ABC Asks – “Could Male, Female Restrooms be a Thing of the Past?”

WASHINGTON - Feb. 25, 2016 - PRLog -- ABC, in a provocative new report, suggests that separate male and female restrooms may soon be a thing of the past, at least on campuses where many students are sensitive to the concerns of transgender students, says the lawyer who has been dubbed the “Father of Potty Parity.”

ABC cites an experimental restroom at GWU designed to test whether students are willing to sacrifice some additional privacy - in these days of sex and nudity on TV, in movies, and on the Internet,  and where some will also be sharing restroom facilities with friends of another gender who reside on their dormitory floor - says public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

Unlike most so-called “coed restrooms” on campus which are really nothing more than single user ones (as on airplanes) where there are no concerns about privacy, or a very few which provide only stalls - often with floor-to-ceiling stall doors so that nobody has to observe anyone else during elimination - GWU’s new restroom lets men and women eliminate at the same time only inches from one another.

As ABC explained while letting its audience view it: “This is no ordinary restroom; the university has opened an ‘all-gender’ restroom that is open to every person, regardless of gender identification. The restroom consists of three urinals and one stall, the urinals just inches away from the sink and stall.”  If it works - i.e., if students are willing to accept this as the new normal - transgender students are likely to pressure their own universities to do the same thing.

Indeed, ABC reported: “Banzhaf said that practically any college can do what GWU did, turning a formerly all-male restroom with three urinals and one toilet stall into an 'all-gender' restroom by simply changing the sign outside the door from ‘men's restroom’ to ‘all-gender restroom.’”  It’s obviously a lot easier and more effective than trying to create a new single-user restroom in an existing building.

Moreover, if successful, the experiment could even open other schools, which do not take similar steps, to law suits under D.C.’s unique and very strict “Human Rights Act,” says law professor Banzhaf.

“It could be a win-win-win situation,” suggests Banzhaf, benefiting transgender students who don’t want to be embarrassed choosing one or the other, or trying to find a rare (and often out-of-the-way)  single-user restroom; women who will not have to wait on longer lines for the women’s room when things get crowded, and the University which meets its legal obligations and keeps its students happy, claims Banzhaf.

JOHN F. BANZHAF III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D.
Professor of Public Interest Law
George Washington University Law School,
FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor,
Fellow, World Technology Network,
Founder, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2000 H Street, NW, Wash, DC 20052, USA
(703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/  jbanzhaf@law.gwu.edu  @profbanzhaf