<p>Transgender rights? What a load of hooey. Everyone’s rights would be served by having one female, one male, and one gender-neutral bathroom.</p>
<p>This is democracy? Time for a history lesson.Do they also want to let the majority vote that the males all have to sit in the back of the classrooms, wait to eat until the females are finished with their meals, or any other grossly unfair allocation of resources the Precious Little Flowers decide upon?</p>
<p>Given the probable allocation of students in the dorm, a single gender-neutral bathroom for the entire floor would be sufficient. 2 per floor is overkill. While the bathroom setup may respect transgender rights, it does not respect men’s rights and is a misuse of “democracy” to deny the rights of a minority. If everyone voted that all the bathrooms be single-gender, would that have been ok despite the needs of transgender students? </p>
<p>This isn’t ok, but your son and others who feel the same way are going to have to gather their resolve and take it to the next level. Don’t do it for him. Learning to advocate for himself is a huge and important part of the growing up that going away to college is all about.</p>
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<p>Wow, is that ever offensive.</p>
<p>First off, why do you assume that a majority of boys is not fine with the current arrangement? Some boys aren’t, and maybe their (minority) preferences deserve some respect and accommodation, but there’s no indication that the girls voted en masse to appropriate one bathroom and deny the boys a room of their own, with the boys united in futile opposition. In fact, depending on how the votes were held, it’s quite possible in a democracy to come up with an aggregate result that hardly anyone agrees with fully. If 60% of the girls and 40% of the boys voted to have a girls’ bathroom, then 45% of the girls and 50% of the boys voted for a boys’ bathroom, and the rule was simple majority, you would get a girls’ bathroom but no boys’ bathroom, notwithstanding that maybe less than 10% of the students on the floor think the current situation is right. That’s one of the perils of democracy – order and framing matter, and small minorities can exercise a lot of control.</p>
<p>Second – History lesson! History lesson? Really? You are equating the boys not being able to have a separate (but equal) bathroom in their dorm with legalized segregation and subordination of blacks in the American South? With the kind of actual, murderous, systematic subjugation of women that remains the rule for most of the world’s population? I think any reasonable history lesson would have to conclude that, notwithstanding some relatively recent moves towards actual equality, it’s still overwhelmingly a man’s world, here and elsewhere, that the known “grossly unfair allocations of resources” by gender do NOT favor women, and making the Precious Little Boy Flowers wash and poop in the presence of some girls doesn’t change that a whit.</p>
<p>The problem here is that democracy and history are not particularly good ways to figure out how to deal with what is likely a minority, but a substantial minority, of freaked-out little boys and their freaked-out parents who are fueling the hysteria. Love, tolerance, and generosity would probably work better.</p>
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<p>I actually meant to say one for the entire <em>dorm</em> would be sufficient for the likely allocation of transgender students. One per floor is fine, but more than that when it denies others the same comfort they are happy to provide for transgender students is hardly reasonable. </p>
<p>Even if only a small minority of boys wants a single-gender bathroom, they should have that preference accommodated, just as a small minority of transgender students should be sufficient to make at least one bathroom gender neutral to meet their preference.</p>
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<p>Obviously not. Pointing out that tyranny of the majority can have nasty results does not equate all such results.</p>
<p>One gathers that this didn’t bother you:</p>
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<p>OP: I agree with your son’s decision not to “run” to the Dean right away. However, I do suggest that after sleeping on it, they should make an appointment with him and have a conversation about their concerns. I personally wouldn’t bother with the RA anymore at this point.</p>
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<li>A bathroom for girls only, and the rest being gender-neutral is not equitable or fair at all.</li>
<li>Fair alternatives would be 1 girls, 1 boys, 1 neutral bathroom or a proportional equivalent depending on the number of bathrooms in the dorm.</li>
<li>Bring up concerns of harassment if there are any.</li>
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<p>Due to the 60/40 female male ratio in the dorm your son will probably be met with some opposition. However, it is also a lesson for your son that he is his own best advocate and he needs to stand up for himself if he is not being treated fairly.</p>
<p>"The problem here is that democracy and history are not particularly good ways to figure out how to deal with what is likely a minority, but a substantial minority, of freaked-out little boys and their freaked-out parents who are fueling the hysteria. Love, tolerance, and generosity would probably work better. "</p>
<p>Really? As other posters have pointed out switch the genders being affected and you would have a very different reaction.</p>
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Hmmm. I’m not sure I agree with this. I think the element of this case that makes people up in arms is that there’s a single-gender bathroom for girls. What if there wasn’t one, and this was just the result of a majority vote by everybody for co-ed bathrooms?</p>
<p>I’d also like to know a bit more about how it came to be that there is one single-gender bathroom. Is it in an area or the floor that is all girls? Did most of the boys support this, and if so, why?</p>
<p>And as to the question of where those of us who think it’s no big deal get off saying this: well, we’re all free to have opinions on what’s reasonable and what isn’t. Plus, some of us are speaking from actual experience of co-ed bathrooms. Is there anybody who had co-ed bathrooms in college here who’d like to speak out against them?</p>
<p>Because some of us had a fine experience with co-ed bathrooms 20 years ago it does not mean that this particular case has no merit. In my dorm there only was one bathroom per floor. In this case there are 3 per floor, so no earthly reason why common sense shouldn’t reign supreme and have at least a few designated for each gender in the dorm as a whole if not one per floor.</p>
<p>Consolation, I’m not going to come out in favor of anybody being “SHOUTED down”. But I will tell you that the experience of being silenced in college because I was part of the oppressive male majority and therefore had no standing to speak taught me a lot, probably more than using co-ed bathrooms did. It’s not the worst thing in the world if every once in a while boys get called on the carpet for the sins of men in general, notwithstanding that it isn’t always fair or pretty. I realize many people will disagree with that, but that’s my experience. (Making boys feel uncomfortable in the bathroom for the sins of men in general is probably unduly cruel, though.)</p>
<p>All of you boys’-bathroom zealots may want to note that those of us who do not share your passion react badly when you make your case based on the rhetoric of reverse discrimination, minority rights, and scheming, oppressive girls. You get a lot more sympathetic hearing if you make it about accommodating your boy’s particular disability. In a perfect world, he ought not to mind sharing a bathroom with girls, but he’s not ready for it yet, it’s really disrupting his life, it’s completely inconsistent with how he was raised and his family’s values and beliefs, so it increases his feelings of alienation and insecurity at college, it involves very personal anxieties about his body, and there seem to be enough resources to accommodate him and a substantial number of other boys who feel the same way without inconveniencing the majority too much. </p>
<p>That’s the argument that wins, but without scoring political points. You may have to choose which you care about more.</p>
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Also, he might have “bashful kidney,” which would probably be even worse if there are girls in the bathroom. I would have sympathy in that case–and the boy, for obvious reasons, might not want to bring it up.</p>
<p>The desire for privacy while performing personal functions is not a disability and does not render someone a prude.</p>
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Right–for most people, it’s simply a personal preference. The discussion here is about whether that preference should take precedence over the will of the majority.</p>
<p>i am assuming there are no orthodox muslims on this floor. If there are, it is automatic discrimination against religion.</p>
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Or orthodox anything. The religion card would probably be pretty effective in this kind of dispute.</p>
<p>Also, remember: (a) Everyone prefers privacy while performing personal functions, as you put it. But the kind of college dorm bathrooms we are talking about represent a major, and unavoidable, compromise of that preference. (b) What you are talking about is a particular, and not necessarily obvious, definition of “privacy” – the security that no girls will be in the vicinity, even if lots of other people are. </p>
<p>I was teasing to call that a “disability,” but I am being honest in saying I feel a lot more sympathetic to your concerns when I think of it that way.</p>
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<p>Yes, I’d still feel that if there were students who wanted access to a single-gender bathroom (boys or girls) that should be accommodated with at least one such bathroom in the building. There seem to be plenty of bathrooms in the building to allow that without seriously inconveniencing those who prefer co-ed bathrooms. </p>
<p>I don’t think this is a case for majority rule. I think this is a case where everyone can be made comfortable without seriously inconveniencing anyone, and I don’t think the majority should be allowed to “vote” to make even a small minority of students uncomfortable in such a situation. I think this is particularly so when the norm in this country is gender-segregated bathrooms, so this is what these students have become accustomed to. </p>
<p>I’m pretty sure my son wouldn’t care either way, and I actually have no idea what the bathroom arrangements are in his current dorm. But I don’t think it’s fair to ridicule students for caring and preferring more privacy. It’s so easy in this case to make sure everyone has easy access to a bathroom they can be comfortable in, that it seems absurd to do things any other way, unless there were unanimous support.</p>
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<p>Yep. Because boy’s can’t be discriminated against. It’s never happened in the history of the world. And it can’t happen now! They should just deal with it!</p>
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I’d say that on average, that’s pretty much true.</p>
<p>I get some yoks out of reading posters of a conservative persuasion getting up in arms over suggestions that complaining people should “just deal with it.” I guess what goes around comes around eventually.</p>
<p>JHS,
I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure your undergrad alma mater allows students to choose whether they want gender-neutral bathrooms, via selection of location of their suites and rooms. They can choose entryways and halls with only men or only women, or mixed. I think they know the gender composition in advance. There isn’t only one choice, and it is not determined after the fact.</p>