Elinda wrote:
Torrence wrote:
It's just not worth it.
What's not worth it?
Allowing a husband access to the 'ladies' room to help his wife out of her wheelchair and onto the toilet?
Or maybe it's not worth allowing the 5-year old boy to enter the ladies room rather than stand outside alone in whatever public space because his mother has to relieve herself?
I can see where you'd want to dismiss those needs due to opportunistic predators paranoia - that sounds so scary.
Specific situations? Not the topic at hand. No one is going to bat an eye at a child with his mother or a husband asking for the room to be cleared so he can help his disabled wife. I'm not saying that men will become rape-crazy, either, or that somehow women are magically safe once they enter a restroom. We do, however, have a reasonable expectation that if a guy was seen entering - he'd be noticed and questioned - not just ignored because well, ***** is the same as ******, after all! There's no WAY he could possibly have a hidden agenda. The question wasn't whether a 5 year old boy or a man helping his wife should have access. The question was whether any man who simply
says he is a woman should have unrestricted and unquestioned access based on that alone.
Dismissing the concern is dangerous and does a disservice to the rest of the population who also deserves to have their rights respected; in this case, their right to safety. If we set a precedent that any man can enter any ladies' restroom at any time and for any reason, we take the choice away from the rest of the people just to adjust the comfort level of a few folks who probably should be getting that pesky ***** hacked off anyway.
As I've said before, I'm in favor of private restrooms in place of BOTH sex-separated ones. Then it truly becomes a non issue. Until that happens though, I'd prefer to continue to have the not entirely unreasonable expectation that when I enter a restroom, there's no men in it.
Edited, Mar 18th 2013 4:46pm by Torrence