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CTIR Episode 89: Public Bathrooms & Gender Discrimination
Introduction

Why talk about it?
 I don’t know.
Summary

History
 Historically, shared public latrines have been a feature in most communities
and this continues to be true in countries such as China and India.
 The first separate toilet facilities for men and women appeared at a ball in
Paris in 1739. Until then, public restrooms, the few that existed, were
generally gender neutral or marked for men only.
 The centralization of labor in factories led to the centralization of human
waste at work sites, which was carried away by recently developed
plumbing technologic that had itself been invented in response to the newly
realized germ theory of disease.
 Legislation appeared forcing gender segregation mostly due to a lack of
women’s facilities in workplaces.
o Much of this was due to the paternalistic impulse to “protect” women
from the full force of the world outside their homes.
o It was seen by regulators as a “kind of cure all” for the era’s social
anxiety about working women.
o In 1900, only 6% of women worked outside the home. Jumped from
12% in 1950, to 64% in 1998.
 The first state law mandating that workplace toilet facilities be separated by
sex was enacted in 1887, Massachusetts.
 By 1920, most states had similar laws.
 In Baltimore Maryland, during WWII, at the Western Electric Company
plant, following a change in the plumbing code, the company adopted a
policy against the segregation of public facilities. The union, consisting of
white members, demanded segregation. It led to a strike, and due to the war
effort, the War Department eventually intervened and created a de facto
segregation system.
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 Today, America’s public restrooms are regulated by two separate federal
agencies.
o Workplace restrooms are under the purview of the US Department of
Labor, which sets state guidelines through the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration.
o Non workplace public restroom guidelines are governed by the
Department of Health and Human Services.
 Locally, regulations are enacted through state and municipal building codes.
o They dictate how many toilets and urinals that buildings must provide.
 Most states follow the guidelines laid out in the Uniform
Plumbing Code.
 For example, in California (by code passed in 1987), public
places are required to offer either an equal number of men’s and
women’s water closets or two female toilets for each male toilet
or urinal.
 Alaska has adopted a 2.7 to 1 ratio; Pittsburgh 3.75 to 1; Texas
and Tennessee 2:1.
 In stadiums with fewer than 3,000 seats, one water closet for
every 75 males and 40 females in the first 1,500 seats and one
for every 120 males and 60 females thereafter.
 In New York, there is a 1938 code, a 1968 code, and a 2008
code, all with different bathroom requirements, that apply to
buildings based on when they were built.
o Also mandate the existence of separate men’s and women’s
bathrooms.
 Due to regulations, businesses are then legally prohibited from offering only
gender neutral restrooms.
o For example, a small restraint with only two separate and enclosed
toilets must designate one for men and one for women.
 NY City recently made it permissible in restraints with just two
water closets to make these unisex, but only for places with a
total occupancy of 30 or fewer.

 Gender neutral bathrooms are on the rise.
o More than 150 colleges have these on campuses.
 In addition to the increase of unisex bathrooms, family bathrooms have
appeared frequently in malls and other businesses.
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Solutions
 The Ruling Class.
o “As with race, restroom segregation reinforces social discrimination.
It took laws to eliminate ‘whites only’ lavatories. It took laws to
mandate handicapped toilets. And it is taking laws to redress
inadequate bathroom facilities for women.”
o “Currently 18 states have laws protecting people from discrimination
based on either their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
 Libertarian.
o Non-aggression principle.
 Aggression against another is immoral.
 Aggression is the initiation of the use or threat of physical
violence against another.
 Threat is probable imminent action.
 Another is a human and his or her property.
 Self defense is a reasonable or proportional response to
aggression.
 Market approaches.
o Some bathrooms around the world charge users to use the bathroom.
This puts the cost on the user, but can sometimes limit access to the
poor.
 In India, public defecation is basically the norm. Some 130
million households lack toilets and more than 600 million
people have no access to toilets.
 Apart from poverty and lack of lavatories, one of the reasons
often cited to explain open defecation in India is the ingrained
cultural norm making the practice socially accepted in some
parts of the society.
 "Just building toilets is not going to solve the problem, because
open defecation is a practice acquired from the time you learn
how to walk. When you grow up in an environment where
everyone does it, even if later in life you have access to proper
sanitation, you will revert back to it," says Sue Coates, chief of
Wash (water, sanitation and hygiene) at Unicef.
 In the US, during the early 1900s when railroads connected
America’s biggest cities with rural outposts, train stations were
sometimes the only place in town with modern plumbing. To
keep locals from freely using the bathrooms, railroad
companies installed locks on the stall doors – only to be
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unlocked by railroad employees for ticketed passengers.
Eventually, coin operated locks were introduced. Pay toilets
sprung up in the nation’s airports and bus stations. By 1970,
America had over 50,000 pay toilets.
 Politics emerged: one group claimed fee free bathrooms
as a human right and others said that charging for toilets
was a constitutional right. In the late 1970s, the pay for
toilet industry had almost half a billion in revenue. But
the outcry was too powerful; cities began prohibiting pay
toilets. By 1980, there were almost none.
 Today, paid toilets exist in a few American cities (i.e. NY city),
but also appear in many “progressive” states such as France and
Germany.
o There are technologies that use human fertilizer for energy purposes
or even turn it into drinking water.
o It is in the incentive of the business to provide public bathrooms.
 The Golden Rule.
o Treat others the way you would want to be treated.
Conclusion

In Episode 89 of CTIR, I discuss public bathrooms and gender discrimination.
Specifically, I provide a brief history of public bathrooms in the United States and
how governments (local, state, and federal) discriminate against people of different
genders by requiring that businesses have separate bathrooms for males and
females. Isn’t the use of force great?
<p>
Critical Thinking is Required is a political and educational podcast for individuals
with endless curiosity.
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<p>
The intro song is titled "I Disagree" by 20 Riverside.
The outro song is titled "Good Medicine" by 20 Riverside.
<p>
Sources:
<p>
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21607837-fixing-dreadful-sanitation-indiarequires-not-just-building-lavatories-also-changing
http://www.pbs.org/fmc/book/2work8.htm
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27775327v
https://www.brandeis.edu/ethics/ethicalinquiry/2012/May.html
http://reason.com/archives/2014/04/11/gender-neutral-bathrooms-building-codes
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/tperae.pdf
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/04/11/sex_segregated_public_restrooms
_an_outdated_relic_of_victorian_paternalism.html
http://time.com/3734714/transgender-bathroom-bills-lgbt-discrimination/
http://www.temple.edu/tempress/chapters_1800/1992_ch1.pdf
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2008/07/crap_and
_trade.html
http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/dont-pay-toilets-america-bathroomrestroom-free-market-90683
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