Required Bathroom Reading

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In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Phyllis Schlafly and other opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) argued that if the legislation passed, three disastrous things would happen: women would fight in combat, gay marriage would be legalized, and traditional restrooms would be replaced by unisex bathrooms. It was the last argument that caused middle-Americans to gasp the loudest. Women and men urinating in the same room? Preposterous! Feminists dismissed the charge with a snicker, failing to address the concern. The ERA eventually died a sad (but hopefully not final) death in 1982, and women's rights opponents essentially labeled bathroom politics 'too hot to touch' until the late Eighties, when University of Missouri environmental design professor Sandra Rawls released the 'potty parity' study.

Rawls argued that it takes longer for women to use the restroom not because they spend too much time fussing in the mirror, but because there are fewer facilities for them to use, even when the square footage of women's and men's rooms are equal. As a result, potty parity legislation, designed to equalize the wait time, passed in several states in the early 1990s, and still resurfaces occasionally. For example, in 2003, a New York City ordinance was proposed that would require all new buildings to construct two women's restrooms for every men's. It's still under consideration.

Though the unisex bathroom as not been widely discussed in political circles since Schlafly's heyday, women's rights advocates have recently joined forces with transgender activists to push for 'gender-neutral' bathrooms. One such organizer is Mary Anne Case, a professor at the University of Chicago who, like Rawls before her, has been studying restroom facility disparities. Her work spawned a college forum and a 'Bathroom Avengers Bootyshakin' benefit to raise awareness about bathroom dilemmas faced by transgender students.

Other schools, such as the University of Vermont, the University of New Hampshire, and the University of California-San Diego, now offer gender-neutral bathrooms on campus. In San Francisco, an organization called People in Search of Safe Restrooms (PISSR), conducted a 'toilet tour' to develop a resource list of safe bathrooms. Likewise, the Lesbian Avengers and the Boston Transsexual Menace have developed The Relief Map of Boston, a listing of gender nonspecific bathrooms in Bean Town.

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