@doschicos, not my intention. I simply didn’t point out the posts that did. Hanna herself mentioned that co-ed baths aren’t for everyone. So have multiple other posters. It doesn’t negate the fact that some of posts have been dismissive of it being an issue for some students and have stated that students will get over it after a week or so.
It is a pretty significant issue to dismiss for the kids who won’t just get over it. It is an issue that kids should be aware of and warrants a discussion prior to housing selection. (Dorm life in general does.) Dining hall preferences are valid for discussion (vegan, gluten free, etc). Doesn’t seem controversial. Gender preference for bathroom shouldn’t be, either.
I think at the end of the day co-ed floors, restrooms, etc. are here to stay if for no other reason than the gender identity issue. Schools are in a tough spot (regardless of your feelings on the issue) with gender identity. If floors or bathrooms are single gender where do you put the transitioning? Pre or post transition? Does the discomforth get worse for the female resident if the anatomical male is sharing the female facilities when they didn’t know about it before hand or knowing up front that the floor/bathroom was co-ed. Where does the school house the gender fluid or non-identifier?
By having all dorms gender neutral all of these issues are eliminated as no one is singled out which is the legal space schools have to operate in today.
I hope, @Mom2aphysicsgeek , that if I go back and look at what you have posted about other types of “safe space” issues, you have been consistent in your regard for students’ feelings when their feelings don’t comport with yours.
Again, I am not aware of a single college in the US that does not have a housing option which allows for kids who do not want to share a bathroom with a member of the opposite sex.
Rather than continuing to bang the drum- why doesn’t someone post an actual example of a college which does not provide single sex bathrooms for kids who prefer that option?
I don’t think we need to rehash every single example of a kid who for whatever reason doesn’t want a co-ed bathroom. Methinks there are posters here trying to ignite something which is moot.
We toured all kinds of colleges with our kids and saw all kinds of dorm set ups. There were zero instances of a college which had not made provision for kids who wanted a single sex hall OR a single sex dorm OR a single sex suite (which had a bathroom inside it- just for the use of the same-sex kids who lived in that suite).
All sorts of creative provisions for students.
And just for the record- since I am one of the elderly members of CC- I started college in the mid-1970’s. And the bathroom in my Freshman dorm was co-ed. It was a single stall, single shower set up with two sinks and just like in your house- you went into the bathroom and decided if you wanted to lock the door (which meant nobody could brush their teeth while you were in the shower) or leave the door unlocked (so someone could use the sink/mirror combo). I don’t recall any controversy back then (again- the 1970’s). Students understood the concept of privacy then as I’m sure they do now.
Sophomore year I was in a single in a dorm which was single sex by floor (so every bathroom was designated either male or female). I am sure that there was the occasional visitor who was too lazy to walk up or down a flight of stairs to use the “correct” facility and again- I don’t recall any controversy.
What was quite controversial at the time was smoking inside the dorms. A LOT of RA’s time was spent mediating on that. The freshman survey you filled out asked “do you smoke” and therefore smokers were not paired with non-smokers. However, there was no question on the survey “do you plan to start smoking in college” or “do you hope to quit smoking in college” so many pairings ended up being off-kilter. Two sets of roommates on my freshman hall swapped rooms in January to make sure the smokers stayed together and the non-smokers got away from the smoke.
Again, now moot. Smoking inside no longer “a thing”. Another “culture war” nipped in the bud with some common sense.
I can assure you, Momofthree, that my “elderly” parents had no clue about the bathroom set up in my dorm in college. It would not have occurred to them to ask. And they were nonplussed about it at move-in.
Sometimes the “old days” really WERE better! There were scores of kids from my sister’s class in HS who had bad draft lottery numbers whose parents were trying to figure out if they would come home alive or in a body bag from Viet Nam. The other parents were too busy being grateful to worry about the shower situation. Indeed- a very nice problem to have back in the day.
Perspective.
But again- please post the names of colleges which do not have a single sex bathroom option??? Let’s deal with specifics instead of the hypothetical “OMG, this is terrible, my kid is modest”.
@blossom (and everyone else) if you’re one of the people who fought the smoking war, I thank you deeply and from the bottom of my heart. I would not have been able to live in a dorm with smoking inside. Physically, my asthma cannot handle it. I’d be one of those “odd one out” people who demanded a smoke-free dorm if possible (like ~some~ would want a single-sex bathroom).
Truly, it will never cease to amaze me what wild scenarios that certain parents choose to create in their heads to get angry about. There are enough things to get angry about in this world- stop freaking out over a boogeyman.
And because I am a historian and thus must compulsively know the origins for every bizarre thing we do, here is the origins of the segregated (by sex, race is another matter that we seem to have gotten over despite widespread freakouts) bathroom. Enjoy.
“Rather than continuing to bang the drum- why doesn’t someone post an actual example of a college which does not provide single sex bathrooms for kids who prefer that option?”
Smith did not offer any such option. We were told (don’t know if it is true) that all housing was open to the guests of any student, whether her roommate liked it or not, and the bathrooms were were shown in the dorms were co-ed.
It really was a major negative to both my daughter and me. Would it have been a deal breaker? I don’t know as there were many other things she didn’t like about it so it came off the list.
Blossom it never came up with my parents because I am old enough that our dorms were single sex. When my college did go coed it was by wing or floor and I was living in a house with a bunch of women. It was my kids that actually preferred not having coed bathrooms. It surprised me because I presumed they would not care but when I thought harder it made sense given how we live. I personally, if I were young, would still choose a single sex bathroom situation but I am not at all adverse to people who are comfortable with mixed gender showers and restrooms. My bigger point is it is not necessary at colleges as it is not difficult to revert to by wing or by floor which was the norm sometime after my undergrad experience and whenever the unis decided to mix it up and I question the response that colleges and universities did it because “students prefer it” and wonder sometimes if that is true.
So, @momofthreeboys, why DO you think so many colleges and universities are doing it if you are correct in believing it isn’t due to student preference?
I understand that some kids do not want ever to deal with co-ed bathroom, but I think there are a lot who feel mildly uncomfortable for a day or two, and then after that wonder what the big deal was. Kind of like after living in Germany for a while, nude sunbathing in the equivalent of Central Park didn’t seem weird any more.
“Students prefer it” applies to coed floors. To the extent that coed bathrooms (disclosed to students when selecting whether to request a single-gender or coed floor) may be seen as a disadvantage, they are not seen as disadvantageous enough that many students choose single-gender floors (even decades ago). Of course, they did have a few single-gender floors for those who requested them (but tended to have to fill them with those who indicated “don’t care”).
Every situation my two kids have been in has had an option NOT THAT FAR AWAY where you could get the single gender bathroom. They usually had helpful signs telling you exactly where you needed to go (down the hall that way, on the first or third floor that way, etc.) I have never seen it being a “deal with it” situation.
Move-in day for my daughter, dorm was coed by room. Bathroom was not gender specific. I said I was uncomfortable about her being in stall, next to some random guy. Her response, he would live on my floor so I would know him and he wouldn’t be random…
Regardless of colleges’ other reasons, they do coed by room rather than by floor or wing because it’s one less thing they have to worry about, such as not having quite enough of one gender to fill an available space, where to place transitioning students, how many men vs women ultimately enroll, etc.
"Rather than continuing to bang the drum- why doesn’t someone post an actual example of a college which does not provide single sex bathrooms for kids who prefer that option?
I don’t think we need to rehash every single example of a kid who for whatever reason doesn’t want a co-ed bathroom. Methinks there are posters here trying to ignite something which is moot."
I don’t have a problem with co-ed bathrooms. My replies all stem from one post (don’t remember which one) that said the issue was voted on by the students at the beginning of school, and I think (and still do) that this is a policy that should be spelled out BEFORE dorm selection for those students who care. Because, posts have shown that there are kids who don’t want a co-ed bathroom, and they don’t need to have their wishes overridden by fellow students three days after they move in. By the same token, kids who would prefer to have a co-ed bathroom for one reason or another and select a dorm based on that preference don’t need to have it taken away from them three days after school begins.
In other words, just decide at the beginning what dorms have what types of bathrooms and stick to the decision.
Any school that I know who votes on it does it by blind ballot and any vote against a coed bathroom means coed bathrooms aren’t going to happen. It just needs one vote against it to nix it. Nobody should feel pressured. It also allows for fluidity as some might care early on and find they don’t later, of visa versa. Being flexible is a good thing for various reasons.
“In other words, just decide at the beginning what dorms have what types of bathrooms and stick to the decision.”
However in every case for my kids, it’s not a “dorm” thing. It’s a “hall” thing, chosen by the inhabitants of that hall. And in every case I’ve seen, they’ve made sure that there is at LEAST one gender-neutral bathroom, and at LEAST (two) gender-specific bathrooms in the dorm, so that no one is left out in the cold, so to speak. Again, in my experience, there are far more important reasons that kids choose one dorm over another (friends, distance to the dining hall/classrooms, distance to the gym for athletes, hills for mobility impaired, AC in a newer dorm, etc. etc. etc.) than the bathrooms. Generally if you want a gender-specific bathroom, the easiest solution is to choose a one-gender hall/dorm, which are generally always a choice.
Gender preference for bathroom shouldn’t be, either.