Hey, I resent that implication!
Signed,
Uncle Joe
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I havenât been in 12 or 14 years, but the Crown and Anchor in Austin had one. The payphone (not that anyone used it much, even that long ago) was directly across from the menâs room door, and anyone on the phone who turned around at the right time got an eyeful of the public trough.
Someone used to put ice cubes in the trough and Iâm told it was to decrease splashback. But I never could figure out why they put crickets in thereâŚ
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Something to aim at. That works until someone tries to pick one off in midair.
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That reminds me of the Starck Club in Dallas (of all the damn places). This was a couple years after its heyday/police bust, but⌠Even between the menâs and womenâs rooms, there were glass brick walls which made the adjacent stall somewhat visible â very, blurry, but visible. The menâs room, at least, had a lounge-y area where the sinks were, and people of any gender might just congregate there.
There was another place, Sparx, where I donât think they marked the restrooms by gender at all.
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Thatâs exactly what he did do by repeating that she was dressed like a man, whatever that means, and so he was justified in harassing her. If he made an honest mistake, the proper response would be âOh, sorryâ or some such, followed by a quick exit.
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My dad is the manager of the in-house architecture and facilities department at one of the universities in Ohio, and he and I were just talking about this.
The Gender Studies departmentâs offices are next to a set of standard unigender/multi-stall restrooms, and the Gender Studies department declared these restrooms gender-free. Dadâs department came in and told them they cannot do that, but a few days later the gender-free signs were back up. I couldnât understand why Dadâs department couldnât just let them declare those restrooms gender-free.
Unfortunately, at least in Ohio, the current building code is from 2007 (based on the 2006 International Code Councilâs Building, Mechanical, and Plumbing model code). That code states that there MUST be a certain number of uni-gender restrooms in a public building, as determined by the projected occupancy of that building. Gender-free, single-toilet restrooms donât count against that number, and declaring those multi-stall restrooms as gender-free would take the building below the code-required numbers.
In this case, the University is going to do a construction project to make the 2 uni-gender/multi-stalls into restrooms into 4 single-toilet, gender-free âfamilyâ restrooms, and add some additional uni-gender/multi-stalls in another part of the building to keep the building legal. However, until building codes are updated, making these kinds of changes are difficult for public buildings. In addition to working on preventing stupid restrooms laws, we also need to help make sure that building codes keep up.
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IIRC, (Iwas told) one of the stadia in Chicago (Wrigley Field? Comiskey Park?) has (or had) the urinals arranged in a circle, where everyone peed toward the center. Instead of staring at the tiled wall in front of you, youâd stare at the other guy pissing across from you.
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I remembered this from the Philosophy Dept. at UT-Austin:
Here I sit
Bowels a-flexinâ
Just gave birth
To another Texan
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I remember this Straight Dope column; not sure how old the original is, but in the late 80s it was in a book of collected columns.
Did you hear about the factory owner who gave everyone a raise?
He moved all the urinals up a few inches!
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I know, right?!?
Itâs so agonizing living in fear of the possibilities.
What if that guy speaking what sounds like a middle eastern language on my plane really is a terrorist and I donât say anything? What if that interracial child isnât really the birth child of the black man who purports to be their father and I donât say anything? What if that woman wearing a short skirt gets raped because I didnât tell her she was asking for it by dressing that way?
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What is so inherently dangerous about men that having one walk into a womenâs restroom (where there are individual locking stalls) means âsomething bad will happenâ to any woman in there at the time?
Did the gentleman in question really have nothing better to do that afternoon? Volunteering as an escort at a local Planned Parenthood would protect women a lot more. Maybe he should try that instead.
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All I know is that the ladies in my office appreciate it when I guard them by hanging out in their restroom. Something bad could happen at any time and Iâm always ready.
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I was just at a movie theater and a guy was in the womenâs room helping his little girl. No one batted an eyelash.
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Nothing in this article or video states that he knew she was a woman when he seen her walk into the bathroom. There is no evidence of that at all. There is a man who though another man went into a womanâs washroom. When the person who turned out to be a woman comes out with a camera pointed at him, he is obviously startled and put on the spot. This woman seems to have run into this before and came out prepared for a confrontation. She dressed like a man and had short hair in a way that men traditionally wear⌠yet there is no chance of confusion or misidentification and he is clearly discriminating against a woman. I have seen guys who I though were women at a glance (and second look), and I have seen women who looked like guys.
âYouâre dressed like a manâ - Accusation or observation? She WAS dressed like a man, with hair like a man.
And yes, if you thought you were in danger and maced him (or shot seeing you are clearly American), a honest mistake could be argued.
A) There is a âcâ in the word offence in English, colour grey programme disc grille plough. I speak English, not 'Americanâ
B) No I dont get to dictate who gets offended to what, but creating a conflict where none is warranted is just bad form.
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Really? You must be seeing a version of this video Iâve missed because I have no idea what the woman in question looked like. Also you seem to have an extraordinarily specific idea of how men and womenâs clothes and hairstyles always differ. Iâd really appreciate some enlightenment on this point because I see quite a bit of fashion that I consider gender neutral.
Not that I know what Iâd do with that information, though, since I really donât care what an individual wears or how they style their hair, even in the restroom.[quote=âOroka, post:200, topic:77385â]
creating a conflict where none is warranted is just bad form.
[/quote]
I see what you did there.
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Sounds to me like she was dressed like a basketball player. And what exactly do you think she was doing with her hair that is restricted to the exclusive domain of men?
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You mean like making laws that effectively can not and will not prevent any crimes, and instead only encourage regular people with no actual authority to create âneedless conflictâ due to their own inherently biased personal perspective about what ârealâ men and ârealâ women look like?
That kind of conflict?
Long story short; laws rooted in systemic bigotry manufactured this problem, and nothing anyone says in defense of those laws make them any more logical or ethical.
Unfortunately, the immense irony of that statement is probably completely lost upon the person who posted it.
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I also assumed the individual in question would be unfamiliar with Ms. Swan.
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