Yeah, I hate to say it, but generally most men are pigs in the bathroom.
At clubs down in La. 20 years ago they had bathrooms for both sexes, but one at a time, so I don't think that really counts.
I had no problem with it then.
I can already see guys flashing women at the urinals though.
As Spock said 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few' - with that in mind I'd rather my wife didn't feel at unease using the bathroom.

I'm gay and not particularly manly, but this notion really throws me. Thousands of visibly obvious transgender people is an overestimate. Single stall bathrooms should all be unisex. But people should have a measure of privacy in multiuse bathrooms. We're not even comfortable sharing the bathrooms with people of our own gender. Plus there are differences in the way bathrooms are used. Men are fast and don't talk in bathrooms; women gab and take forever in there. This would be bad for all concerned. By the way, did this notion come back in a time capsule from the early 90s?

Wait a second, are you saying that women go to the bathroom?? Next you'll tell us they fart too.

I find it interesting that the title of your column is "sexual politics" but you're missing the main freaking reason why women are squeamish about going to the bathroom with men: men rape women, a lot. Happens all the time. It makes sense that those specific boundaries like having a female-only space would provide a slight sense of security and many women would have a problem with it if that boundary was violated or removed altogether. Also men's pee smells, really bad.

Men's bathrooms stink, they can't hit the toilet, there is pee on the floor. Women shouldn't be forced to deal with the grossness and also the fact that men don't know how to stop themselves from harrassing women and they don't know how to stop each other either.

Who is this "we" Mirk keeps talking about? I gotta say, this is a weird, weird piece. With weird comments. Anyway, the server keeps giving me errors, so I'm going to have to break what turned into an essay into 3 sections.

First of all, it seems to confuse single- and multiple-occupancy restrooms. But there is obviously a huge difference between them.

Regarding multiple-occupancy restrooms, I sympathize deeply with the transpeople and allies leading the push to make these restrooms unisex. Many of these folks don't "pass" and aren't welcome in either sex's restroom. But, right or wrong, the existence of unisex, multiple occupancy restrooms is an artifact of campus politics and will not come into widespread use.

Which brings us to the headline question, "Why do we get so squeamish about gender-neutral bathrooms?" It's simple. From an early age we are strictly trained to believe that elimination is gross and has to be done in private. We are similarly trained to control our sexuality, and only reveal those parts of ourselves under certain circumstances, and never ever when strangers of the opposite sex are around. So... where's the mystery? We're strongly conditioned this way from a very early age.

If that wasn't obvious, it's probably a sign of having been de-educated in the service of some ideology, to put it bluntly. Just because social reality is socially constructed doesn't mean the physical bedrock is irrelevant. It's a symptom of how stupid New Left "theory" is that the very deep and strongly grounded forces which give rise to separate bathrooms are dis-interpreted into a negligible prejudice, with folks like Mirk gazing about in bafflement that women don't want to piss in front of men. What a mystery!

As for single-occupancy restrooms, sexing these is just irrational. If I'm at a restaurant with two single occupancy bathrooms and the "men's" room is taken, I go in the "women's", as long as no one is looking.

If that's a problem for you, well, you're really strongly conditioned. And this is a problem (see below). Similarly, the guys above complaining about how men's rooms are always gross clearly--clearly--are alcoholics. Because whenever they're in public they're at a bar. Then it's true: men's rooms at bars are gross.

I don't go to bars very much, and in my experience men's bathrooms only become gross when the janitors don't clean them (or parts of them, like the urinals) for days and days. The exception comes from the barbarians who piss on the toilet seats, but even so, these folks and their unpleasantness can be avoided by staying in nicer areas (sad but true). Then again, there are the notorious female "hoverers" (notorious since I heard about them) who think toilet seats are "gross" and so hover above them while they urinate, causing a dainty mess. And I'm sure women have other issues too (if the I, Anonymous column is any indication); point is, the majority of men's restrooms that I use are perfectly fine, and I doubt they're much worse than women's restrooms.

And where did this rape thing come from? Ignoring the rape paranoia, the logic is just shit. If there were unisex bathrooms men would be all the time raping women in them? What about elevators? Waiting rooms? Why bathrooms? Is it magical potty power, or is just the presence of a woman who pulled down her pants enough to send men into a frenzy? Why are bathrooms so much more dangerous than any of the other enclosed spaced men and women find themselves in all the time? This is insane.

To go off on a tangent, this kind of thinking is a real issue for women. The idea that men are gross is the flip side of the idea that women are fey. It's socially acceptable to go on and on about how gross and brutish men are, but doing so creates an unconscious belief that the opposite is true of women. First, it's all sexist bullshit, which messes up women's sexuality and necessitates things like "The Vagina Monologues" to overcome the dissonance of being an etherial being with needs and secretions. But with respect to women's equality, it's also problem: we see a strong under-representation of women in authority roles like Senator and CEO. The assumption is that there is some sort of explicit sexism in the selection process, but there is scant evidence of this, especially for elections. So what's going on?

Well, if women are sugar and spice and everything nice, and there is clearly a very strong unspoken/unconscious belief in our society that this is so, people--all people, men and women alike--will simply not perceive them as qualified for leadership positions. I'm not saying they think women aren't capable, but when presented with a women they will simply perceive her as less capable. Get it? They have no problem with a woman Senator, but they're not sure that the woman who's actually running is cut out for the job. Why? She just seems to lack a certain something.

Maybe this is old news, but I hear the old "sugar and spice vs snips and snails" line of thinking so often, from everyone, I'm just not sure folks realize how damaging it is... strangely, that line of thinking seems to be a part of "feminist" talk these days, even though it's a serious method of transmitting sexist beliefs and outcomes.

Anyway, where the New Left goes, stupidity follows. You'd think, since the gays have been winning equality by trying to get married and serve in the military, both institutions shunned by the New Left, and since the failure of OWS, that these folks would get a clue, shut the fuck up, and stop being a millstone for the rest of us who want to improve society, but no. Nope. No dice.

Whatever. If some bathrooms go unisex, it's a fun experiment. But transpeople and allies are much, much better off advocating for more single occupancy restrooms, especially since everyone prefers them. I can't tell you how many times I've stood at a urinal and some guy comes in and, instead of pissing next to me (and I appear totally normal in everyday life) he pees in the toilet stall. Which is kind of polite, but also stupid.

But then again, this is potty training. And potty training isn't going anywhere.

@ gruff:

"...I'd like to see more men sit down to piss when there's no urinals..."

are you kidding??!! -- one of the greatest advantages in being male is that we don't have to sit or hover to take a piss.

NO FUCKING WAY am i sitting on a public toilet if i don't have to -- i don't even touch the faucets and door handles with bare hands, let alone sit my cleany-clean bottom on one of those piss and shit-stained seats.

(i also notice that men tend to shoot snot-rockets at the toilet, leaving the rim and/or seat peppered with lovely bits of hardened boogers, some complete with a nose hair sticking out like a flag.)

yes, men are sloppy aimers, to say the least, and it's pretty shameful.....but in their (our) defense: toilets just aren't well-designed for standing-urination -- among other things, there's usually too much water in the bowl, creating more splash than necessary.....

all the same, i usually try to wipe up any mess i make.....unless the place is so fucked already that i cease to care.

@ jamdox:

well thought-out comments, except for the rape thing -- while i don't think a huge increase in the incidence of rape would occur should multi-stalled, unisex bathrooms become the norm, i do think that it would be much easier to perpetrate such a crime in a stall than in a waiting room or an elevator -- a stall provides a lot more cover, and most wouldn't think twice if they heard a bit of muffled moaning coming from a closed stall -- i hear questionable/weird/disgusting grunts all the time. (gross, i know -- how about including a little fiber in your diet, guys? -- taking a shit doesn't have to be a difficult, 10-minute exercise, you fucking morons.)

(and, by the way: why is it that we don't publicly castrate rapists?? -- obviously jail time isn't a big enough deterrent.)

Couldn't help but notice just a hair bit of MAN-HATING in some of these comments. Lemme tell you all something: men's bathrooms are generally disgusting, yes. SAME goes for women's bathrooms! I KNOW b/c i worked as a janitor years ago. I cleaned offices, break rooms, and bathrooms - men's AND women's. By the time i was done with that job, i had come to the firm conclusion that HUMANS in general can be (and often are) pretty fucking foul. So folks, please... put that myth out of your heads right now! Ladies restrooms only look nicer b/c they've got potted plants in 'em 'n shit.

And for the record, i'm all for the idea of unisex restrooms. I personally don't have an issue with them - it's still just a public bathroom. Often, it's going to be messy and nasty and [unfortunately] sometimes poorly kept. And i really don't know just what the Hell other peoples' deal is. But man, i use a public restroom and i'm in there for ONLY as long as i need to be! I go in, do EXACTLY what i need to do, and get out - simple.

Btw, the restroom at EM (Sandy) is unisex. It's fairly clean, though the walls are covered in graffiti.

At the root of the multi-gendered bathroom conversation is a need for safe-space. A safe space for people of any gender, passing or not, to go number 1, number 2, or check their make-up, adjust their package, cry alone or semi-alone, wash their hands and go IN PEACE. It's problematic because I believe there is a need in our culture to segregate women dominated bathrooms from male dominated bathrooms. Why? Because we live in a rape culture and just because you don't see it (for whatever reason) doesn't mean it doesn't exist and create threatening space for women. It's problematic because bathrooms for non-passing trans people can become unsafe too, especially for trans-women. The bathroom is a great place for some gender revolution and the male voice is not separate from this dialog. As men we need to acknowledge the need for the safety of ALL bodies in bathrooms by being ally's with women and trans-people to support that safety.

Totally right you are, Kaj!

"Regarding the rape thing: a little boy was raped by a man in a burger joint toilet in North Portland some months ago, remember that?"

I sure do! A nasty-ass White man, at that - who else!?

Nasty-ass = ponytail, mirrored shades and immature facial piercings.

Lazy-ass = putting your bike on a trimet bus for a 2 mile commute.

Lazy, nasty ass = that's you damosa.

I don't understand why this should be an issue that the entire city needs to address. I would argue that we are not discriminating so much as we don't have the tipping point population of people who don't occupy traditional gender roles. I think that instead of the rest of us pretending like we're super progressive, we should work on accepting that transgender people are a minority that cannot always be reasonably accommodated, especially when it comes to high volume, gendered public restrooms. And maybe, just maybe, we could be courteous to everyone regardless of their gender and which restroom they choose to use.