Thanks to transphobia, public restrooms have become a hot topic and I have started paying attention to how they are labelled in different buildings. Today I saw these somewhat unusual signs for public toilets in a building:
Aren’t they fun? Women, men with babies that need changing diapers, and men in wheelchairs use one restroom. The rest of men use the other restroom. This brings up certain interesting questions.
How come that architects who designed these spaces didn’t fear that male rapists will borrow a baby or sit down in a wheelchair in order to get access to women’s toilet so as to rape somebody in there?
How come they didn’t fear that fathers with babies or men with disabilities are an inherently dangerous population that cannot be let anywhere near women’s spaces?
Hint: transphobia. Thanks to transphobia, bigots fear letting trans women anywhere near women’s toilets while being perfectly OK with some cis men using the same spaces.
Also, why the sexism? Men are discriminated, because, unlike women, fathers with babies don’t have a corresponding space where to change their kid’s diapers. Women are discriminated, because these spaces were designed with the sexist notion of nasty and rigid gender roles, which dictate that women must be the primary caretakers of young children and don’t have a right to expect their male partners to help with childcare chores.
Ultimately, life would be so much simpler if we could just have the same restroom for men and women. Just put individual cabins in there so that everyone can pee in privacy, and that’s enough: there really is no good reason why people cannot wash their hands while standing next to somebody who has a different gender.
Also, people with disabilities and parents with babies need specific spaces as well, and those shouldn’t be constructed in weird ways that can make somebody feel uncomfortable. I suspect that in this case men with disabilities or fathers with babies could feel puzzled or uncomfortable about getting sent to women’s restroom.
Another population that apparently doesn’t pose a risk: men who can’t figure out what the damn symbols mean. I would probably have stared at this for about 5 minutes before having to take a 50/50 guess (unless somebody else either came out or went in in that time, in which case I’d assume they knew which was which and make my choice appropriately).
Looks to me like anyone in a dress can use the left side while the right side is for baseball umpires. Not sure where everyone else is supposed to go.
@1:
It’s easy – you just need to remember your Da Vinci Code. The downward pointing triangle is the “Chalice”, the symbol of the sacred feminine, and the upward pointing triangle is the “Blade”, the symbol of the sacred masculine. Problem solved!
The one on the right is clearly a restroom specifically for Klaus Nomi cosplayers.
You make excellent arguments exposing the plain old bigotry of bathroom fears!
I’ve heard the bathroom argument so many times over the decades: in America, it was that Black people would attack or contaminate white ones if they shared a bathroom. Then it was lesbians in women’s bathrooms: they would sexually assault the straight women. Now it’s trans people, somehow they are dangerous in bathrooms.
I am officially declaring any argument that contains “But the bathrooms!” to be bigoted. If you mention bathroom fears in connection with any group, you are automatically a bigot.
Aren’t these symbols prevalent also in other countries? They are common in Latvia. Downwards pointing triangle in for men, symbolizing their wider shoulders, and upwards pointing one is for women, symbolizing their narrower shoulders, wider hips, and dresses/skirts.
Those symbols are certainly not prevalent in the UK, and I’ve never encountered them in any other country I’ve visited.
I haven’t seen those symbols in the US, or anywhere I’ve traveled either. I’ve never been to Eastern Europe though.
The equivalent symbols in the U.S. look vaguely like people. The male symbol is mostly straight up and down with the upper half broader suggesting torso and arms, and the lower half narrower suggesting legs only. The female symbol is flared to about half way down suggesting a full skirt, and with (IIRC) narrower “legs” with more space between them. Both have the same circle at the top suggesting a head.
Unisex/accessible/baby-changing toilets will have both male and female symbols along with the wheelchair and baby-changing symbols. This is sometimes a third toilet.
I haven’t seen these symbols in Germany or the Czech Republic, or during my travels in the USA. All symbols I have ever seen are a lot less abstract and simplified, or occasionaly I have seen used sex symbols. I did decipher these, but it took me a few seconds and I had to think about it.
Aside – the Czech language does not differentiate between gender and sex, neither do (to my limited knowledge) other slavic languages.
During one trip with my friends, one family needed to change the diapers on their son when we were in a restaurant and the wife asked the waiter where they can do that. The waiter replied that there is a diaper-changing table in women’s restroom. She turned to her partner and told him “I hope you do not mind going to women’s bathroom”, because in that household, the father took care of the diapers. It was a bit of a laugh and nobody made a fuss about a man going to a women’s restroom to change his son’s diapers.
Dunc @#7
I had no clue. I failed to notice the absence of these symbols while travelling.
billseymour @#9
Yep, this is also the norm in Latvia. Putting accessible toilets and baby diaper changing table in women’s restroom is unusual also here.
Charly @#10
In Latvian the word “dzimums” is for both “gender” and “sex.” The word “dzimte” is for grammatical gender of nouns. That’s it. And then there’s also the newly made weird new word “genderisms,” which is used exclusively by Latvian transphobes who must be reading either English or Russian transphobic propaganda. They use this word in bigoted ways, for example “genderisma ideologija” would be “genderistic ideology” and transhobes talk about this as something George Soros or Bill Gates wants to inflict upon Latvia in order to turn all Latvian kids gay and trans so as to make Latvians die out.
In Russian the word “пол” is used for both “gender” and “sex.” There is also the word “род” for grammatical gender of nouns. But I also know that “гендерный” (“gendernyy”) is used as an adjective, for example, “гендерные роли” would be “gender roles,” or “Закон о гендерном равенстве” is “Gender Equality Act.” In Russian, unlike in Latvian, this word doesn’t seem to have negative connotations, at least I haven’t heard about that. Then again, I use Russian language rarely enough that I am highly likely to fail to notice some connotations for a word.
It’s weird, all those little cultural differences that you either do or don’t notice, isn’t it?
I only really remarked on it because there was (and maybe still is?) a fad in fashionable bars here to come up with “clever” or “quirky” alternatives to the standard symbols or labels, which often resulted in confused, drunken people ending up in the wrong bathrooms.
FWIW. Never seen those symbols here in Oz. (Australia.) Certainly not on dunnies. (Toilets)
@12. Dunc : & other than embrassment for the confused person and maybe some laughter from their friends did anything bad ever come from that?
(I don’t think so.)
@11. Andreas Avester :
So just morbidly curious but do they actually specify Latvia and if so do they say why Latvia in particular? Not even the Baltic states generally or ..?
PS. Worth noting that its common here in Oz to have a Mens dunny, a Women’s one and also – quite often though far from always- also a Disabled toilet and where the Disabled toilet* is available for everyone and, in essence, Unisex and often combined with baby changing facilities as well as handrails etc ..
We also have quite a few unisex toilets here as well.
* Disabled as in for “disabled” people and not as in not working! Which often results in the odd but apt graffiti of the “no its not, it works” variety! 😉
[My apologies to Mr. Avester for hijacking a thread for a different subject.]
StevoR @13:
I’ve seen Oz used to mean Australia often enough on the Internet that I now immediately know what it means.
But I’m wondering what the origin of it is. Is it an allusion to The Wizard of Oz that I don’t get? Or something else?
@16 billseymour
To some extent I think yes in terms of being the notional land far away from everyone else.. but mostly it’s the first syllable of ‘Australia’ a tiny bit harsher.
StevoR @#14
Conspiracy theories usually don’t make sense. Basically, the idea is that somebody, probably from the USA or something like that, wants Latvians to die out as a result of having no kids. I guess they want also people from other nearby countries to die out as well, but I’m not sure. Latvian nationalists who discuss conspiracy theories in online comments usually don’t talk about other countries who are also victims of their proclaimed imaginary enemies. The evil guys want Latvians to die out, because, err… to steal the land and its natural resources or something. I don’t really know for sure. And the culprit is usually either Soros or American Jews or Illuminati or whoever is pushing for the New World Order or lately also Bill Gates. And in order to make Latvians stop having children and die out they promote homosexuality and trans ideology thus trying to convert kids to becoming gay or lesbian or trans so as to stay childless. Those evil forces also try to destroy traditional family values, families, and Christianity, and use feminism in order to tempt women to go astray.
For example, recently in Latvian news media there were a few articles about an international convention about combating violence against women (Istanbul Convention). These conservative conspiracy theorists saw this convention as an evil attempt to redefine who qualifies as a woman and enforce “gay and trans ideology.”
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_Convention):
Back when nationalistic, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic assholes talked about this nonsense in Poland, Latvian conservative bigots rushed to agree with them in denouncing this treaty. Apparently, violence against women is a “family value” for some people. Bigotry towards LGBTQ+ people is another “family value.” Whenever somebody in Latvia mentions words “family values,” I immediately expect their next words to be in some way bigoted, because these conservative assholes use the words “family values” as an euphemism for sexism and discrimination. Barefoot, pregnant, in the kitchen, and beaten up appears to be a family value for conservative Latvian nationalists.
billseymour @#16
I don’t mind.
By the way, do people here perceive bigotry in Eastern Europe as interesting? Maybe I could write a blog post about politics, conservative ideologies, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, transphobia, and conspiracy theories (yes, all of those form a certain worldview held by Latvian conservative nationalists) in Eastern Europe if people are interested in this topic. The average conservative bigot here is in some ways very different from the average American Trump supporter.
I, for one, would be very interested in such a post. I’ve observed over the years that I seem to lack the full complement of social skills, although I can usually fake it long enough to get through dinner. 😎 I’d like to learn as much as I can about certain human behavior that strikes me as totally inexplicable; and I’d be very interested in a comparison of what I see here in the U.S. with similar behavior in other cultures.
Also, if the virus is mostly contained in time (I don’t expect it but it could happen), I’ll be attending some meetings in Varna, Bulgaria the first week in June. I know that’s pretty far south of Latvia, but I’m guessing that it’s still a roughly “Eastern European culture”, whatever that means.
@20. Andreas Avester : Yes, I’d like to read that blog post and esp incopaison to similar bigotry in other places. Its notsoemthing I know much about but I think there’s certain ironically universal / global elements in such such nationalistic bigotries everywhere. Maybe? Oh & thanks for the elaboration in #18 too. I agree CT ideas don’t add up but it jsut struck em as offdd that theyreally think Sorors /Gates / scapegoat de jour would really focus so much and specifically on Latvia. Sorry if that sounds kinda patronising (I’d apply it to those thinking same of Oz too) but just .. that narrow perspective..
@ 16. billseymour & 17. abbeycadabra : Yeah. My view is that oz coems mainly from our pronunmciation of the Aus as Oz but also slighlty refers to and is linked with the mythical film place. That would be one strong &meteorologically improbable hurricane though! 😉
^ incopaison = in comparison. Typo fix, sorry.