Gender neutral toilets and the politics of it have seen a lot of discussion in recent
years in the news media and online.
But as someone who designs architectural spaces that have toilets, I wanted to find out the
practicalities of designing gender neutral washrooms from a functional and design perspective.
Is it practical to design a space with gender neutral toilets?
What are benefits and drawbacks?
And, what are the building code barriers that prevent us from doing so?
One of the primary benefits of gender neutral toilets is that anyone, regardless of gender,
can use whatever washroom is available.
But while many people think that gender neutral toilets only help trans people and other sexual
minorities, there are actually many other benefits that can help everyone.
One benefits is that it can eliminates situations where the women’s washroom line up is out
the door while the men’s washroom is nearly empty or vice versa.
Biologically - women require more time using the toilet than men - which often results
in longer lines waiting to use the women's room.
In addition there are places like sports stadiums, or other public event spaces where sometimes
the attendees are predominately one gender or the other.
And it's also possible for some workplace to have more of one gender than another.
I know I have definitely gone into the men's room when I just couldn't hold it anymore.
And if washrooms were gender neutral - this would alleviate a lot of unnecessary line ups.
And weird looks.
The other benefit is that it allows parents who have opposite sex children to accompany
their children into the washroom if they don’t feel safe leaving them alone in a public space.
It also allows adults who are caregivers to opposite sex elderly or physically disabled
relatives from accompanying that person into the washroom.
Some public spaces already provide family washrooms to mitigate this problem but these
facilities are still few and far between and as some of you are probably aware - children,
older adults, people with disabilities and people with illnesses are usually not the
best at “just holding it in."
The next benefit, from an architectural design perspective - is that gender neutral washrooms
could be more efficient when it comes to space planning.
Instead of having to provide two separate rooms, now we may only provide one - potentially
saving some areas in circulation, partition walls, and plumbing cavity spaces.
This allows more room for the primary activity of the space and potentially saving the user
in real-estate costs.
Of course, it’s also important to consider the potential drawbacks.
Many people - male, female, or gender non-conforming - are uncomfortable with going to the toilet
close to other genders, due to various concerns relating to
privacy, cultural preferences and safety.
This is of course where the debate often gets heated, especially in comment sections
I'm sure this one below will be no different.
As for my personal preference, based on the aforementioned history of running into men’s
rooms when I really gotta go, growing up in the rural regions of a developing country
where most toilets looked like this.
Actually thats probably one of the nicer ones.
And living in co-ed university dorms with unisex toilets for four years, I don’t really
care where I go as long as I get to go.
But - I understand that not everyone is like me and would prefer to have some other options.
One way to achieve this is to provide all three washroom options -
male, female, and gender neutral.
However - this really doesn’t help with the whole
“efficiency in space planning” approach.
So the best option is to incorporate more single-user washrooms, or toilet stalls that
are fully partitioned, and provide more privacy.
Many local building codes already mandate a single-user universally accessible toilet
room, which in this case can also double as toilet rooms for people who just prefer to
do their business alone.
But this now leads us to the most tricky problem.
Is it even possible to make all the toilet facilities in an entire occupancy gender neutral
even if you wanted to?
Unfortunately - most places in North America don’t make it very easy
to implement non-gendered washrooms.
Codes vary depending on what state, province or city you live in, but most building codes
actually require toilet rooms to be distinctively segregated and be clearly marked as either
male for female.
In some cases, if your establishment (such as a small restaurant) is small enough to
only have to provide one or two toilets, then those are generally permitted to be non-gendered.
But for larger occupancies, usually the building codes require them to be planned based on
separated male and female rooms.
So yes, until laws reform and building codes adapt, providing gender neutral toilets is
going to require quite a bit of clever maneuvering around building codes in order to be implemented.
So those are just my two cents, as a user and designer of washrooms.
But what do you guys think?
Do you prefer to go to gendered or non-gender washrooms?
Do you wish there were more private, full partitioned stalls?
Are there other ways public toilets can be designed
that will improve your toilet going experience?
Feel free to argue in the comments!
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