Peeing Like You Wanna

The New York Times has an article on neuterizing (word? Not a word? I like it. masc., fem., neuter) bathrooms today. As someone who went to a university with co-ed bathrooms, I have much to say on this subject. (And, oddly enough, happened to have expounded upon it to my colleagues last night for unrelated reasons.)

The downsides were these:

1. Men (okay, college boys) like to have pissing contests at the urinal. They would stand as far away as they could to see who could still “make it in.”

2. Men (college boys) get off on the idea of women peeing in a stall, so much so that they can’t prevent themselves from sticking their feet under the door just to let you know how funny it is that you are in there and they are so close. This makes it hard to continue, in my experience.

3.Men (college boys) are really loud in the bathroom. Then again, they all knew each other.

Anyway, this article is about making sure that “transgender people (an umbrella term that can include transsexuals, cross-dressers and those with a fluid, androgynous identity who do not consider themselves completely male or female) can use bathrooms without fear of harassment.”

So that’s a seemingly different story.

The one other thing I will say is that upon leaving college, I found it difficult for years to not walk into the men’s room without thinking about it, prompting many confusing situations. I still find it odd that the man who comes to clean our bathrooms at work will wait until every woman is out, even if they are just washing their hands.

Why do we care who pees in front of who? But I know this gets to the heart of why we care about gender, so I’m going to stop here.