Get feminist complaint canals off our urinals!
By Bernard Chapin
web posted December 1, 2003
The attempt on the part of the radical feminist and gay coalition to create unisex bathrooms at the University of Chicago immediately brought to mind my only experience with non-handicapped, desegregated restrooms back in the summer of 2001.
At the time I encountered them, I was on a date with a girl at a Chicago street fair called "Halsted Market Days." The fair is demographically unique as it's held in the homosexual neighborhood of "Boystown", and half its attendees, at least, are gay. Despite the advertising, the neighborhood is quite mixed and features more than a few non-pastel, "straights" within its confines.
My date later confided to me that she selected the setting on purpose to see if I was a tolerant guy. Astonishingly, I passed with diversity flag colors as the sight of homosexuals frolicking in the road is about as unexpected to me as a runny nose in pollen season.
At any rate, a couple of hours in, she directed me to the inside of a restaurant/bar called "Roscoe's" so she could use the bathroom. When she returned we had another round and I used the facilities. I did not think anything strange about the room as it had a few stalls, a sink, a mirror, and several urinals. I stood by the mirror doing what one does after swallowing four Miller's, when suddenly I heard three girls talking behind me as they waited for a stall. I said, "Men's room" aloud hoping they'd realize their mistake. They replied that the bathroom was for everybody. After remembering our neighborhood location, I understood, as we were tourists in a foreign land.
That foreign land may now be here though. It seems that activists at the University of Chicago are lobbying for the creation of multi-sexual bathrooms to combat discrimination against transsexuals and trans-gendered individuals. The rational is as follows:
"'If a woman in a women's-only restroom is assumed to be a man, there may be real threats to her comfort and even safety,' warns the Coalition for a Queer Safe Campus 'Students have faced gay-baiting comments in our university's sex-segregated bathrooms.'"
How does one react to this? First of all, I do not believe the charge. Usually when people have to relieve themselves, that alone is the object of their concentration. Fittingly, no examples are given by the student. I do not presume the mass of heterosexuals to be anti-gay. In fact, from what I have seen, heterosexuals today are more tolerant of homosexuality than they are of their own heterosexuality (which is another column all together).
Second, I'm willing to grant that somebody, in some bathroom, in some truck stop somewhere once made a sarcastic or irritable comment to a human of ambiguous sexuality, but that in no way justifies desegregating bathrooms for men and women. The "oppressed" in this scenario need thicker skins as opposed to new sanctuaries. Insisting that the majority of Americans indulge over-sensitivity cannot be found in the Bill of Rights.
Yet, the university sees it differently and has to chosen to confuse student whines with social justice. One of the deans even stated that the activists complaint has done a great job in raising "community awareness."
While I disagree with the dean about the beneficent nature of the coalition, I am pleased that they brought this scandal into the open. This enables a disinterested public to note the devotion in which "illiberal" liberals attempt to codify private behaviors.
If the reader has no previous knowledge of radical politics, then the request made of the university appears odd but not malicious. Yet, as one who's been aware of the feminist agenda for many years, the demand for unisex bathrooms is in keeping with their enduring attack on our culture.
The Feminist Majority, one of the organizations involved in the discussion at the University of Chicago, considers the creation of desegregated restrooms to be amongst one of their great achievements. On their site they refer to a government branch that heeded their advice:
"The Coast Guard quietly did away with its regulations requiring separate bathrooms for men and women aboard ships. A spokesman for the Coast Guard confirmed that separate heads no longer are required as long as privacy is maintained."
A UC professor affirms that desegregated toilets are a part of their ideology: "‘Some
feminists might say that any sex segregation is problematic,' said Mary Anne
Case, a professor of law at the University of Chicago who has studied the
early roots of feminism and the inequality in sex segregated bathrooms."
Consider how bizarre it sounds to someone off the street that "Inequality
in sex segregated bathrooms" is an area for academic study within
our universities. Most normal people do not view this as being a topic
worthy of scholarship. However, this does not stop the academy from spending
millions of dollars each year to investigate twaddle and pronounce it platinum.
What the casual observer may not fathom about these radical feminists is that the bathroom is one of their favorite places in which to deconstruct. Indeed, they waged a War On Urinals in the past and will continue to do so in the future. To most of us, the urinal is a practical item, but, to the activists, it was forged with porcelain teeth stolen from the goddess herself.
In 2000, Swedish feminists wished to micromanage the way in which men biologically function within their Stockholm university so they tried to force everyone to take a seat. It seems that our standing is a "nasty macho gesture" that demeans women. If we extend their particular line of fallacious reasoning, we will soon discover, provided the peyote's been swallowed correctly, that using the words "is" and "was" are misogynistic as well, and probably one day will be labeled criminal sexual misconduct.
What next? The size of a man's shoes? I can only imagine the shrieks that
will come from a campus brimming with androgynous Pats once they find out
that men have bigger shoes than they do. "The injustice!" They
may well, with their sophisticated minds, then consider male foot binding
as a plausible solution.
Next we have my favorite quotation: "…along with creating more
bathroom space for women -- a typical problem in public facilities -- the
gender-neutral bathroom would also give men and women less reasons to separate
in social functions."
Well, this is total hogwash. While the new water closets will give men and women less of a chance to separate during organic functions, I do not see how it would directly translate to social situations.
What it does translates into is the undeniable conclusion that radical feminists are not remotely concerned about the welfare of women in general. The real people who'd benefit from this plan are not transsexual or trans-gendered but rapists. Without question, any rapist who heard about this new PC edict had to be quite enthused. A stall would be the ideal place for them to lurk and await their prey, and no one would think anything of their going into the duck blind as they swung open its door. Even though these feminists may not be consciously aware of this potential consequence arising, it is yet another instance proving that they never reflect on what the unintended consequences of their actions are.
More likely though, as rape is very rare, the likely outcome is that women would not use these bathrooms; hence, the activists would inconvenience the souls whose cause they usually pretend to champion. The reason women wouldn't use unisex bathrooms is because men would attempt to expand upon the social and organic functions currently practiced within them.
Perhaps the activists have some knowledge of this and it pleases them. Then
the dream of heterosexuals openly embracing the gay lifestyle could be realized.
Yes, within time, it could degenerate into a heterosexual cruising zone–which
would be fruitless as it'd only be a bunch of guys hanging out in empty bathrooms
on Friday nights after women vacated that particular "playing field."
No one should have any illusions about where all of this will end. It will
not end by itself. The activists will take and take as long as we appease
them. No convention or law will remain unturned in their pursuit to rearrange
our culture and daily relations. If the full range of their totalitarian
desires becomes better known, then these organizations will become widely
associated with petty obsessions and pink cakes of disinfectant rather
than "human rights." It's our responsibility to our country to
make their opinions known, and to fight them vigorously–lobbyist
by lobbyist and urinal by urinal. 
Bernard Chapin is a writer living in Chicago. He can be reached at bchapafl@hotmail.com.
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