Introduction
With the passage of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, familiar yellow grated curb cuts began to be installed in cities across the U.S. As disability advocates were celebrating a long awaited legislative victory, Americans of all walks of life began to discover firsthand the personal benefits.
Of course curb cuts assisted wheelchair users and blind citizens, but also the mother or the delivermean. Strollers, carts, and dollies were able to mount sidewalks easier; the child with the skateboard could now move out of the dangerous road; the driver could notice pedestrian walkways easier in poor visibility. Foot traffic now had a stepless down ramp, less slippery in the rain, and where city designers could easily visually designate crosswalks.
Everyone, no matter how able or disabled, found they benefited from these aids, to the point where their primary function as a disability accommodation is rarely thought of. This effect became known as the curb-cut effect, where a specific accommodation ends up benefiting the entire population.
This lesson has been repeated time and time again across various mediums: from closed captioning, to well designed door handles, building ramps to elevators. Engineers and the common populous have come to accept these provisions as a welcome part of everyday life. Except one. There has been one odd point of contention in the modern zeitgeist: gender neutral bathrooms.
There have been a few high profile cases (depending on your media circles) of people lambasting and complaining about gender neutral bathrooms. “It’s woke” they cry; “Culture War” or “It is unnecessary” are common complaints among certain political groups. However, I would argue these complaints are so wrapped up in reductionist drivel – or honestly poorly veiled bigotry – to miss the obvious benefits to themselves! Single stall gender neutral bathrooms, like any other public accommodation, serve to benefit the public in its entirety.
Primary
This is not to understate their main purpose: so people of all genders can have a safe bathroom. With an increasingly heated national spotlight placed on bathrooms, transgender or genderqueer people can sidestep any potential conflict that could arise, which is sadly commonplace.
According to a 2021 Medium meta-analysis by Dr. Julia Serano, nearly 1 in 8 transgender people had been verbally/physically/sexually assaulted in a bathroom sometime in their life. For adolescence alone, they are 1.7 times more likely to be assaulted than their cisgender counterparts.
I would imagine that with the current political climate, these numbers have only increased. Why can’t the same be applied to cis men or women, where 15% of women and 4% of men will be sexually assaulted in bathrooms? Well it can. By using single stall bathrooms, it eliminates the chance of opportunity crimes. I would doubly assert that in single stall gender neutral bathrooms, these numbers would be nearly zero.
Secondary
Where people are safe, they feel comfortable. Even if someone is not afraid of being harassed or assaulted, it is often less awkward. Everyone has some embarrassing story or another that occurred with way too many of our peers nearby. From being violently ill, to having wardrobe malfunctions, to even trying to awkwardly fix a piece of stubborn hair; most would agree they want privacy.
People with medical needs that require injections often have to find bathrooms to inject themselves. These bathrooms give them both a private and distractionless environment.
Parents, especially with multiple small children, often find it a nightmare to herd children into a bathroom. It is unsafe to leave young kids outside and so they have to cram into a stall. Single stall bathrooms, which also have space for changing tables, make their lives much easier.
There are likely numerous other circumstances I may not have encountered firsthand that would help anyone feel more comfortable.
Here
Luckily for us at UW-Whitewater, every hall has at least one gender neutral bathroom which doubles as the ADA compliant disability accessible bathroom. These bathrooms are equipped with automatically opening doors and button locks, allowing people with disabilities to easily access and utilize the facilities. Visual indicator lights allow for confirmation of a locked door. Many of them even have larger mirrors so people can better self-groom.
Multiple students, of all stripes, have expressed to me that they will actively seek out these bathrooms. If not for their safety, they often like the privacy or comfort.
Takeaways
I would even argue that most places should adopt single stall gender neutral bathrooms in their entirety. In most places without massive traffic surges (I.E. Stadiums), often the lower capacity limit is never reached. For a UW-W example, most students in dorms would notice that the bathrooms are almost never at capacity. Most businesses or institutions often act under capacity and would have no trouble switching.
Cost, like any project, has to be weighed against the benefit. However, I would point out that we consider all other sorts of comfort and accessibility to be worth it. If we had not decided collectively that the tax burden of adding curb-cuts was worth assisting our vulnerable populations, why can we not do that again now? It is the little changes, The little things add up over time, making our society better for everyone.
