<p>*Do you belong to a fitness facility with a mixed gender locker room? *</p>
<p>actually, I think if the locker room at my gym was mixed gender, people would be a lot more polite about their behavior. For me it is about appropriate public behavior, not labels.</p>
<p>I am not comfortable with women treating the gym locker room like it is their private bathroom.
Taking baskets of beauty products into the sauna( nothing is supposed to be in there), or walking around nude much, much longer than it takes to walk to or from the shower. :rolleyes:
I am more familiar with others tattoos than Iâd like to be.
( & who shaves. * Really? You think looking like a pre-pubescent girl is sexy*? )</p>
Swimmers do and occasional swimmers too. You donât completely shave it off. You sort of trim it in certain areas so you look neater esp. when youâre wearing those high cut swimsuits and bikinis. But truly itâs a matter of personal preference.</p>
<p>Itâs different because the gym serves way more than 40 people, and I donât know anyone at my gym as well as I knew my hallmates in college. Granted, at the beginning of each year I didnât know my hallmates. But they are not random strangers in the same way that fellow gym members are.</p>
<p>Also, every dorm shower I have ever seen has a changing stall outside of the shower stall. This has not been the case in every gym Iâve ever seen. So in a dorm, there is no need to walk around in a towel. You put your clothes/pajamas in the outer changing area (there is usually a seat and a hook) along with your towel, you shower, you dry off and put on your clean clothes or pajamas. Voila! In that scenario nobody has seen anything more than they would if they werenât sharing the bathroom but just passed you in the hall.</p>
<p>Iâve seen some gyms set up like this but not all by any means. I honestly canât remember with my current gymâitâs about 2 blocks from my house so I just come home to shower. Iâd prefer a gym to have a changing stall outside the shower too, if I was going to be using it much. Not a deal-breaker, but Iâd prefer that amount of privacy even with only women in the room.</p>
âŠwhy yes they are. And, sometimes the âadjustmentâ takes the form of silence because one is shouted down as seems to be the case in this situation.</p>
<p>However, I wonder what the response of the posters who âdonât get why this is a problemâ might be if all of a sudden the college cafeteria suddenly only offered beef and friesâŠbecause that is what the majority wanted. Vegetarians will just have to adjust âŠor go elsewhere. And Iâd be curious to know if this particular college has a gym facility and if soâŠdoes it have one communal locker room? If not, why not?</p>
<p>Agree with #186. Co-ed bathrooms themselves are not really a problem for most students. The inappropriate behavior is the problem. Changing the bathroom designations after room assignments, or having them not match descriptions given prior to room assignments, is also a problem if that is what occurred.</p>
<p>D came along with S on a college trip. One college had coed bathrooms only. D said she would never apply to that college or any other with coed bathrooms as the only option. In the OPâs case, the problem is that the deal was changed once the students were in the dorm. I agree that should be considered. I think itâs perfectly reasonable to prefer some privacy in the bathroom. If it were my D, sheâd be quite upset about the change mid-stream.</p>
<p>Have not read whole thread, but did it occur to anyone about religion? Some religions do not allow women to be seen even in swimsuit or without hair covering, so those women âneedâ a separate bathroom. </p>
<p>Not to get into whether thisnis right or wrong, okay, it bothers me that certain religions dnt allow women and men to share a pool at the same time, but I would hazard a guess this is why the girls have the sin gal sex only facilities and the dudes donât. </p>
<p>It does surprise me there isnât a protest by men of certain religions, christian, or otherwise, hmmmm, makes one wonderâŠ</p>
<p>Someone that conservative* would likely want a single-gender dorm (or at least a single-gender suite or floor) anyway.</p>
<p>*Not all members of any given religion are extremely conservative in these respects, and some not-especially-religious people can be rather conservative in these respects.</p>
<p>It is interesting to me, reading the posts where people say the co-ed bathroom is not a problem. Certainly, it is not a problem for them.</p>
<p>But if you read through these posts, there are obviously a large number of people, both students and parents, who say this is a problem, and it would bother them greatly.</p>
<p>There are a number of issues that I am comfortable with, that I know others would not be. I do not expect everyone to live up (or down) to my standards, and I certainly wouldnât try to enforce my ideals on others.</p>
<p>Which brings me to the question, for those of you who think this is not an issue. Just because you are fine with this, when you know many others arenât, why do you think this arrangement is acceptable, even against the wishes of some of the people involved?</p>
<p>Look, the bottom line is that the girls voted that there would be one female-only bathroom and two gender-neutral bathrooms.</p>
<p>If gender in the bathroom were TRULY not an issue, all three bathrooms would be gender-neutral. But what they have done is formally declare that the feelings of girls count and the feelings of boys do not count. Because the girls who want a female bathroom have one.</p>
<p>And btw, my gym has showers with outer areas where one can change. But they have curtains only, and the curtains are not only skimpy, but blow around a lot. So if the loker room were coed, one would have very little privacy.</p>
<p>And comparing bathrooms intended to be used by one person at a time to those intended to be used by 5 or 10 people at a time is simply ridiculous.</p>
<p>I havenât had a chance to read this whole thread, but my 2-cents worth â I think the boys who are uncomfortable with the co-ed bathrooms should quietly approach the RA to explain that they arenât comfortable, and they donât feel that this is an appropriate situation for âmajority ruleâ â if any student on the floor is uncomfortable with the co-ed bathrooms, they should have access to a single-sex bathroom. </p>
<p>I donât think this is a situation for a parent to intervene in, unless they truly believe that their childâs safety is somehow endangered, and they are for some reason unable to adequately advocate for their own safety needs. And yes, safety can include emotional safety, but think very hard before concluding that your child âcanâtâ advocate for his own needs before stepping in.</p>
<p>"Also, every dorm shower I have ever seen has a changing stall outside of the shower stall. This has not been the case in every gym Iâve ever seen. So in a dorm, there is no need to walk around in a towel. You put your clothes/pajamas in the outer changing area (there is usually a seat and a hook) along with your towel, you shower, you dry off "</p>
<p>My experience was the opposite -IIRC, the dorm shower didnât have that changing stall at all. You dropped trou (so to speak) before entering, and that area was very visible to those using the sinks. This was a dorm built 1980-ish. There was a boysâ side of the floor with a bathroom, serving about 20-30, and a mirror image girlsâ side.</p>
<p>I think itâs hard to say whatâs acceptable and whatâs not without seeing specific setups. I think what JHS describes, if Iâm envisioning it correctly, is very different from the setups that serve entire hallways/floors.</p>
<p>no we are not missing that piece of info. If you read the thread, you will see that there are more girls than guys on the hall, so they voted to give themselves use of all the restrooms and ban the males from one of them.</p>
<p>So, a quick update for those who are interested â I learned from my son today that there are no male bathrooms in the entire dorm at this point. Theyâve all been re-assigned as female or gender-neutral. The boys have spoken to the RAâs, but they are defending the arrangement as protective of transgender rights and democratic process. (The girls comprise an approximate 60/40 majority on each hall.) The boys are not racing right over to the Dean of Residential Life, and Iâm not sure theyâll gather the determination to oppose their peers in appealing to the college administration.</p>
<p>My son says some of the boys, including him, are walking a few blocks to a menâs bathroom in one of the academic buildings. But I mentioned to him that if he ever gets ill at school â with a stomach bug or a serious flu â heâs not going to want to walk that far. Shower privacy â a separate question altogether.</p>
<p>Cromette, I can relate! Iâve raised my boys with some pretty strict ideas about propriety and respect. </p>
<p>FinanceGrad, good points. Contemplating the options. . .</p>
<p>Ummm, transgender rights may be helped by having a co-ed bathroom, but are not really helped by having a female bathroom but no male bathroom.</p>
<p>Seems like they made a mistake (in terms of changing the bathroom arrangements after room assignments were made and everyone has moved in) and are not willing to admit it.</p>
<p>What about the separate issue of the inappropriate behavior?</p>
<p>So the privacy needs of the gals are addressed and the privacy needs of the guys are irrelevant? Nice. If it was me, Iâd threaten to sue for gender discrimination and sexual harrassment. Someone needs to be taught that equal rights doesnât mean extra rights. And I donât understand why some people here are having a hard time grasping the concepts of modesty and privacy. If some kid doesnât want to deal with the evacuatory aftermath of burrito night whilst that cute sophomore is four feet away, he shouldnât have to justify or âget overâ that.</p>
<p>Sounds like it may be time for the guys to demonstrate to these gals the downside of gender-neutral bathrooms.</p>
<p>âWhat is that disgusting stench? Is that you in there, Susie? I thought a sewer pipe broke.â
âOn the rag today, huh Mary? That must be why you look so bloated.â
âYeah, you need a shower, Sharon. I can smell you from here.â</p>
<p>If they want familiarity, give them some. Not so nice, maybe, but these gals have already demonstrated that they have no interest in niceness.</p>
<p>Addressing gender-neutral bathrooms in general more than this particular situation: Iâm just wondering why the comfort of transgender people is more important than the comfort of men and women who want a single-gender bathroom. It seems that there would be far more of the latter. The numbers of college women on any given campus who have been sexually assaulted and would find it traumatic to share a bathroom with college men is probably a far larger number alone than the number of transgender students.</p>