Is there a ladies' room?

I'm not expecting men to go back to wearing hats, but...

Perhaps I am old-fashioned. While I do not advocate for a full scale return to men wearing hats, I would not object if they did. I wouldn’t mind if we went back to going by titles and last names, waiting until actually being on a “first name basis” before calling people by their first names. It’s delightful how in public schools we all call each other Mr., Ms., or Dr. If we are friends or teammates, we might show familiarity by going just by last names. When at work, I answer the phone, “This is Smith.” None of my colleagues would call me April.

And I venture that most if not all of my male colleagues would prefer to use a different restroom when at work.

Which brings me today’s topic.

A couple of weeks ago, I was subbing at a school not too far from where I live, just a few neighborhoods over. It was a typical day: kids were making Tik-Tok videos in the back of the classroom, almost no one did the worksheet the teacher had left, but it was a high school so the kids weren’t nasty or mean, they just didn’t care. They asked for bathroom passes very politely. I gave out bathroom passes and worksheets, made sure no one died, and complimented a few of the young ladies on their nails. The Hello Kitty designs they sported were impressive!

One of the staff kindly let me into the “gender neutral” staff bathroom. I noticed that it had multiple stalls but didn’t think anything of it. There was another sub in there, a lady I had not met, and we chatted briefly as we washed our hands.

Later in the day, I went to the same bathroom where I was alone until washing my hands. Then two men came in, a teacher and an administrator. Actual men, regular men, dudes. Not trans men, not biological females as far as I could see. Men.

Well, it was a gender neutral restroom. I don’t think I had ever seen one of those that was not a single room or one stall. Not since college, anyway, when Yale had the brainstorm to house college men and women in co-ed dorms with co-ed bathrooms. My college roommate (hi SFS!!!) will recall the absolute horror of sharing our bathroom junior year with some guys who were not kind to the old plumbing system. No wonder we moved off campus as soon as we could!

I finished washing my hands in the school gender neutral bathroom, some thirty years since I left the dorm at Yale, and got out of there as fast as I could. I will admit it: I do not want to be in the same room with men using the restroom. I just don’t. And I don’t particularly want men to be in the same restroom with me.

I do not want to stop anyone from using the bathroom. Public places around here usually do and definitely should provide single room/single stall restrooms that are gender neutral and available to all who want them. I’d like to have restrooms where talking aloud on your cell phone is prohibited too, but I recognize that for that I’d probably have to move country.

I’d rather not share the bathroom with actual dudes. Horrifically un-progressive of me, I know. That ship sailed a long time ago and I don’t miss it.

This past Thursday at the gym, I saw a new sign.

The gym always has signs that say staff of all genders may come in, but I never thought much about it and figured that there might be a person who identifies as “they” in there sometime.

This time it was clear that men, actual men, or at least one, would be cleaning the locker room at the exact time when I had planned to shower and change.

My gym locker room has no private changing rooms and the showers do not have private spaces where you can change before you go into the shower proper.

It occurred to me that I do not, in fact, feel comfortable preparing to shower and walking to the shower in nothing but a not particularly big towel with a man hanging about.

Perhaps the younger of the sisters think that this is absurd. Does it put an undue burden on a gym to ask them to have women clean the women’s locker room? Do they ask their female staff to clean the men’s locker room when there are men present? If I were a female cleaning staff person I’d definitely prefer not to. I notice that for my entire rather long career of having gym memberships, I have never before been notified that a man was cleaning the locker room at a time when I wanted to shower and change.

Does this happen where you are, or is it yet another deep blue city thing? Are half of you about to write me that I should just get over it and the other half about to write suggesting I buy a gun?

I doubt that I will buy a gun, though I will eventually move. In the meantime, it looks like I will be sharing restrooms and locker rooms with men from time to time.

Perhaps I will use the opportunity to talk to them about wearing hats…

If “Safety Dance” just started in your head, I’m sorry/not sorry!