I was in New York City last weekend and had the opportunity to shop and explore and see a great production at the Met. I also had my first exposure to inclusion which directly affected me, and it took place in a restroom.
My favorite secret public restroom in the city is always clean, never has a queue, and features those incredibly strange but effective Dyson hand dryers on the wall. When I made my routine rest stop there, however, a sign was on the door, saying in so many words that the facility was open to anybody regardless of gender identity.
I stopped for a minute, and then I went in as always.
Nothing happened, but it’s a new grey area in this world, and I wonder how it will play out in the future. I don’t know how I will feel if a man who is obviously a man externally but feels like a woman internally decides to enter that restroom while I am there. Bathroom cubicles are not exactly peek proof, and our method of building out relief stations in public places has not changed much in a century, except to add diaper changing tables and vending machines appropriate to the location (tampons or condoms, usually). How will we accommodate inclusion?
Non-gender restrooms are probably a step in the right direction, but we probably will continue to need ladies’ and gentlemen’s facilities forever. If one is one hundred percent one gender, one sometimes has to have a place in which to behave as one’s gender must. I’m not sure if I am ready to stand at a sink while a man adjusts his pelvic accoutrements at the next sink (if that is even a thing, which would hopefully be before washing his hands). There is also the issue of nursing mothers and fathers on diaper duty, and though family parameters are being met more at public bathrooms, the rest of us are still dealing with fewer stalls and a longer queue (particularly for women). We have more restaurants than restrooms, and people have to go more than they may eat.
We might want to look to Europe, where restrooms are much more private and seem to be just as user friendly. I have seen videos online in which visitors to the US complain about how open and uninviting our restrooms are. They should be the greatest equalizer in our world, rather than a divisive issue.
So the next time I visit my favorite hidden secret restroom, there may be somebody in there I might not be used to seeing.
I’ll let you know if I still go in as usual.
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