the problem with having a third misc. option is that the majority of the population probably doesn't have a problem with male and female toilets and would continue to use them as per usual, with the result being that the misc toilets end up being the ones obviously intended for and used only by people who don't fit in with the general straight population. the result is that this further segregates lgbt folks from the general population and doesn't actually do anything to reduce fear of these groups, which is what unisex toilets are trying to address in the first place.
I'd use them and I'm pretty unambigious. lol I am a woman, who needs to piss about 4x as often as most people but takes about 1/5th of the time to go as most women. Hell, I generally piss quicker than my partner and yes I do wash my hands. I don't really understand how most women take so long. So, yay unisex bathrooms!
it's a bt similar to how a lot of places encourage people to use the term "partner" when talking about their relationships cos it's a nice, asexual term that includes everybody and doesn't reveal sexual orientation or gender. the problem is, almost everyone who uses this term is not straight and so then they become immediately identifiable based on their use of a word which was initially supposed to be helpful, since straight people tend to just say "boyfriend" or "girlfriend". i use the word "partner" instead of "boyfriend" whenever i can and 9 times out of 10 i get the response "oh, i didn't know you were gay". i still say partner cos i like to think there's a point in there somewhere.
Meh, I've heard that is true in the US but over here a lot of people use "partner" as you don't need to get married to have rights any more. I know more people who have partners than are married. And boy/girlfriend just doesn't seem right after a certain amount of time... if you've been living together for 5 years and share everything it just doesn't seem like boy/girlfriend is the right word.
I know if I were a lady and I was attending a football game I would make sure to relieve myself before the game, so I would not be forced to enter a bathroom with a large number of inebriated men. I recall going to a party once and there were some women who had entered the men's bathroom because the women's bathroom line was long. From the sound of it, the men in the bathroom seemed to assume that the girls were there to dispense sexual favors, as they propositioned the girls quite loudly and exposed themselves to the girls. It was pretty disgusting.
Now, maybe increasing the number of women in such a situation from a few to many would discourage things like that. But the sense that I get is that when you put men and women in a situation where "going about your business" involves removing your clothing in the same room as those of the opposite sex, I think it would increase the likelihood of such instances occurring.
Generally I don't think this is as much of an issue as people like to say. OTOH I'd support single-sex bathrooms at stadiums and suchlike, because as you say that is quite a bad environment. In this situation I'd imagine it's going to be safer for a transgendered person to go into the woman's bathroom regardless, or if they pass too well as a man hell you can use the stall.
clockworkjames, I hope you aren't as much of a tosser as you're coming across here. Transphobic twat.
