Thursday, March 31, 2016

Let Porcelain Rule Gender Bathrooms


Who knew going to the bathroom could be such a sociopolitical minefield?

Suddenly North Carolina is the latest government entity to incur the seething wrath of left-wing over-sexualiziers by legislating where people can take their potty breaks.

It's become politically incorrect to assign human beings to public bathrooms based on their anatomy.  Nowadays, it's whatever sexuality a bathroom user feels about themself that should dictate the specific room where they eliminate their bodily wastes.

Do you feel like a woman, even though you have a penis?  Well then, by all means; use the ladies room, even though there are no urinals there.

Honestly, folks; the jokes write themselves.  Only the joke is on anybody who dares presume that biological equipment is an outdated method of determining which bathroom to use.  It's not like anybody's denying somebody the use of a public bathroom.  As if public bathrooms are to-die-for places of stunning beauty, prestige, status, and privilege anyway.

Now, I understand that womens' restrooms tend to be nicer than mensrooms.  I attended a classical music concert at a posh Dallas church once, and on my way to the mensroom during intermission, the line to the ladies' room was out the door, and I saw they had a large crystal chandelier in their potty chamber.  If that was the typical decor of a womens' restroom, maybe I could understand why some men have this sudden urge to switch restrooms.  Even if, remember, there are no urinals in womens' bathrooms.

In all seriousness, though, I understand that for a very small percentage of our population, struggles with sexual identity present a confusing and stressful challenge, and I don't mean to minimize or stigmatize people with gender issues.  However, of all the problems we Americans face, isn't determining which public bathroom to use really, really, really insignificant?

In all the years I've used public restrooms - and frankly, considering how dirty most of them are, I try to use them as infrequently as possible - I've never once thought about how much of a man the mensroom makes me feel.  Does the room justify the man, or the man justify the room, or is it simply a room to eliminate one's extra coffee and donut consumption?

I used to work for a tech company where men far outnumbered women, and on the days when there were no women in the office, and the mensroom happened to be full, I'd use the ladies' room... and you know what?  I didn't feel like it was an affront to my manhood to utilize the porcelain thrones women usually did.  I didn't care for the pink wallpaper in there, or the plastic flowers on their countertop, but I've never been one to base my gender identity on the bathroom I use.

After all, porcelain is porcelain.  And women can't use urinals.  At least, not very efficiently.  Which, actually, represents the simplest answer to a problem that wouldn't exist if a few really excitable folks didn't see public restrooms as the new front line in the battle for gender equality.

Why not simply use the restroom equipped with the porcelain receptacles designed to match your equipment?

Some conservatives say that this issue bears upon the likelihood of child molesters stalking their prey while using the "wrong" restroom, but how many child predators - or rapers of grown women - ply their crimes in womens' restrooms?  Sure, having a person who looks like a man in the womens' room would likely make many females uncomfortable, but frankly, I've been in a public mens' room when a woman has mistakenly walked in, and it's usually been far more embarrassing for the woman than it's been for us guys whom she's surprised.

Mistakes happen.  But legislating biological boundaries out of public bathroom usage simply doesn't make a lot of sense.  The elimination of bodily waste is a basic function shared across the animal kingdom, and it's only we humans who differentiate between spaces for performing that basic function based on gender.  Why should that now be illegal?  Because we humans love complicating everything?  Have we humans become so hyper-sensitive to the taboos of waste elimination that conventional protocols regarding the exposure of private body parts are akin to bigotry?

And if humans with a penis are now allowed to use the ladies' room, does that mean flashers are now off the hook?  What about public urination?  Once, at New York City's notorious Port Authority bus terminal, I watched helplessly as a homeless man in front of me squatted on the sidewalk and defecated right there, in front of the naked city's metaphorical 8 million stories.  If it doesn't matter which restroom one uses, does it matter if one chooses to use a restroom at all?

Actually, the very fact that certain biological parts are also the parts used to eliminate bodily waste probably represents a pretty logical argument about what gender a person truly is intrinsically, whether they think they have gender identity issues or not.  But we won't go there here.

Suffice it to say that unless unisex bathroom advocates are also calling for the elimination of the urinal entirely, from every bathroom, let's be civilized about this and say "let the porcelain rule."

Either that, or tell everybody to hold it until they get home.


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