A monstrous debate has been unleashed in the United States on the use of public toilets that has lasted for more than a year and does not seem to end at all. The question is this: Should the choice of bathroom be guided by one's biological nature or one's sexual identity? Even more briefly: which bathroom can/should transgenders and bisexuals use? Such a furious contention has raged over the “can” or “should” that the “New York Times” has defined 2015 “The Year of the Toilet”.
The pourparler also extended to 2016 and in the spring we moved on to the facts. The city of Charlotte (North Carolina) has issued an ordinance in favor of freedom of choice. The state of North Carolina, which still displays the Confederate flag on public buildings, quickly responded with a law, passed by the state legislature in record time, forcing people to use restrooms based on their birth gender. Republican Gov. Pat McCrory immediately signed the act. On the other side of America, almost simultaneously, the State of California enacted a gender-neutral bathroom law which Governor Jerry Brown immediately signed, giving the law enforceability.
The issue has made its noisy entrance into the presidential campaign. Donald Trump, after having argued with Ted Cruz during the Republican primaries, and declaring himself in favor of freedom of choice for transgender people, backed down - supported by his deputy Mike Pence - by declaring that it is up to individual communities to make this decision and that the central government must stay out of it. For this reason Pence has declared that one of the first measures of a possible Trump presidency will be to abolish the guidelines issued by the Obama administration on trans students. An act of abolition, moreover, already ordered, in August, by Judge Reed O'Connor of the federal district court of North Texas. Under this ruling, implementation of the Obama document's guidelines was suspended nationwide. And we are at this point, that is, point and point again.
Unisex bathrooms?
So, wouldn't it be easier if all people could use the same bathroom? It was the "New Yorker", the progressive intelligentsia magazine of the Big Apple, who legitimized this idea in an article by Jeannie Suk Gersen entitled "Who's Afraid of Gender-Neutral Bathrooms?”. Sofri's “Post” dedicated a long article by Giulia Siviero to commenting on the article in the “New Yorker” and to that post-sales service we defer for those who wish to immerse themselves in this theme.
In reality, the possible obstacles to unisex bathrooms could be of two types: one for hygiene and one for efficiency. The first, the hygienic one, is given by the objective fact that men dirty more. Real! However, the fact of sharing a space with ladies could encourage the dirty minority to behave better. The virtuous example of the majority, strengthened by the presence of women, is generally something that works even in times of rampant rudeness.
The second, that relating to efficiency, concerns the possible lengthening of waiting times for men to complete the service, given that the queues at the women's bathroom are something that generally does not occur in the men's bathroom. However, by unifying the spaces available to the service, there would be a better distribution of the users' load and therefore this problem too could be much lessened. Therefore obstacles can be easily removed. And then, full speed ahead!
Unisex toilets are already in our life
The fact is that both sexes already share the same bathroom in the family, on planes, trains, buses and all means of transport. I don't think that on the submarines of the Italian navy, where more and more women operate, there is a bathroom for men and one for women Probably, if Elon Mask takes us to Mars, there will be only one bathroom on the space shuttle, as well as there will be in housing on Mars. At home, for example, we go even further, sharing the bathroom with some pets, such as cats, and we do it at the same time. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida built a real philosophical theory (in The animal that therefore I am) by studying his own cat who watches him from the litter box taking a shower or sitting on the toilet.
A possible and plausible extension of unisex bathrooms could take place in the workplace where people generally know each other, already share a common space and, hopefully, also a mission. Here, however, we stop to pass the baton to Lucy Kellaway, one of the brightest pens of global journalism, who has been running a Monday column in the "Financial Times" for 15 years on labor and management issues. Below we report in Italian translation her article “Unisex loos are no refuge for a gossip. Rise of the gender-neutral toilet in the workplace” published under the banner “Equality in the workplace” in the London financial newspaper. Who better than Lucy to talk about this issue? Nobody. Don't miss her humor. The translation, as far as possible, is by John Akwood.
Which bathroom to go to?
At work, we usually go to one another to pee. In times gone by the directors relieved themselves in different and more elegant environments than those frequented by the rank and file. Later, when hierarchies went out of fashion, the executive bathroom was abolished in the name of equality and executives now pee shoulder to shoulder with subordinates. However, in workplaces, the separation between men's and women's toilets survived. In homes, on planes or trains, both sexes happily share the same toilet, but not at work.
This separation is today being challenged by the emergence of unisex toilets. This time equality between women and men has nothing to do with it. It's about another thing: if you're transgender you don't know which bathroom to go to. California recently passed a law that requires every groomer to be gender-neutral. Starbucks is introducing it in their cafes, while Barnes & Noble bookstores are encouraging people to use the bathroom they prefer. Last week at the Salesforce annual meeting in San Francisco there were only unisex bathrooms. What's more, the 150 participants were given a sticker with their favorite pronoun: "he/him", "she/her", "they/them" or "ask me". It was up to them to choose which one to display on the shirt.
This is big news. When Salesforce goes one way, the world follows.
Are unisex bathrooms a good idea?
But I wonder if unisex toilets in workplaces are a good idea. Making everyone pee in the same place definitely makes sense. On average we get up from the work table to go to the bathroom at least three or four times a day, but instead of being an opportunity for vast and fortuitous socializing, we limit ourselves to restricting it to only a limited number of colleagues. In the office I collected opinions, discovering that the differences are more based on age than gender.
Millennials are okay with unisex bathrooms, period. They were so uninterested in the matter that they made me feel stupid for even asking. Older workers, however, are less enthusiastic. Most of the men said they didn't like the idea, but couldn't explain why. Women were more cooperative.
In different ways, they all implied that the men's toilets smell bad. They also don't want to put on makeup in front of their male colleagues. Finally, the women's bathroom is the ideal place to cry. Or gossip. Or an inviolable refuge.
Five unconvincing reasons
None of these five reasons is completely convincing. All bathrooms have a bad smell if they are not cleaned often and well, therefore the answer is to clean them often with the Clean Master. As for makeup, I put it so loosely that I don't like doing it in the presence of anyone. If I have to choose, I'd rather do it in the presence of a careless man than a woman who notices how messy she is with mascara.
A similar argument applies to crying. It's true that women cry more than men and since sobbing at one's table is not proper, we tend to do it in the bathroom. During the few times I cried at work, my biggest concern was not being seen. Men pay less attention to it and tend not to comment, and it's not all that embarrassing to wipe away their tears while they wash their hands.
It is equally true that gossip is more frequent in women's than men's bathrooms, where silence generally prevails. In any case, for both sexes chatting in the bathroom can be dangerous because you never know who is in the stall. As a refuge, the bathroom is fabulous, there are situations in which the privacy given by the closed cubicle is just what is needed. But even in this case I don't see the importance of knowing whether the people stationed outside are men or women.
There is a more serious reason for the division of bathrooms. While half the tech world gathered in San Francisco with Salesforce, I attended a competing tech event in Europe. Since this industry is essentially made up of men, I saw something strange at the coffee break. There was a very long queue to access the men's bathroom and no queue for the women's. While I was rinsing my hands I struck up an interesting conversation with the other three women who were there about why the tech industry is masculine and a thought crossed my mind: when women are in such a clear minority, a bathroom just for theirs is a privilege worth keeping.
