutral bathrooms are unnecessary and a drastic resolve for a small issue if there even is one.