i wonder if it has uv lights, like uk public toilets do .
― lauren, Thursday, 10 January 2008 19:29 (seventeen years ago)
Here is my issue.
As a woman with disabilities, I take issue with the fact that most “converted” bathrooms were first created for people who have no choice but to use those bathrooms. The reason has to do with the design of them. The rails, which allow one to pull one off their chair or lower themselves slowly, the heightened seat which again allows for easier movement from chair to toilet and back. The counter and sink which is created to allow a person in a chair to use it with ease since it again is set at the right height with space underneath.
It was these fought victories that liberated many people and allowed then not to be wearing diapers because the washrooms at the time could not provide proper usage, which I now see being taken away. Yet now we see them being converted for use for people who are very able bodied, who can walk up a flight of stairs, have no spinal issues which make it that much more difficult in waiting for that able bodied person to exit
Don’t get me wrong I believe if someone feels they are neither gender then I can see how being forced to use one label to be uncomfortable. This tends not to apply to those of us who are transexual and fought for years to be recognised as ourselves.. Yes as well as being disabled physically I am also a transexed woman, so I have had to live that fear of beginning to use the bathroom which reflected my core gender identity, before my disability became severe. I understand the concerns of attack, harassment and possible police intervention. But like so many before me and after me, I survived and do use female washrooms when pain levels allow.
So back to my point.
I believe if there needs to be genderless bathrooms, they need to be newly created and not be the ones that were created to specifically support less able bodied persons. That means stalls not specifically created to support that other group of us that were never asked our opinion on the matter.
Thank You
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Friday, 11 January 2008 00:00 (seventeen years ago)