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Sex segregation in public restrooms refers to the separation of public toilets into the sex categories of male and female. In the United States, sex-based separation of public restrooms began in the late 19th century as a response to women not having toilets available to them in the workplace. In contemporary times, this separation is typically enforced by both city laws and building codes. Key differences between male and female restrooms in most western countries include the presence of urinals for men and sanitary bins for the disposal of menstrual hygiene products for women.
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History
Sex-segregated toilets date back to the 18th century in Paris. In 1887, Massachusetts became the first state in the United States to pass legislation requiring any workplace with female employees to have a female-specific restroom. Subsequently, other states created similar laws, often by amending existing protective labor legislation. 43 states had passed similar legislation by 1920.
Legal scholar Terry S. Kogan lists four primary rationales for sex-segregated toilets as detailed by state statutes and related literature during this time period: sanitation, women's privacy, the protection of women's bodies, which were seen as weaker, and to protect social morality especially as it pertained to the nineteenth century ideology of separate spheres. Kogan's argument that modern-day restroom segregation emerged out of this Victorian model of gender has been cited in historical overviews of this topic by Time, Public Radio International and The Washington Post.
Legal regulation
American public restrooms are regulated by two separate federal agencies: the U.S. Department of Labor, which governs workplace restrooms, and the Department of Health and Human Services, which governs non-workplace restrooms. Many places in the United States are legally prohibited from offering only restrooms for men. These regulations are mostly based on the precedent created by original legislation, though they sometimes also work to eliminate the longer wait time females often face by creating a ratio of more female restrooms than male restrooms.
Urinary segregation can also be caused by building codes, as buildings from different eras are subject to different codes. In many situations, building owners do not update existing features because it allows them to continue following the older building codes that go along with those older features.
Pay toilets and potty parity
In the 20th century, the practice of 'pay toilets' emerged, where public restroom stalls could only through accessed by paying a fee. Activist groups including The Committee to End Pay Toilets in America claimed that such practices disadvantaged women because men did not have to pay for urinals. As an act of protest against this phenomenon, in 1969 California Assemblywoman March Fong Eu destroyed a toilet on the steps of the California State Capitol.
Since the 1980s, "Potty parity" activists campaigned for laws requiring more female-designated restrooms than male-designated restrooms in public buildings, based on the idea that women require more time to use the restroom and thus women's restrooms tend to have longer lines. California passed the first law of this kind in 1987, and as of 2009 twenty states in the US have passed similar legislation.
Transgender issues
Sex segregation of public restrooms began gaining traction as a controversial issue for transgender identity in US politics in 2010. An early essay on this question is Case (2010), who argues that "walking into a toilet segregated by sex requires that each of us in effect self-segregate" and that some transgender people report being challenged on what bathroom they choose to use and subsequently "do their best to forego use of public toilets altogether".
Many questions concerning exactly how social and legal enforcement of the division should take place has been the subject of many a debate. Transgender people often face harassment based on their choice in restrooms regardless of whether they use the restroom corresponding to their gender identity or their sex assigned at birth, which has led many activists in the transgender community to call for legal protection for people wishing to use restrooms which most accurately reflect their gender identity. Others have questioned the need for gender-based restroom segregation in the first place. In addition to transgender issues, those questioning the need for gendered bathrooms cite dilemmas caused by the need for caretakers of dependents (who include children, the elderly, and the mentally and physically disabled) to enter the restroom used by their charge, regardless of which restrooms they may use themselves.
Others have proposed laws which require transgender individuals to use restrooms corresponding to their sex assigned at birth. Some advocates of these laws claim that transgender people, or men claiming to be transgender, will be responsible for sexual assault in bathrooms matching their gender identity. However, statistics on sexual assault in restrooms show no incidence of assaults where the perpetrator was a transgender person using a restroom corresponding to their gender identity, while 70% of transgender people report facing harassment or assault while trying to use a restroom in the District of Columbia.
Gender-neutral restrooms in college campuses
According to the Stonewall Center at the University of Massachusetts, there are over 150 college campuses across the US that are creating gender-neutral restrooms. In March 2016, New York City private college Cooper Union moved to remove gender designations from campus bathrooms. In October 2016, University of California Berkeley converted several restrooms into gender-neutral washrooms.