A while back I had to pee at a hardware store. There was a line of 4 guys waiting to pee, the men’s room was single occupancy.
There was also a women’s room that was single occupancy with the door wide open vacant.
I just peed in the women’s room despite not being a woman. There were no women waiting or anywhere around.
Some guy in line yelled at me when i came out saying that I was inappropriate. Why are they even gendered, better yet why does anyone care if I follow the rules? They’re single occupancy. You’ll never encounter a person of a different gender in a single occupancy room.
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Some people have it in their minds that public bathrooms must be gendered.
They presumably do not have gendered bathrooms at home.
But they have been told that public bathrooms must be gendered and so their minds just cannot accept anything different.
The only thing I can think of is that men might “accidentally” walk in on a woman if they saw one go into the restroom, or “accidentally” leave the door unlocked, hoping a woman walks in on them. The latter actually happened at a restaurant I was at once. Guy literally gets arrested and taken out, and I asked the server what happened. She said “he’s banned from here, but sometimes he comes in and goes into the restroom, and waits for a woman to open the door and ‘catch’ him with his pants down.”
No reason at all. Basically culture/traiditon.
It’s probably a bit silly and plenty of places have unisex singles, but man, I would hate to drop a huge steaming deuce, come out and then see some babe walk in and have to fester in my juices
I believe it might actually be a code violation to not have gendered bathrooms for both men & women.
It’s probably to do historically how women didn’t have access to bathrooms and used to have to go home …seriously that happened in some areas.
If memory serves Selfridges was the first place in London that offered women’s bathrooms & that was in early 1900s
They rarely are where I live.
I’m very much accustomed to seeing the sign that has a family on it to display that all are able to use it, and that there is even a baby changing station in there. There should seriously be more “family” designated single occupancy bathrooms
I recently noticed my local grocery store changed the gendered single use bathrooms to any gender bathrooms
He was just irritated that he didn’t think of it and was still waiting.
I have done exactly the same as as OP.
Society has decided that bathrooms are the most erotic locations in the world, so they can’t possibly risk a mixing of the genders there, even at different times. You being in there might have made a future woman in there uncomfortable, or, even pregnant.
Disabled bathrooms are gender neutral.
Too many times on trips I’ve gone to the single male and female restrooms at gas stations and there would be a line of 5 or so women waiting to use our bathroom and the male one being empty. Maybe men are usually faster?
I’d get disgusted looks from older women when coming out from the men’s bathroom but they’ll always be a woman jumping in there after me.
It’s just the norm in most places. I’ve noticed recently that all of the bigger cities around me have moved away from that though and they’re now single occupancy unisex restrooms.
Because whenever the world is made more inclusive (read: convenient), an insecure person, likely one who spends their free time complaining about how everyone is too easily offended these days, will become offended and complain.
I agree. If it’s just a toilet and a sink and a lock on the door, it should be unisex.
I’m a woman. I always pee in the men single stall bathroom if the woman’s is full. I don’t care if I have to look at a urinal. Gendered single stall bathrooms are stupid as fuck. Why does it matter if I lock the door behind me anyways?
I fully agree with this both from the construction site POV (need more men’s rooms than women usually) and the broadway theater POV (need WAY more women’s rooms than men’s) and just more women’s rooms in general bc we take longer, not by choice.
It’s illegal in NYC to have gendered single occupancy bathrooms. You could suggest a similar law where you live and also suggest it to businesses directly. Might feel awkward but others are pushing a different agenda about every little thing.
I’m a woman who has been harassed and assaulted in southern states for using single occupancy rooms. Still a good thing to challenge these prejudices. Some people have nothing better to do.
When the single women’s restroom is tied up I will use the men’s.
Men’s restrooms tend to be smellier and messier. I prefer using my own gender’s because it’s less unpleasant. For that reason I like keeping them gendered. But I have no problem with a man using ours as long as he keeps it clean.
This bugs me too. Just put a unisex sign on both bathrooms and it’s better for everybody.
I ask myself the SAME THING every time I see it
A lot of places have building code that requires it, although more and more you are seeing that code get eliminated and the practice is slowly dying.
It’s to save us men from seeing the mess women make in their bathrooms.
I’m happy you survived but you shouldn’t take such risks.
I’ve used men’s rooms countless times as a woman. Labels are for soup cans. Lock the door.
What’s even weirder is when they’re “for everyone” and “for women”. Which is even worse.
All I know is when I grew up single stalled bathrooms were called unisex and no one freaked about two genders using the same bathrooms.
It’s just silly tbh. My first job was as an intern at a small office, about only 8 people. All of us were women except for one man. We had two bathrooms – gendered single occupancy, and obviously the women’s was busier than the men’s. A lot of my coworkers refused to use the men’s bathroom, but they didn’t mind that I did. Then “Karen” started working there, and she hated that I used the men’s bathroom. Here’s the kicker – the one man was my older brother, and Karen knew that. We still lived at home with our parents at this time. After weeks of complaining about me behind my back, she told me to my face that it was weird I used the men’s room. I asked her if she thought it was weird that we used the same bathroom at home. It was like watching her brain go through a factory reset. She had literally never considered that home bathrooms were unisex. Anyway, she got fired not too long after because it turns out she, her husband, and adult son all shared a side hobby of cooking meth
I think some municipalities have outdated laws about providing minimum bathroom occupancy based on binary gender. As a nonbinary person I agree that this is stupid and should be abolished, but it helps answer the “why”.
Isn’t it for legal reason? Like they legally need to have gendered bathrooms. The earliest of this being enforced (in the USA) was in Massachusetts in the late 1800s and it kinda just been a thing ever since
Only dumb people like that guy and people who are worried about running into people like that guy care. I use single stall men’s rooms all the time.
Single stall bathrooms often aren’t gendered but I agree that it’s silly when they are. Like unless the men’s room only has a urinal why even make a distinction?
I’m a big fan of the places where the have private room stalls and then a large (accessible) handwashing station outside. And everywhere should be having a stool/low sink for children
Many jurisdictions are making it law to have single occupancy bathrooms not gender specific.
If I’m in a hurry I just go in the other one (mens, I’m a woman) and I’ve never had anyone say anything, I haven’t done it that many times though.
One time at a karaoke bar, there was a huge line of people trying to use the 2 ,single occupancy gendered bathrooms. Due to them being gendered, one of them had both a toilet and a urinal.
Several strangers shared the toilet and urinal combo at the same time, many of different genders even tho there wasnt even a wall separating them. BECAUSE WE ALL HAD TO PISS the alcohol we all drank lol
At the end of the day, no one really cares because it’s not a big deal. And people who make it a big deal have issues they need to work on.
We’re all just animals trying to have clean potty habits lol
History and tradition
Because it’s the default in the building code in the US, which is now pretty much the IBC everywhere in the country. The IBC states that there must be separate facilities except where a great disparity exists, like in prisons. This seems perfectly normal when a space is large enough for multiple toilets in one room, but weird when only one of each is required. Some big cities now have local amendments to override this for single-user rooms, but it’s not common. Getting something changed in the main building code takes years, and considering how political toilet rooms have become, it may not ever change in the main IBC.
That said, as a woman, I’m fine with it. I hate having to wipe the floor so I don’t have to stand in pee. I used to work in an office with one toilet and only two male coworkers— it got old.
At least in Seattle, newer single user bathrooms aren’t gendered. I think when you see it, it’s a holdover from a time when people thought all public toilets were born either male or female.🙃
Presence of a “Sanitary bin”?
I don’t remember where, but some place had a few single occupancy bathrooms, not gendered, but one was specified as urinal only.
If there’s just one just switch it out for a regular toilet.
The ones at my school are womans and unisex bathrooms, I find it mildly annoying.
It saves on sanitary bin hire.
Just don’t pee on the seat.. LOL
Good question. Makes zero sense.
I worked in an office with gendered single stall bathrooms. If one was full we encouraged patients to use the other. The only difference was decor.
That man was stupid, we all do the same in the bathroom, as a woman I don’t care that you use the woman’s restroom if there is a line at yours. It’s usually the opposite situation though, we have long lanes and yours are free. In same situation I already happened to use the man’s restroom and nobody cared
And now you understand why the whole “trans people using bathrooms” argument is so damn stupid. They SHOULDNT be gendered. When a family is at home, for example, made up of all genders, their shared bathroom is gender neutral. Yet in public, the single occupancy ones have genders attached to them, as you stated. Whats the point? People just need to pee and move on with their day.
I hate this as well and will pee in whatever bathroom is empty. I’ve peed in many men’s bathrooms because they’re usually the one without a line. I’ve even peed in multi- stall mens bathrooms 🤷♀️
I don’t give one fuck about what it says on the door when I have to go. All the shock about bathrooms is dumb.
Let people piss and mind your business.
My experience with this is that when you have single occupancy bathrooms without urinals, the percent of time that a man has peed all over the seat is much higher than I’d like to see.
It had a lot to do with building code which was established before many of the gender equality was at the Forefront of society
It’s often legally required as many areas have laws requiring men’s and women’s bathrooms. Some of these laws are left over from early feminist movements for more women’s bathrooms, as it used to be common to only have men’s bathrooms in university and work settings which could make life really difficult for women trying to break in to these settings. I think single stall bathrooms were less common back then so they weren’t considered by many of these laws.
Other laws have been passed more recently due to anti trans backlash and are explicitly trying to make life harder for trans and gender nonconforming people because they hate the idea that gender neutral single stall bathrooms could make it easier for trans people to exist in public and undermine their scare tactics about trans people in bathrooms
Per Bart Simpson girls butts are where cooties come from so if a guy sits on a girls toilet he runs the risk of getting cooties.
My guess is it’s to keep a guy from walking in on a woman if she forgot to lock the door.
If a single occupancy bathroom is open and has a lock on the door, I don’t have a problem with using it regardless of the sign nor with other people doing the same.
“Some guy in line yelled at me…” Sounds like a him problem.
I had the opposite experience in a CHANGING ROOM where the only thing is a bench, a mirror, and a couple of hooks. There was a huge line for the women’s changing room and four of the men’s rooms open. After I tried on the clothes, I assured all the ladies in line it was fine to use the men’s side.
It is usually some sort of regulation. My parents had a restaurant, and for that particular occupancy they were required to have 1 male and 2 female restrooms.
Yeah I agree. That is pretty ridiculous. Sometimes I think the sign will mention it’s a man or woman’s bathroom because some single occupancy male restrooms might offer a urinal. That’s the only reason I could see why they might possibly say it’s a men’s restroom and a woman’s restroom even if it’s a single stall.
As far as the guy in line, he’s an idiot. I would have just kept walking away because he’s stupid and not worth arguing with. How are you offending anyone at a single stall? lol. You’re not. Screw him.
It is in the plumping code or building code that you need a male and female bathroom if you have 2. Now what we do at work is just don’t label them as all 3 we have are single stalls.
I always hated this. Why not just make them gender neutral and call it a day?
Some people still think of spaces as being cloistered off for gender, so the men’s room is for men, and the ladies’ room is for ladies. Even if the spaces are the same on the inside. I will say that in the old days, they often weren’t: Ladies’ rooms would have benches for women to sit and privately endure crippingly painful periods (before birth control was easier to get to reduce that) or breastfeed. Also, men’s rooms can be horrifically nasty more often than ladies’ rooms, and perhaps the women working at that store wanted a space that wasn’t sullied by dudes missing the bowl and worse. Especially at a hardware store, where there’s probably a lot more men in the clientele than women.
It might also involve the opposite: If a woman needs more time in the stall (for instance, for periods), it’s not going to hold up the men who just have to pee real quick if she takes it.
Long story short, sometimes, people gender single-occupancy restrooms for all sorts of reasons that aren’t about personal encounters.
Law. By law a certain amount of toilets per gender are required. Even if you are small enough to qualify for a single toilet, there needs to be one per gender.
I’m so glad that PA has just enough of the “my perSonAl FreEdoMs!!” And “you do what you want as long as you let me do what I want” mentality that no one ever bats an eye at this type of thing. If you gotta piss, you gotta piss…
Yeah that’s always been annoying and I, as a born woman, ignore the suggestion. If the women’s room is full, I give no f$&ks about using the other toilet room
Because you don’t have to clean the men’s room.
I have a few Muslim women in my friend group and they use the restrooms to straighten their headscarves (the area where the basins and mirrors are). It would be very problematic for them if a man came in.
ETA: my husband had to use the women’s bathroom a lot though because men’s bathrooms often don’t have a place to change baby diapers. So employees and waiters tend to send him to the women’s bathroom.
I honestly don’t care if it’s a men’s or women’s bathroom. I want clean & a space to do my thing.
I travel a lot. One of my favorites was in Europe somewhere. The bathroom was 1 big room, stalls with doors on one side, urinals, on another, sinks on the 3rd wall for washing up. No one, and I really mean no one, did anything weird or unpleasant. We all just did our business & left.
Americans are so obsessed with other people’s toileting habits. (72 F American here!)
I’ve done it numerous times without issue. A door with a lock is just a bathroom, regardless of signage.
I bloody hate single-occupancy bathrooms in public places.
How is anyone supposed to feel secure when, at any time, you could experience the dreaded ‘Bathroom door knock’? Or just knowing that there’s someone out there who doesn’t have the option to just walk into a different stall?
Rant aside…
I’m trying to think if I’ve ever seen a gendered single-occupancy bathroom….I’m not sure that I have, probably because even the concept of that sounds stupid as hell.
Went to see My Chemical Romance at a stadium a few years back. The audience was clearly about 70/30 women to men, and all the women’s bathrooms had huge queues so girls kept just using the cubicles in the men’s bathrooms cause there was zero queues.
The short answer is that we’re legally obligated to provide a women’s and men’s restroom. Occupancy and available floor space make these single Occupancy for many establishments.
This is why we have any additional restroom ungendered.
Victorian morals.
Really dumb gender norms. Literally that’s it. People can’t think beyond their own notions of how things are supposed to be, and that makes stupid shit.
Why? Good question. Some places have their single occupancy restrooms designated for one of the two sexes. Some do not.
I would suppose you would need to ask the establishment owners. As the owners, they make the rules.
Gender was invented by bathroom companies to sell more bathrooms
It’s often a legal requirement.
It’s all a social construct really. I mean, a toilet is a toilet. While a woman would have trouble using a urinal, toilets are really the same. It is the social aspect that is the issue. If it is only a single-occupancy bathroom, I don’t really see why it’d be a problem at all.
Honestly I don’t get why they’re gendered at all, like just make them stalls only and then they’re usable for everyone
Tampon dispensers
Women freaked out by smelly urinals and men freaked out by menstrual product dispensers. /s
In my state none of them are.
It’s only silly if you have a frequent cleaning schedule and/or people why are generally clean. My office has two bathrooms, both single occupancy, for about 15 people. We only have janitorial service once a week. The men have no problem with the women using the men’s room rather than waiting. The women prefer the men wait and stay out of their restroom.
Mostly just because that’s what people are used to seeing. This obsession in certain political circles with how we label bathrooms is pretty recent, so I don’t think that has much to do with it.
Personally, it’s always seemed dumb to me. Just put the Men/Women symbol on it if it’s a single. It saves time.
All bathrooms should be unisex. For multi stall bathrooms, Just have a separate area for the urinals. It’s not that fucking hard.
excellent question. none of my single occupancy bathrooms at home are gendered
because there are 2 genders, duh
You’re right, it is stupid and I’ve given up arguing with people about it. Women usually have to wait in lines for a bathroom, this helps solve that problem. Having more available Private bathrooms for everyone is a good thing.
Women eventually just end up using the men’s when theirs is too busy. Eventually the system breaks down like this. Let’s “sweeten” the deal here, well add a urinal to then this way dudes avoid the toilet as much as possible.
The only people against this are stupid or are trying REALLY hard to make this a Political issue, it isn’t. I either use the bathroom inside or outside like an animal. My bowels aren’t interested in negotiations, it’s gotta’ come out.
Let him yell. If it’s only a single stall anyway, it doesn’t matter – it’s just one person in there with the door locked.
He’s just asshurt that you were able to think outside the box and skipped the line he was standing in, that’s all
I was at a museum once with my brother and we decided to take a bathroom break. He breezed right in and I had to wait in a 10 minute line. He got all fussy when I got out, asking why women fooled around so much in the restroom. I asked what he thought we did in there? He said he didn’t know, but clearly we were wasting a lot of time since there was always a line. I explained that women have to get half undressed to use the restroom whereas men, mostly, can do it with one zipper. I also added, that women tend to wash their hands more than men. So with the having to get situated in the stall, hang up a purse, half disrobe, clean up afterwards, collect our things, juggle said things while washing our hands, and dodging the long line of women waiting to do the exact same thing, it all adds a few second here, a few seconds there. And don’t get me started on if it is “that time of the month” which always adds even more time to our bathroom routine.
Anyway, all that is to say that 1000% there are just some men who won’t want to see a wrapped up used tampon in the trash, and THAT is why we have gendered bathrooms.
I saw this at a restaurant my family was at. Used the men’s because the women’s was occupied. Commented on how dumb it is to gender single stall bathrooms and my cousin tried to defend it
It’s more of notice than requirement in my mind. Like handicapped stalls. You don’t have to be one to use it.
I remember one time at a corn maze there was a bathroom but it was meant for women and men had to use a port-a-potty. I didn’t feel like doing that so I just used the women’s bathroom.
This is something I also wonder
Agreed. Even more crazy is that will land you in jail in Florida and Texas
It’s because you guys piss all over the seat
As a woman, I cannot count the number of times I’ve used the men’s restroom. Single occupancy or otherwise. Only got called out once. Most times, it’s a line of women all agreeing to use whichever is next. Men joining the one line. And the attendant (if they exist) encourages us to use whatever is available.
As long as you’re there to do your business, it’s nobody else’s which one you use.
Welcome to the (I use the first available bathroom) club!
You’ve only done this once? I have an attitude that these are more guidelines and the owners would probably prefer me peeing in the women’s toilet than on the floor
I’ve used the women’s single person at times. I’ve stood at the door of a regular men’s room and sent a group of women in at clubs plenty of times when their line is long and the men’s is empty as I’m coming out. Rather have them on the dance floor than waiting in a line somewhere, it just seems practical.
My work has 1 women’s and 2 uni sex toilets per floor
Guess some women have hang ups about sharing a bathroom with men, that’s purely a guess
Fun fact: some cities have passed resolutions that require businesses to make their single-stall restrooms gender neutral.
Always wondered why we gendered holes we shit in. I’ve been in multiple gender neutral bathrooms everyone gets a stall. Never had issues.
It’s a code requirement, usually. Whether it makes any sense or not a lot of places are required to have those signs, also to have one ADA bathroom, meaning either the “men’s” or the “women’s” is wheelchair accessible. Fun stuff.
I don’t know but tbh I don’t. Men’s toilets stink because they piss everywhere.
Just put up a sign that says ANIMAL SHITHOUSE. Problem solved.
No idea. None
Ask the owner of the place why. We can only guess.
Which country was this?
Maybe because of different ‘products’ or configurations? Such as one having a urinal and one not? But wanting to have one set aside for both types of humans? Would be my guess.
It is indeed a stupid and pointless concept
Well, from my perspective, the lines at men’s restrooms are much much shorter. We don’t want our lines to suddenly balloon in size.
I hate public bathrooms in general, so when I worked at the gas station and we had two (locking) women’s bathrooms and one men’s with two urinals and a stall, I’d always take the bathroom cleaning kit into one of the locking ones and throw the cleaning sign on the door. No complaints that way lol
Walls are walls and a toilet is a toilet even if there’s a tampon dispenser on the wall. If it’s a private single restroom and the door’s open I don’t hesitate. Just make sure to have the common courtesy to respect the owner and next guest by cleaning up behind yourself if your aim is a bit off.
Happy peeing!
I am guessing mainly because men pee standing up and some don’t put the seat up and dribble on the seat and don’t bother to clean it up.
Historically, it was because men didn’t want women to have independence.
Back in the day, only one bathroom was required. Only men could use these bathrooms because only men were routinely out of the house. Men had a car, women didn’t, women were completely financially dominated by men so they couldn’t have their own accounts, they couldn’t sign checks, and so on.
This started to change, but then women found that they couldn’t be out of the house for long. The reason? If they needed to go to the bathroom, there was nowhere they could legally go.
So feminists fought to let women use those bathrooms too–not for there to be an additional bathroom, but that women could use those bathrooms as they please, since men were at work and women, mostly denied work, werent expected to be there at all.
This kicked off a huge fight. Men saw women who didn’t want to only be at home tearing children as a threat, such as it always has been. So they fought this everywhere they could. The barest wins allowed businesses to make a women’s bathroom, but didn’t require it. So most businesses didn’t, and the ones that did demanded women pay to use them when men wouldn’t have to pay.
The argument from the men in power shifted to “protecting women,” so rather than unisex bathrooms, they started passing laws to segregate men and women’s bathrooms. That way, businesses could purposely not clean women’s bathrooms, lock stalls and require payments for them, and otherwise make the plan blic a hostile place for women to be, not unlike it is for trans women today. The bathroom leash is real; if there’s no safe place to pee, you are effectively kept out of the public eye.
This turned into the compromise of segregated bathrooms, and was relitigated during WW2 when most of the men were at war. Bathrooms were further segregated by race as well by this time.
So basically, the bathrooms are segregated due to sexism, and further were segregated due to racism. The fight for LGBTQ rights and feminism continued as lesbians were banned from women’s bathrooms, changing areas, locker rooms, for the same “protect women” sexism that gave us segregated bathrooms.
Today you still see the same disingenuous arguments banning trans people from bathrooms, and this can turn deadly very fast.
As marginalized groups, trans people have to choose between following the law and being at risk of assault and rape. Not too long ago, a trans man was forced to use the women’s bathroom, and customers dragged him out, best him nearly to death, and this resulted in the trans man being arrested for causing a scene.
It is the same sexist argument from the same sexist place. The feminist position has long been for unisex bathrooms, to break down the boundary such that it is normalized that people just go to the bathroom without having to worry about being harmed because they used the wrong one, or harmed because they’re using the right one according to law.
Why are any toilets gendered?
I peed plenty of times in the men’s side when there was a line 😂
Single occupancy means unisex no matter what the sign says
Because EVERYTHING must be gendered or the world will STOP SPINNING
Lol I used a single-occupancy men’s room at a gas station once, when there was a woman in front of me and the woman in the single women’s bathroom was taking forever. I started a chain reaction after that!