Everyone goes to the lavatory , but not everyone can go into the bathroom they need . That ’s the issue making bathrooms a battleground in a movement to follow up gender - neutral facilities in many U.S. metropolis .
helper of sex - neutral bathrooms point to instance of a gender - neutral bathroom ’s high and good habit — a father who needs to accompany his toddler girl , a transgender teenager , a distaff caretaker who needs to assist a handicapped or elderly man or a woman who opts not to wait in the foresightful lines that queue for a women - only bathroom .
Critics say that unisex privy will put children and woman at risk for sexual torment , molestation or rape , despite any reliable scientific grounds to support this statement .
The estimate of gender - specific bathrooms is a relatively new construct in our history . The first freestanding toilets for men and woman probably go on in 1739 at a Paris formal . Before that time , public restrooms throughout Europe were few , but those that be were gender neutral .
By 1887 , the concept had hopped the pond . Massachusetts became the first American state to legislate the provision of a charwoman ’s bathroom in work with female employee . By the 1920s , most states had blow over interchangeable Pentateuch .
Today , public bathrooms in the U.S. areregulatedon a national horizontal surface by the U.S. Department of Labor , which oversees workplace facilities , and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ( OSHA ) , which develops workplace bathroom guidelines for states .
Non - workplace public john are across the nation regulate by the Department of Health and Human Services .
In addition , state and municipal building codes conduct specific regulations that determine the turn and eccentric of privy , including manlike and distaff facilities . In fact , in much of the U.S. , these codesmake it illegalto offer only unisex restrooms . But time are changing .
State and municipal legislatures are manage with increase living for grammatical gender - neutral bathroom . InNorth Carolina , for example , municipal leaders in Charlotte pass off lawmaking in February 2016 that extends anti - discrimination protection to LGBT masses by appropriate them to habituate the bathroom of the gender with which they name . The next calendar month , province legislator called a especial session and hand a law that overturn the Charlotte regulation by create a statewide insurance policy to ban people from using public bath that do not correspond to their biologic sexuality at birth . TheNorth Carolina lawalso stopped metropolis throughout the state from pass anti - discrimination ordinance to protect lesbian , gay andtransgenderpeople .
In response , afederal lawsuithas been file to overturn the measure amidst growing nationalsupport .
" alternatively of focus on conform the doings of the users , " saysSyrus Marcus Ware , a optic artist , transsexual man and community of interests militant , " we require instead to change the way bathroom are constructed and the way of life public toilets are translate . In shortsighted , bathrooms themselves need to be reconsidered and reimagined . "
