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female What if Potty Parity Went Before the Supreme Court?


What if Potty Parity Went Before the Supreme Court?  

30 members have voted

  1. 1. What if Potty Parity Went Before the Supreme Court?

    • It would be shot down and that would largely end the potty parity movement.
      24
    • It would likely be accepted as the new law of the land.
      1
    • It might pass but probably wouldn't.
      5


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I thought this was deserved its own thread distinct from the one in the off topic board as I feel that this one is more on-topic to the issue of this particular fetish in regards to omorashi. I'm not even going to get into my problems with the current Supreme Court decisions that have been made lately, but this is been something I have actually been wondering about for years and years on end, maybe ever since I first heard of it more than 20 years ago.


The move from more equitable bathroom is for women has been something that has been debated legally for years in a lot of places have put potty parity into affect. But I always kind of wondered what would happen if it was brought before the Supreme Court. I have no doubt that with the current Supreme Court makeup that it would almost certainly be dismissed and that they would rule in the favor of businesses to be able to provide as few or as many toilets as they want which I feel would effectively kill the potty parity movement for any time in the foreseeable future if not altogether.


But it was something I've always wondered about, so it would be interesting to see if it was made into a major case like that what would happen, although I think that many women would be crossing their legs to see where the Supreme Court is going to go after their biology next. If the court doesn't feel women should have the rights to control their own bodies I really doubt that they are going to feel that women deserve more toilets, they would want us to control that meddlesome the urge for being able to relieve yourself in a timely manner, another female biological function where the burden falls on the women.


What does everyone else think? I think it would result in a lot more crossed legs.

Back when I first heard of potty parity it seemed like it might end up being a revolutionary thing but it already has so many exceptions that it doesn't get around to making that much of a difference on a large scale in society. And the more I think about it the more it seems like even having an equitable number of restrooms but still not be enough to allow women to go to the bathroom anywhere near as quickly as men. In fact from everything I have read in order for women to be able to use the bathroom anywhere near as easily and quickly as men would require perhaps six or seven times as many restroom stalls/urinals as men get and we know that there is no universe in which that is ever going to happen in 1 million years. It even took until the 1980s before women got as many stalls as but still had less places just considering urinals.


That is why over time I have become a potty parity pessimist. At least during my lifetime I don't see anything like this ever really taking off in a major way, and in fact like everything else I think it's most likely going to get worse if anything rather than better. So at this point I think that I have largely accepted that the ladies room lines are going to probably be a thing for the foreseeable future if not forever. Some problems simply might not have a realistic solution legally or practically speaking.

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Barrett writes the majority opinion, stating:  "The Constitution does not mention a woman's right to the bathroom, and private property rights mean that businesses do not need to provide women with bathrooms.  Furthermore, as a power granted to the states under the 10th Amendment, states have the power to place restrictions on bathroom usage when in the course of the public good, such as forcing LGBT students to hold it all day at school.  Get fucked lmao"

Edited by Weather (see edit history)
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@Weather

"Barrett writes the majority opinion, stating:  "The Constitution does not mention a woman's right to the bathroom, and private property rights mean that businesses do not need to provide women with bathrooms.  Furthermore, as a power granted to the states under the 10th Amendment, states have the power to place restrictions on bathroom usage when in the course of the public good, such as forcing LGBT students to hold it all day at school.  Get fucked lmao"

Yes, this 1000x over. Actually do find it astonishing that women would actively work against their own interests so much, and yet it happens all the time. It's crazy that you could probably have women on the Supreme Court ruling against potty parity and then as soon as they are done ruling get on a huge line for the bathroom. Personally I would love to see somebody like Barrett completely wet herself, I'm not into the wetting aspect of this fetish, but I would just like to see her particular humiliated like that for totally non-fetish purposes.

It actually reminds me of something that I remember reading over 10 years ago where it wasn't until like 2010 or 2011 that the women even had a ladies room in the Congress or Senate building or whatever, until then they had to use the restroom with the tourists and they often wouldn't have enough time to use the bathroom between votes or anything like that. And that to me really just summed it up, even women at the highest levels of government, the ones actually making these laws, still get caught short when it comes to going to the bathroom, it's truly universal like that, and yet the majority of women just totally accept it as utterly normal and that's what I find truly mind-boggling.

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2 hours ago, Weather said:

Barrett writes the majority opinion, stating:  "The Constitution does not mention a woman's right to the bathroom, and private property rights mean that businesses do not need to provide women with bathrooms.  Furthermore, as a power granted to the states under the 10th Amendment, states have the power to place restrictions on bathroom usage when in the course of the public good, such as forcing LGBT students to hold it all day at school.  Get fucked lmao"

I really could see the majority opinion with this court being almost exactly this.  Except, there would probably be some additional language about how the original intent of the constitution never declared women to persons under the law, and as such do not qualify for other constitutional rights such as the right to equal treatment under the. law.  Further, that there is no constitutional right to bathroom facilities for anyone as expressed in the original text of the constitution.

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@TVGuy

"Further, that there is no constitutional right to bathroom facilities for anyone as expressed in the original text of the constitution."

Actually that wouldn't surprise me either. I feel like trying to bring potty parity before the Supreme Court could result in some type of crazy ruling like no places obligated to have public bathrooms or anything like that. Like if you chose not to include a ladies room at all, how they would determine that was legal.


I sort of half meant this post in jest but at the same time after all the craziness of the last few years I couldn't really put it beyond that, that we would see this as an excuse to basically cut back on restrooms all over. At any rate I have no doubt whatsoever that it would be entirely shot down so to bring it up against the current court would pretty much be a way of destroying it forever.


Again compared to the rights that have been lost lately it sort of a minor problem but I do kind of wonder how it would actually play out. Would places that already have potty parity start scaling it back or abolishing it altogether, with their suddenly be an increasing lack of restrooms all around? Again, I can only see bad things coming of it.

There is actually one particular area where I could see this actually bringing us back to the past as is the courts intention lately. In my reading about potty parity I read that before 1984 it was pretty common for most bathrooms provide more men's rooms in general and more stalls in men's rooms even compared to women, not even counting urinals. So as unequal as the situation is for women needing a bathroom already in the past it was even worse and I can definitely see us going back to that.


But once again it's just another area in which its control over women's bodies. The urinary leash is a real thing and by eliminating women's access to restrooms you limit female mobility in society, but since women of course have to exist in society regardless of the bathroom situation the adaption to that is simply to go on holding it, and I have no doubt that that's going to continue to be the norm for well into the future.

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@Angusburger

"Is the urinary leash real? Why do I get the sense that even though there may be long lines or dirty bathrooms women don’t seem to care and it doesn’t affect their choice in going to those places? Women still go to concerts etc in doves equal as men so they don’t seem to clear or be affected by long lines?"

It is a very real thing and something that I first started hearing that term typically when Covid hit and I thought of my own situation. It was saying how because of all of the bathrooms were being closed down for Covid people who rely on public bathrooms when they are not available have to then plan their day around the fact that bathrooms may not be available. Bathrooms are very much a key to mobility in society because if you are going to be leaving your house for any appreciable length of time at some point you are going to need a bathroom, and if bathrooms aren't available you have basically two options, you either have to go home after a certain point, or you have to pretty much have to hold it all day while you are out.

As to your next question I'm actually very pleased that somebody asked that question as once again I think this just shows that men and women live in different worlds. Try to imagine if the situation were reversed. Let's say that there weren't adequate men's rooms available to be used quickly and whipping it out wasn't an option. Would you never leave your house simply because of that lack of bathrooms? No of course not, because you still have to interact with the public in some way shape and form as everybody does.

So now you ask why women continue to go to all of these crowded places despite the fact that the lines are astonishing in a lot of cases, often to the point where going at all is not an option. The same reason men goes to those events, because they want to go to those events! Does it suck that they're going to be incredible bathroom lines and perhaps not getting to go, but if you want to go to an event like that you just kind of have to put up with it. If given the choice between not going to an event that you really wanted to go to or staying home because of lack of bathrooms what option would the average person choose? The average woman is not going to avoid public life just because of bathroom lines or a lack of bathrooms. Again these are just facts of life and if you are wise you will plan around them. Maybe drink a little bit less, maybe be the first one out at intermission, maybe plan on holding it all night, but if you want to go to the event you're going to have to plan around the event which is something that guys usually do not have to do because a bathroom is almost always available, so it doesn't surprise me a guy would ask this question because it's simply not part of your experience to not be able to go to the bathroom right away in most cases, where as it's kind of a normal thing for women at big crowded events like that.


One of the interesting things when I did my big ladies room line survey is that the majority of women indicated that it was fairly standard to have to leave a long ladies room line because there wasn't enough time to go or that it limited amount of times to use bathrooms much of the time if not a majority of the time they didn't get to go and had to hold it for a long time.

Once again the situation show that men and women live in different worlds. Let's say you have a man and a woman who have to catch a train in like 20 minutes but the line to the ladies room is 40 minutes long and there is no line for the men's room, that's a situation where the woman will have to hold and hope that the next opportunity is somewhat better and maybe it won't be.


Or say you are on a long bus trip that is five or six hours long and there is only one brief rest stop for 15 minutes. All of the guys get to go to the bathroom because they can use the bathroom super quickly but due to a lack of ladies room the majority of the women have to hold throughout the entire trip. Again these are and every single day that things but they are things that happen fairly regularly and you can't just skip out on life just because the bathroom situation is less than ideal.

Like when I was younger my family would frequently go into the city and go see Broadway plays and I really enjoyed that. However I realized after the first time that unless I am lucky and quick I am probably not going to get to go to the bathroom at intermission. And then after the show is over by which time I will have to go quite badly there will probably be an equally large line but maybe I can wait and maybe I can't.


I like going to the movies, I'm not going to not go to the movies just because the line to the bathroom afterwards might be 20 people.


Also when I was younger I used to like to go to the amusement park. Did I say you know I don't want to go to the amusement park because the lines to the ladies room 30 minutes long sometimes, no I just went and I planned around that. I knew that I shouldn't wait until the last minute because I would have to probably wait a good 20 or 30 minutes in addition to that, because I knew I wouldn't just be walking right in and out of the bathroom like the guys going with me were.

And then there are some situations that aren't recreational, like I learned the hard way from my job sometimes the bathrooms are just not available for an extended amount of time. The guys were able to just go in the bushes but I held it all day. I wasn't going to quit my job just because the bathrooms were locked that a lot of these places that we went to, you simply start to plan your day around them, start to take restroom availability into consideration.


But the thing that really baffles me is that a lot of women know this and yet they don't take these precautions. They know that there might be a gargantuan line to the restroom and yet they still don't watch their liquid intake or wait until the last minute to go to the bathroom and then they find themselves in a really terrible situation. But again this is something that guys generally do not have to do, they usually expect there to be a bathroom and not have to worry about a long line or not getting to go or no toilets being available.

And as I have said in a lot of my other threads though these situations are normal and very few people seem to talk about them and just seem to accept them as normal. But that is how the urinary leash works and how it is real, at some point everybody's going to have to use the bathroom if you're away from home long enough. The urinary leash doesn't mean that you can't have a life in public but it may mean some added discomfort. Unlike guys who can usually go out and find a bathroom in most situations in a situation where bathrooms are not readily available frequently for women the only option is to hold it. Again maybe not an everyday situation, and maybe my situation that I found myself in is not the norm and I'm quite glad to be out of it right now, but these things do happen and you can't cease living your life just because you might not get to piss right away.


So yeah maybe I got on a bit of a rant and went off on a tangent but I thought it was an important topic to be addressed. I think most people don't realize how vital bathrooms and bathroom access is to having a comfortable life away from home. In fact as much is I talk about bathrooms I didn't realize how extremely important something like a public restroom is in a park until you realize you're going to be in the park all day and you really notice that absence.


But again you plan around them. If I wanted to go to an event and they said you know at intermission there is usually an hour long line for the ladies room and you probably won't get to go I am still going to go to that event. Unlike the guys maybe however I will be sitting with my legs crossed by the end and maybe at the end of that still might have to wait until a more convenient opportunity to relieve myself even while the guys are being able to stop it every bathroom we come to. For men the time to use the bathroom as whenever a bathroom is available, because of things like lack of adequate bathrooms women often have to put it off and put it off and put it off sometimes for a long time to the point where it gets rather desperate and I think what a lot of guys don't realize is how often women might be holding it when they think that they are just not going to the bathroom because they don't have to go when they would really like to be going but simply realize it's not an option.


And going back to the topic at hand if somehow there is a new law that reduces bathroom access even further that's not going to stop women from engaging in public life, but just be aware it's going to make public life a lot more uncomfortable for a lot of women, so while the guys are off relieving themselves at every opportunity be aware that some of your female companions might be skipping out on the bathroom not because they don't have to go but just because going is not as convenient for them as it is for you. But again not gonna stop me from living my life even if I have to do it with crossed legs....


End of essay LOL.

 

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@Spectator9

"Building codes have begun to include Potty Parity in their standards.  A lot of new construction now has greatly increased the number of fixtures in women's rest rooms - and in some cases reduced the number in the men's!"

Maybe it will end up with men waiting, and here we see the path to it being brought before the Supreme Court as an injustice against men... And there it goes...

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1 minute ago, secretomoact said:

"Toilets are not mentioned anywhere in the constitution, it should be left up to the states if people are allowed to use them at all." 

The red states then ban everyone from pissing to own the libs. 

Remember that one story in our fiction section about the island nation where women pee only like once every 3 days to help their goddess hold back the floods?  The south is gonna go #BladderBulge4Jesus 😆

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11 hours ago, TVGuy said:

I really could see the majority opinion with this court being almost exactly this.  Except, there would probably be some additional language about how the original intent of the constitution never declared women to persons under the law, and as such do not qualify for other constitutional rights such as the right to equal treatment under the. law.  Further, that there is no constitutional right to bathroom facilities for anyone as expressed in the original text of the constitution.

Yet another reason why the constitution is a rag imo and should be thrown out and be rewritten. 

6 hours ago, secretomoact said:

"Toilets are not mentioned anywhere in the constitution, it should be left up to the states if people are allowed to use them at all." 

The red states then ban everyone from pissing to own the libs. 

Honestly the way things are going they just might do that and make The City Without A Ladies Room real. 

8 hours ago, Spectator9 said:

Building codes have begun to include Potty Parity in their standards.  A lot of new construction now has greatly increased the number of fixtures in women's rest rooms - and in some cases reduced the number in the men's!

Based af. 

Edited by Ms. Tito (see edit history)
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While I think it's certainly an issue, I don't even think the Supreme Court would rule on it.

 

There's been numerous challenges brought before the Supreme Court in regards to other issues (notably the male-only Selective Service system), but they don't do anything with it. Like, it's been brought up the Selective Service is unconstitutional for a variety of reasons, but nothing is ever done about it.

 

This is why bathrooms should just be unisex, IMO. Obviously, we'd need to shed our weird culture about it all; but still. If everyone is using one bathroom, it'll be more cleanly; since males and females are inclined to keep things tidy when both are present. 

 

I must also concur with @Ms. Tito in regard to the Constitution being rewritten, other countries do it whenever enough things have changed socially and culturally since the last one. Hell, France is on like their Fifth one.

 

(Sorry, if this doesn't make sense. I am bad at putting things into words.)

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At the risk of starting an argument the role of the Supreme Court is mostly to define what is and isn’t a constitutional law. Not every change in law can or should be the result of a court ruling. The only way this would happen is if, say, a restaurant didn’t follow state laws regarding bathroom rules and the lawsuit resulting from that somehow escalated to that level, which is highly unlikely. This really is a case of write your representatives to get building codes updated etc. Getting rules updated on a state or city level is often better than federal level laws because it goes faster and can take into account local demographics. 
 

TLDR: I don’t want to start a argument related to civics and laws on this site of all things and don’t intend to do so, i’m just saying that the state level legislature is probably better for this. And to cut through the irony a state level law like this wouldn’t be any more of a constitutional legal question than other codes regarding building construction and would be met with a shrug by most people.
 

and again please don’t start making assumptions about me based on this, i’m just chiming in on this being brought to a federal level. I actually do think women’s rooms having more cubicles is good idea, funnily enough I signed a petition for that in my state recently. And as another thing to think about, any federal law is going to have representatives from every state weighing in on it to some degree, do you really want people you disagree with, have no voting power against, and are in no way effected by your opinion having say on laws you feel strongly about? Assuming the answers is no you see why I say handling this in your state is likely better for the end result. 

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20 hours ago, DesperateJill said:

Actually do find it astonishing that women would actively work against their own interests so much, and yet it happens all the time. It's crazy that you could probably have women on the Supreme Court ruling against potty parity and then as soon as they are done ruling get on a huge line for the bathroom.

To be fair, ideally supreme court justices should be ruling off of what is constitutional/legal, not off of "what would benefit me personally the most when I go back home".  I for one did not approve of some recent self-serving rulings which were not so grounded in the constitution/law. And I also do not wish for other judges to start ruling in self-serving ways just because it would also align with my views.... because I'm not a hypocrite. 

However, "citizens" in general should /vote/ for what benefits them the most though. I'd agree that "single-issue voting" is the damnest thing to happen to the populace. People vote against a dozen of their own interests, because they've been convinced that "this one other issue is more important".  There's just a difference when you're looking at appointed officials with a duty to make decisions following certain rules. 



As for the thread answer: I believe it's pretty unlikely that the supreme court would institute any form of "potty parity" - especially if you're specifically referring to the version of potty parity which is trying for special treatment, not equal treatment, (more money/space spent on women's restrooms than men's, in order to achieve the similar line waiting times). Excesively-egregious differences (like a place having 20 toilets for men but 1 for women" would be reasonable to rule against, but such examples are likely already illegal under building codes which DO require a certain number of bathrooms/toilets for publicly accessed buildings of high occupancy. 

I would understand and support it if the movement were going through congress, but functionally the supreme court is (ideally, and usually) supposed to avoid "ruling from the bench" - which is: "ruling on things not strongly supported by the constitution/law in a way which would effectively create new-law which /should/ have been made through congress instead". A ruling instantiating "potty parity" would drastically affect nearly every building in the country, because the ruling would have to be retro active. To sue you have to have standing, you'd have to sue an existing place without parity, and claim that they should be forced to implement parity (or pay for the unequal inconvenience they've created). The court finding against such a hypothetical location would effectively be saying that all places (or at least all places constructed after a certain date - which again, if this date is arbitrary and not grounded in another legal document, is yet another reason the court wouldn't have grounds to make such a decision)  would have to retroactively be forced to rebuild their facilities. 

Such wide ranging financial burdens across the entire country are a factor the supreme court uses when making judgements. And would be a barrier that would normally mean they have to not implement a "new law" and would instead leave it to congress to do so with more nuance. (by grandfathering in existing places, and putting requirements based on building size / occupancy amount - all of which would need to be settled in exact quantities for legal purposes, and exact quantities like that are not things the supreme court is supposed to be making decisions about on their own (and instead should be instructed by existing laws, created by the rest of the government).

 

In reality if this were to become law: This is the kind of movement that would be most likely started at the state, or even city/county level. First with some private building owners taking up the torch and voluntarily implementing it in their stadiums/concert-halls/theaters. And urging others to do the same. Until a state legislature feels there's enough support to make it a state law, and enough states do it for the federal legislature to do the same. And almost none would apply retroactively (expect perhaps to the largest venues within the state, which would only be a handful of locations).   

I don't know if I think this is likely... I think I could see it happening at the state level, it's the federal part where I'm not so confident. It sounds like the kind of thing I'd expect to hear about some European countries implementing in the not too distant future (or perhaps, already have?). I am certain that if any state or federal legislature implemented it, the courts would have zero grounds to strike it down (unless there was any technical/legal issue if such a law failed to grandfather in older buildings maybe). 

 

Another alternative: which I believe could gain more support in some areas would be making uni-sex bathrooms more common. This could easily be applied retroactively by just making both male and female restrooms non-gendered. No construction required. Lines would always be equal everywhere. This has the side benefit of solving a number of other issues around transgender / non-binary bathrooms too. 

A further compromise would be to have male, female, and unisex bathrooms available at all locations, with unisex being the largest, and a smaller space still provided for the other two bathrooms to continue to accompany people who take issue with shared bathrooms and want more privacy.

(And on the topic of voting against self interest: I'd support both of those last suggestions in spite of my personal understanding that women's restrooms are typically the ones which get described as more likely to be less clean, and this could negatively impact my public restroom experiences. Not all voting against self interest is illogical. In fact, I'd wager it very rarely is.)


The poll: There's a misunderstanding here. Maybe in public opinion a defeat at the supreme court would kill interest in potty parity movement if people are overreactive as this vote suggests? But the reality is that the court not ruling to implement potty parity would not make it unconsitutional, and should not kill the movement. It would just be (correctly) leaving the issue for legislatures to decide (at the state and federal levels). The same as happened now, with the court overturning Roe v Wade. The ruling has done nothing to prevent the federal congress from passing an amendment (with 2/3rds majority) to make abortion access a protected right nationally. It has only ended the court-implemented freedoms, returning the issue to the states until the federal congress does something about it. (Which realistically, may not happen for a very long time in our current political climate).

The fourth option for the poll should be "It would be unsupported by the court, left open for cities, counties, states, and the federal government, to create laws on instead".

"Constitutionally Protected, or Constitutionally Forbidden" is pretty much never a question the supreme court looks at. Instead, the Supreme Court is practically always deciding between "Constitutionally protected, or left up to the states/federal congress to protect/forbid"  OR instead deciding between "Constitutionally forbidden, or left up to the states/federal congress to protect/forbid". Not both.

Edited by FallingDusk (see edit history)
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3 hours ago, FallingDusk said:

I would understand and support it if the movement were going through congress, but functionally the supreme court is (ideally, and usually) supposed to avoid "ruling from the bench" - which is: "ruling on things not strongly supported by the constitution/law in a way which would effectively create new-law which /should/ have been made through congress instead". A ruling instantiating "potty parity" would drastically affect nearly every building in the country, because the ruling would have to be retro active.

I don’t think it would necessarily have to be retroactive in its ruling. There are dozens upon dozens of laws that grandfather in older and historical buildings to make up for what’s lost. Just because it’s something new that could be added, doesn’t mean it has to become a massive financial burden. There are thousands of historical buildings that cannot be touched or retrofitted to accommodate that sort of law, and I think that, unfortunately, that’s something we would have to accept. There are so many things that would need to be considered for a project that massive, and that involves the integrity of the building, the plumbing, etc. Some locations would be able to do it, and might want to include additional bathrooms willingly, but that doesn’t mean we should expect it to happen on a large scale or require the law to be retroactive.

But that doesn’t mean we need to accept the inequality for future buildings that should already be considering these changes without laws in place. I do see what you were trying to say in the rest of your comment, though, as there is a potential that people would try to push for such a thing.

3 hours ago, FallingDusk said:

Another alternative: which I believe could gain more support in some areas would be making uni-sex bathrooms more common. This could easily be applied retroactively by just making both male and female restrooms non-gendered. No construction required. Lines would always be equal everywhere. This has the side benefit of solving a number of other issues around transgender / non-binary bathrooms too. 

A further compromise would be to have male, female, and unisex bathrooms available at all locations, with unisex being the largest, and a smaller space still provided for the other two bathrooms to continue to accompany people who take issue with shared bathrooms and want more privacy.

(And on the topic of voting against self interest: I'd support both of those last suggestions in spite of my personal understanding that women's restrooms are typically the ones which get described as more likely to be less clean, and this could negatively impact my public restroom experiences. Not all voting against self interest is illogical. In fact, I'd wager it very rarely is.)

As someone who absolutely loves unisex bathrooms when needed, I have to say they have easily been the cleanest bathrooms I’ve been in. Generally I’ve noticed that unisex bathrooms are more properly staffed than men and women’s bathrooms. Although, admittedly, the line can be equally as long as a normal women’s room and leaving the men’s room line still far shorter. I would like to see them be more common as I think they’re genuinely helpful to have and solve a lot of other issues in the process, but I can guarantee that would raise additional arguments in the “we need our privacy” front. Even if the amount of bathrooms are still theoretically the same, the moment “their space” becomes smaller, it’ll incite an, in my opinion, unneeded panic. I know places where this has been tried to be implemented on a smaller scale locally only to completely abandon the idea of unisex bathrooms due to the very public outcry against it.

Eventually, if unisex bathrooms became more common, then I believe it would become the norm and people would accept it, but I don’t believe that society is ready for that just yet. I do believe that we’re getting there, though, just very slowly.

I don’t know that there is ever going to be a correct way of approaching this situation as there is always going to be some sort of issue one way or another. It just comes down to what new issues people would want to create and what can be done to alleviate it.

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Lots of good thoughtful responses especially the detailed legal analysis from @FallingDusk. I agree with @Ms. Tito & @dabboi that the Constitution needs an overhaul or being rewritten altogether and that America needs pretty much a total revolution, but not the revolution that the insurrectionists wanted, the total opposite of that!


I do think that constitutional originalists are ridiculous thinking that we should interpret things about current day issues on how people in the 1800s would have thought. Even the founding fathers didn't think like that, the one thing they got right about the Constitution is that they believed it should be changed to meet changing times and situations that they couldn't anticipate. It was meant to be a versatile document not some type of holy document which is how originalists seem to think it is, they seem to think it's unalterable like it was a religious text or something, which again is one of the major problems of the current Supreme Court, they are not ruling based on law they are ruling based on their own ideology. Anyone who says otherwise is not really paying attention, at this point the court is basically just an ideological implementation device for the far right. If there is any particular reason why we shouldn't go by the 18th-century standards of the Constitution the founding fathers probably would say as to current recent history how did 3/5 of a person became president? And yet I think a lot of originalists probably would bring back slavery if they could find some type of way of getting away with it. At this point the Supreme Court simply doesn't reflect the views of the majority of Americans and I always thought the idea of nine unelected people in a high-paying lifetime appointment jobs having that much power to determine the laws in America is really ridiculous in the first place in all honesty. We shouldn't determine modern and future issues based ont he standards of 2 centuries ago. I don't care what Thomas Jefferson's opinion would be on cloning, space ships and AIS.

I agree that it would probably be unlikely that potty parity would go before the Supreme Court although it's telling that of the 15 or 16 people who have answered the poll so far there is not one single person who seems to think that it would be made the law of the land if it did, so I'm glad to see that people are on the same page about that and realize that it's basically a hopeless situation if that were to be the case. It does have interesting implications to think of but that's probably more in the speculative realm. I don't see potty parity getting more attention for better or worse anytime soon.


And I agree that unisex bathrooms seem to be the most realistic solution. It really is weird that we have bathrooms that are segregated by gender. I think that doing that is just because in America particularly we still have a puritanical attitude that we seem to think that if men and women use the bathroom together they would just be having sex all the time. People could still do that now and they aren't going to care if it's in the men's room with the ladies room. The idea of predators in the bathroom is just another one of those moral panics. If a person was intent on sexually assaulting somebody they are not going to say, you know what maybe I won't because that would involve going into the ladies room and that would be wrong.


It's just like with all of these bathroom bills, they are not about protecting people from predators, there is not one single instance of a trans person ever bothering somebody or salting a person in the ladies room, in fact there are more cases of conservative politicians doing something immoral or illegal illegal in public bathrooms than any trans person in which again there is not one single case of it.


A lot of these laws are just designed to control and police men's and women's bodies. Segregating genders, determining who can go and what bathroom, all the transphobic bathroom bills, they just another way of trying to control and marginalize people and exclude them from public life.


So yes I agree that unisex probably would be the most reasonable solution. The one thing that I worry though is that that could reduce bathrooms overall. Once again if people are not obligated to law to provide adequate facilities most would probably choose not to seeing as there is no profit in it for them. If things did go unisex instead of having a ladies room with three stalls in the men's room with three stalls and two urinals, ate places to pee altogether, I could think of them reducing that to one single restroom with three stalls which would benefit anybody. The only way unisex would work is if you take all the existing bathroom space and make it larger for everybody. Otherwise it would still be shortchanging everybody rather than benefiting everybody.


Unisex probably won't catch on in America for a while but maybe over time it will gradually become more normal. I can only recall one unisex restroom I have been in that wasn't a single user restroom and as I mentioned in other threads that one contained two stalls and four urinals. If that were to become the standard in unisex bathrooms women would still be getting screwed perhaps even more than right now.

@secretomoact

"The red states then ban everyone from pissing to own the libs."

@Weather

"Remember that one story in our fiction section about the island nation where women pee only like once every 3 days to help their goddess hold back the floods?  The south is gonna go #BladderBulge4Jesus"

Joking aside I think there is actually some truth to that. I do think that most of the states that have implemented potty parity have been blue states and mostly in big cities. Maybe it's just because with more people they need more of them but I also think that conservatives really aren't all that concerned with women getting to pee in a timely manner.


In fact there was one story I was going to write on my list where a new religious group forms that feels that women going to the bathroom is sinful so limits the amount of time women can go to the bathroom per day. Again this is the premise for a crazy story I hope to write one of these days, but I think that there are probably actually people out there who do believe that, that anything involving the female body and excretion is somehow sinful and should be limited. And it's clear a lot of people making these laws don't really know all that much about the female body and are clearly squeamish about it. Women piss and shit, probably even more than guys, get over it!

Again I still wonder which region of the country and which countries on the planet are the best and worst for women needing to go to the bathroom. I would say that India and China sound like they are the worst for women needing to go to the bathroom. On a state-by-state basis it's hard to say, I live in New York so luckily that's one of the more progressive states and New York City is where I know they had a big move towards potty parity although I don't think I have actually been to the city since they started pushing for it. But I do suspect that if I ever did go to a red state that I would probably have a harder time finding a bathroom, just my gut feeling.

@FallingDusk

"I believe it's pretty unlikely that the supreme court would institute any form of "potty parity" - especially if you're specifically referring to the version of potty parity which is trying for special treatment, not equal treatment, (more money/space spent on women's restrooms than men's, in order to achieve the similar line waiting times). Excesively-egregious differences (like a place having 20 toilets for men but 1 for women" would be reasonable to rule against, but such examples are likely already illegal under building codes which DO require a certain number of bathrooms/toilets for publicly accessed buildings of high occupancy."

I don't consider potty parity to be special treatment. Without potty parity the men still tend to get more places to go simply because of urinals which are not factored in. If you have a woman's room with three stalls and a men's room with a wall of urinals beside that the men have more opportunities despite the fact that women take longer and need the bathroom more. The problem is that men get an access number of bathrooms whereas women don't get enough.


When it comes to issues of equality I've heard that there are two different schools of thought, equality of outcome and equality of opportunity. Equality of outcome would be something like getting the waiting times more equal, equality of opportunity would be providing the exact same amount even if one group of people needed more. Providing even an equal number of toilets because men can go a lot quicker still ends up resulting in men having no wait while women have a larger wait for even a significant one. But even without potty parity women don't even really have the equality of opportunity because again urinals give men more opportunities to go so women are getting shortchanged on numerous levels.


And even before they started pushing for potty parity once again as I mentioned earlier in the 1980s it was more common to not only have more men's rooms but also to give men more stalls in addition to urinals than stalls in the ladies room. So again a lot of people don't want these written into the laws but if you leave stuff up to businesses they will give you the absolute bare minimum which for the most part means that men will still be able to make do with the minimum and not have much of a wait whereas women will likely have to deal with long lines and extensive holding.

@SelenaFox

"I don’t think it would necessarily have to be retroactive in its ruling. There are dozens upon dozens of laws that grandfather in older and historical buildings to make up for what’s lost. Just because it’s something new that could be added, doesn’t mean it has to become a massive financial burden. There are thousands of historical buildings that cannot be touched or retrofitted to accommodate that sort of law, and I think that, unfortunately, that’s something we would have to accept. There are so many things that would need to be considered for a project that massive, and that involves the integrity of the building, the plumbing, etc. Some locations would be able to do it, and might want to include additional bathrooms willingly, but that doesn’t mean we should expect it to happen on a large scale or require the law to be retroactive."

This is what I have heard in regards to potty parity that there are exceptions made. Basically it only applies to buildings that are either new or renovating 50% or more of their total space, which probably applies to a lot of large and older buildings so in that case it would probably be decades before it shows any sign of improvement. And you are right that some historical buildings and other things like that it simply wouldn't be practical to include more bathrooms so I guess in a situation like that we will have to keep crossing our legs out of necessity.


I did notice on my trip to Washington DC it did seem like there were a lot longer lines in general to the bathroom but that could just be because I was going to lots of tourist places, but I do kind of wonder if the historical nature of some places was why they couldn't add any more bathrooms.


But with time I have allowed my pragmatism to overcome my idealism and have excepted begrudgingly that they are going to be a lot of situations where potty parity or bathroom inequality are simply not possible and that women will be burdened with a longer wait for holding it, sometimes it's just inevitable.

"But that doesn’t mean we need to accept the inequality for future buildings that should already be considering these changes without laws in place. I do see what you were trying to say in the rest of your comment, though, as there is a potential that people would try to push for such a thing."

New buildings are more practical to implement this with I fully agree with that. When you are designing a new building in the modern day world you should take into account modern day needs. Historical buildings I can understand that were built in the 1800s when women hardly left the house might not have provided much in the way of women's bathrooms, but a brand-new building really should take into consideration the growing population and the demographics and their needs.

"As someone who absolutely loves unisex bathrooms when needed, I have to say they have easily been the cleanest bathrooms I’ve been in. Generally I’ve noticed that unisex bathrooms are more properly staffed than men and women’s bathrooms. Although, admittedly, the line can be equally as long as a normal women’s room and leaving the men’s room line still far shorter. I would like to see them be more common as I think they’re genuinely helpful to have and solve a lot of other issues in the process, but I can guarantee that would raise additional arguments in the “we need our privacy” front. Even if the amount of bathrooms are still theoretically the same, the moment “their space” becomes smaller, it’ll incite an, in my opinion, unneeded panic. I know places where this has been tried to be implemented on a smaller scale locally only to completely abandon the idea of unisex bathrooms due to the very public outcry against it."

That is one thing I have considered in regards to unisex bathrooms in regards to total space usage. Like I was saying above if they had one bathroom for everyone they might provide half as many toilets in general which means that the line for men and women would be even longer and that would defeat the whole purpose.
Perhaps at this moment they best solution would be to have a men's room a ladies room and in a lot of places a family bathroom that can be used by either gender. It would solve the issue of trans issues or people who need to bring their children into the bathroom or who have to take care of elderly and infirm people or handicapped people who are only a small percentage of the population at any given time, so having one single bathroom for them would probably provide an adequate amount without having to worry about getting stuck in the lines for the other bathrooms.


But I do think that with unisex there is that potential that they might do something along the lines of have one room at stalls for men and women and then maybe another room of urinals which would still benefit men. In most schemes that I think of it does seem like even unisex would still be primarily benefiting men more than women.
And you are right that there tends to be a public outcry as soon as somebody sees their space being taken away and allocated to somebody else. As I have said elsewhere I think people who have become accustomed to privilege, such as men having the privilege to never have to wait at the bathroom or rarely will be outraged if somebody starts taking that away from.


The best example I can think of is I remember reading about a stadium called soldier Field. For 20 years the women were petitioning for more bathrooms because whenever there was an intermission or at half time the line for the ladies room would be like a half hour long and there would be none for the men. What they did is they turn a lot of mail bathrooms into female bathrooms that alleviated the line for the women but then the men suddenly started having a wait and they were fuming and angry, and in a show of the power of male privilege they immediately changed it back to the status quo with women now having the lines and men not having to wait once again. I think it says a lot that the women needed to complain for decades just to get more bathrooms and then one complaint for the men and they immediately restore the status quo of women in line men with no waiting. Which also goes back to the point of my other thread. Men wait=riots, instant change. Women wait=women go on waiting patiently however unfair.

"Eventually, if unisex bathrooms became more common, then I believe it would become the norm and people would accept it, but I don’t believe that society is ready for that just yet. I do believe that we’re getting there, though, just very slowly."

I think I agree with this and I also agree there will be a slow crawl. The way I see it with people being increasingly realizing that there are people who don't fit the gender binary such as non-binary trans intersex people and things of that nature, as well as issues such as family needing to bring children in the restroom with them and handicap people etc. I think that there will slowly be more of a move towards unisex restrooms. But I particularly in the United States, where people are still very phobic about the idea of mixing the sexes in any type of situation especially in a private situation like a bathroom it's going to take a very long time for people to get use to.


But I do remember reading something a long time ago that one professor at a college once asked all of their students about how they felt about the fact that their college had implemented unisex restrooms. Although some people were uncomfortable at first after a while they did get used to it. But then again it could be because a lot of people in a college situation tend to be more progressive, in areas that are more conservative and uptight I could see how that unisex bathrooms would meet with widespread opposition and even moral panic like you see with the discriminatory transgender bathroom bills.

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@Angusburger

"I have mix views tbh because unisex may have lines for guys too because there won’t be urinals and it’s all stalls and guys are slower in stallls too because girls have smaller bladder and a faster larger urine pee rate so girls are done faster."

When you factor in getting into the stall and getting undressed and wiping and all of that women do take longer in the bathroom the men.


I can see how a lot of men wouldn't want to give up their urinals because that is basically the reason why men can pee so quickly. I mean a unisex bathroom should obviously be all stalls so that everybody can use them, but as much as I envy the convenience that urinals give guys I do not begrudge men their urinals. Maybe they could have one room that just has stalls and one that just has urinals, which would still result in the men being able to go a lot quicker but at least maybe it would give the women more access to a larger number of stalls.


Of course the nightmare scenario is to have a unisex bathroom with a limited number of stalls and a large abundance of urinals, since those are cheaper, as that would be one way in which men were still being benefited but women were being shortchanged even more than before, and I can honestly see something like that happening, it wouldn't surprise me at all in all honesty if unisex became the norm and there was an emphasis on providing urinals, it's just the way the world works.


I do think that if guys started having to wait in line as long as women that there would probably be riots and that there would be a lot more change. And pessimistically I feel that if you look at other cases like with the soldier Field one that I mentioned the change would probably involve putting things back to the way they were, where men can pee without a wait and where women have gargantuan lines. That is pretty much like the bathroom status quo that always seems to get restored to second men are inconvenienced even slightly. But once again goes back to my other thread about the fact that women just are more patient about these things.

"Also wont guys just pee all over the seat?"

Yeah but then so do women who hover. But then maybe in a mixed sex environment people would try to be less gross, maybe....

And with 26 voters in the poll 96% still seem to have consensus if this were to go before a high court it'd be the end for potty parity most likely, so perhaps hopefully it won't.

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On 7/31/2022 at 8:57 AM, SelenaFox said:

I don’t think it would necessarily have to be retroactive in its ruling. There are dozens upon dozens of laws that grandfather in older and historical buildings to make up for what’s lost. Just because it’s something new that could be added, doesn’t mean it has to become a massive financial burden. There are thousands of historical buildings that cannot be touched or retrofitted to accommodate that sort of law, and I think that, unfortunately, that’s something we would have to accept. There are so many things that would need to be considered for a project that massive, and that involves the integrity of the building, the plumbing, etc. Some locations would be able to do it, and might want to include additional bathrooms willingly, but that doesn’t mean we should expect it to happen on a large scale or require the law to be retroactive.

But that doesn’t mean we need to accept the inequality for future buildings that should already be considering these changes without laws in place. I do see what you were trying to say in the rest of your comment, though, as there is a potential that people would try to push for such a thing.

Just to be clear, I addressed this too - it would only "have" to be retroactive if the supreme court was the institution to implement it. (which they should not be, because of many reasons).

This is a task for congress instead, and congress has the power and means to carve out all kinds of exceptions, details, and other nuances - including things like how old a building needs to be to be grandfathered in, whether size/occupancy of the building plays a role, and further exceptions for historical status or other things which could be reasonable. 

I only said that just the "supreme court" would be unable to carve out such detailed exceptions. And that's because it's not their job, and they do not have the authority/purpose for creating new laws. Those "dozens of laws that grandfather in older and historical buildings" which you're referring to have /all/ came through congressional institutions instead. (At the City, County, State, or Federal levels). None were initially created by courts. 

Edited by FallingDusk (see edit history)
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