<p>There’s also housing at the U. of Chicago designated as gender neutral, with, I assume, bathrooms to match.</p>
<p>I suppose the difference between “gender neutral” and co-ed is that the former designation recognizes (accurately) that there’s more to life than the gender binary. A similar term I’ve seen used is an “all-gender” bathroom, which is the designation for certain bathrooms at places like the LGBT Center on 13th Street in New York City. Such bathrooms are often used by not- (or not yet-) transitioned trans people who live part of the time as male and part of the time as female, and need a place to change.</p>
<p>I can only respond from my own college experience, but my floor was coed sort of like this: </p>
<p>B B B B B B B B B B Boys Bath Girls Bath G G G G G G G G G G G G
B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G</p>
<p>So there was simply no need for a coed bathroom - it didn’t inconvenience a guy hanging around in a girl’s room to walk an additional 10 feet to go into the boys’ bathroom. I don’t know the layouts of all the dorms there, of course, but the same general principle seemed to apply. There was no “inconvenience” in single sex bathrooms because wherever there was one-sex bathroom, the other-sex bathroom was bound to be just around the corner – just like in the adult world.</p>
<p>At least at my son’s dorm (and the same was true of the dormitories I lived in when I was in college) there’s only one bathroom (and about 10 rooms) on each floor. So that solution wouldn’t work.</p>
<p>So, is that a function of dorms that years ago were single-sex (and hence only had one bathroom on the floor) being converted to coed and hence the issue arises? In which case, I wonder why colleges who are converting those kinds of buildings don’t just make it this-floor-male, that-floor-female and skirt the issue. I said skirt! Ha!</p>
<p>In my city, a transgender postal worker demanded (and got!) his very own bathroom. The bathrooms in (at least the newer?) post offices here have showers. But then he claimed sexual harassment and got transferred to another post office. And guess what? They had to make a separate bathroom for him there, too!</p>
<p>This seems like such a non-issue. I do not think this is a political issue merely an issue of preference based on personal comfort. D prefers single sex bathrooms so chose a single sex floor, an occasional male strays in but she is not bothered. Every college should just offer options. Housing forms should have a bathroom preference box. Easy.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone cares if everyone using the bathroom is cool with it…but this article seems to suggest the girl was NOT ok with it, and neither were several of her floor mates. </p>
<p>And I also don’t think anyone cares if co-ed bathrooms are just one option, and you can choose to live on a single-sex floor instead. </p>
<p>But this article seems to suggest she had no other choice but to live there and use the co-ed bathroom, which seems a little strange.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be the type to rule out a school because of its bathrooms, heck no, but I do have a clear preference and I think it’s weird to not offer choices for everyone, after all - while gender neutral people may prefer co-ed bathrooms, people who identify as one or the other gender (like myself!) might prefer single-sex!</p>
<p>If I were a guy, I would object in sharing a bathroom with women. Girls’ bathrooms are disgusting, at least the ones I have seen at D1’s dorms. They just have so much stuff, and there is hair every where, and they are not good at picking up after themselves.</p>
<p>In your standard co-ed corridor dorm, it is usually easy to designate half the bathrooms for men and half for women, and in most instances nobody has to go very far to get to the appropriate bathroom.</p>
<p>But some dorms are laid out in other ways – small sections or suites; single-sex buildings or sections; older buildings with only one very large bathroom per floor. In such instances, the bathrooms may be officially co-ed or unofficially co-ed (by unofficially, I mean that guests of the opposite sex use them because there’s nowhere else to go). </p>
<p>It was this way thirty years ago, too. When I was in college, I lived in an old dorm divided into small, self-contained sections. Our section was all women – about 20 of us, with two small bathrooms. Of course, our male guests used our bathrooms. Similarly, when my son lived in an all-men’s section his freshman year, female guests used the allegedly single-sex men’s bathroom. Heck, I even used it when I helped him with move-in and move-out. </p>
<p>The world does not seem to have come to an end because of this.</p>
<p>One bit of advice: If you object to co-ed bathrooms, do NOT ask to live in a single-sex building. You are more likely to find de facto co-ed bathrooms (because of the guest situation) there than in a co-ed dorm.</p>
<p>The argument that single sex dorms that get changed to co-ed dorms have no choice but to make the only bathroom on each floor “co-ed” doesn’t wash.</p>
<p>Many schools just alternate floors - one floor girls, one floor boys…so the bathroom on each floor stays single sex.</p>
<p>*I think you can see the pattern: Liberal schools *</p>
<p>At my D’s school, within the orientation period there were boys in the girls bathroom b/c it was more convenient. The boys even tried to get a vote to switch the bathrooms to coed. The RA and Residential Housing were very firm - no coed bathrooms. Not all 17 - 18 year old girls are comfortable sharing a bathroom with boys. It is a big deal.</p>
<p>This was almost an interesting issue when I was in college 30 years ago. My college was recently co-ed, and so none of the buildings had been designed for multiple bathrooms serving the same set of rooms. (All of the bathrooms were communal, although sometimes shared only by two suites or 2-3 singles.) Freshmen were housed in gender-specific entryways (like vertical floors or corridors), but the housing choice system within upperclass dorms essentially made that impossible. So . . . the university’s official policy was that bathrooms were designated male or female on alternate floors, but that policy existed on paper only. Where men and women were both living in a cluster of rooms that shared a bathroom, they shared the bathroom. Parents would occasionally object, and would be given the official policy and told to take it up with their children.</p>
<p>I’m sure that in Catholic colleges and colleges with megadorms and multiple bathrooms per floor sex-segregated bathrooms are still the norm, but honestly no college my kids visited has lacked co-ed communal bathrooms. This has been going on for three decades, and if anyone has been raped, assaulted, or driven crazy by distaff bathroom-mates it hasn’t made a blip on the social radar.</p>
<p>No one should force anyone to attend a college with co-ed bathrooms. Feel free to cross those colleges off your list. But give it a rest . . . this is not a threat to Western Civilization. Human beings are more than capable of adapting to this particular challenge without adverse consequences. And, personally, I would feel really, really silly and small if my college choices were driven by bathroom configuration.</p>
<p>I have stated elsewhere that I would seriously prefer not to attend a school with a co-ed bathroom. Considering the otherwise similar feel of my schools, co-ed bathrooms and weather could easily be make or break issues. Does anyone know anything about Stanford or WashU? They both look pretty single sex to me, but hopefully there are no surprises. It’s not a political issue. It’s a comfort issue. I would not feel comfortable showering or dressing behind a skimpy curtain with menfolk running around - heck, it’s barely comfortable in a bathroom full of women. And as for opting for something else, the simple fact of the matter is that you don’t always get what you want. I can certainly rank a single-sex floor as my number one (and I will, as I also prefer a single sex floor), but that doesn’t mean I won’t end up in a co-ed floor.</p>
<p>Applicannot, my son happens to feel the same way you do. He’s just very private about his bathroom habits. He specifically asked each of the colleges he’s interested in if there is suite-style dorms or single sex bathrooms available. He plays a varsity sport so gang showers isn’t the issue…he just has his personal preferences. He’s pretty upfront and unapologetic about his personal preferences and yes, it’s abit of a deal breaker for him, too. Just ask and when you pick your college and fill out the housing info, be sure to be vocal about your bathroom preferences. I think it’s just a very personal thing and people shouldn’t be forced into a position that makes them uncomfortable in the name of “liberalism.”</p>
<p>My problem with coed bathrooms has nothing to do with safety, but with issues of privacy and modesty (yes, it still exists in some places in America), and respect for the feelings of others. From the posted article:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Having to view a man I am not familiar with using a toilet without shutting the door (we don’t even do this in our own marriage, let alone household), or standing nude a few feet from my face is not something I would want to confront every morning. I don’t think my feelings are unreasonable. Do you?</p>
…Seriously? Your bathrooms are locked? This makes me wonder exactly how unsafe the UMich campus must be, or how paranoid.</p>
<p>The issue of comfort level is a valid concern–addressed by offering single-sex floors or enforced veto options, or simply choosing a more “conservative” school in this respect–but fearing for one’s safety is just absurd. Why would you trust the unknown, untrusted women in your dorm more than the unknown, untrusted men in your dorm? The hallways are also coed, and deserted (perhaps with dimmed lights) at night; what do you do then? (This assumes that you DON’T know/trust the majority of your dormmates, which I find kind of surprising in itself.)</p>
<p>Some transpeople identify as trans, not one or the other gender. Binary bathrooms as a societal norm signals to those people that their gender identities do not exist. Also, there is a very real risk of harrassment when e.g. a pre-op transwoman uses the ladies room.</p>
<p>“Why would you trust the unknown, untrusted women in your dorm more than the unknown, untrusted men in your dorm?”</p>
<p>OK, I don’t think co-ed bathrooms pose a safety problem - it’s more a modesty problem for me, so as long as I can opt out I respect choice for everyone - but this statement above is just naive.</p>
<p>We’ve had several crime alerts…the unknown person stealing stuff from rooms? A strange man. The peeping toms/sexual assaults (assaults were off campus but still occurred)? Strange men. Muggings off campus? Strange men. Shootings? Men.</p>
<p>We could look at it statistically: men are more likely to be rapists, they are more likely to mug you. I’m not saying women CAN’T mug or rape, but well, men do it more often, plain and simple. They’re also mass-murderers more often. They’re in general, more physically aggressive than women.</p>
<p>There are crimes women are more likely to commit, I’m sure…but I’m not as afraid of them.</p>
<p>We could look at it practically: A man can overpower a woman easier than another woman can overpower another woman, GENERALLY. GENERALLY a man has the physical advantage.</p>
<p>So come on…really. </p>
<p>I mean, I’m not PERSONALLY afraid of unknown men walking around in my dorm, because, well, living in a mega dorm I was used to that. I didn’t even know all of the guys on my floor (why would that surprise you?? Sorry I’m not such a social butterfly that I know 60 people haha…). So of course it didn’t freak me out - the dorm was generally a very safe place. But I’m not gonna lie, if I’m walking down the street at night, it’s empty except for one strange girl walking behind me or one strange guy walking behind me? My nerves are gonna be ticked up more for a guy.</p>
<p>I can’t believe this is a big deal. The bathrooms in my dorm were co-ed thirty years ago. (Actually, I’m not sure they were nominally co-ed, but people just used the bathroom nearest their room regardless of what the sign said, and nobody cared.) In general, I would think the net effect of sharing bathrooms would be to reduce sexual tension, not increase it. If towel slippages are a big worry, one word: bathrobe. </p>
<p>And I have a very hard time wrapping my head around the notion that men would use the toilet without shutting the stall door, in a coed bathroom especially. I don’t even see that in men’s public bathrooms, except where there are no stall doors–and a lot of men just won’t go there (literally). I think most men are modest almost to the point of neurosis about that sort of thing. In fact I think the biggest drawback to coed bathrooms is that many young men (especially those who have not grown up with sisters) might be inhibited about using the bathroom when there were women in there. But this is something worth getting over, I think.</p>
<p>Oh come on, Keilexandra, haven’t you ever been to an office building where the bathrooms were locked and you needed a key to get in? </p>
<p>And again, no dog in this fight, but it’s notable that broader society doesn’t offer coed public restrooms, and that the gyms and fitness centers at these same colleges feature same-sex locker rooms, not coed.</p>
<p>I appreciate that in some circumstances / configurations coed bathrooms may be unavoidable, but if I were an architect, I wouldn’t see any reason to explicitly configure a dorm that way / seek it out. Then again, I wouldn’t see any reason not to just say Floor 1 is boys, Floor 2 is girls, etc. - or the east side of the dorm is boys, the west side is girls, etc.</p>