Restrooms and Gender

When I was in preschool the restrooms had no sign with a stick figure of a boy or girl. There was just the restroom, plain and simple. But at some point in my life the signs appeared. I want to say it was in 4^th grade. It was the first year I moved down to a classroom on the bottom floor of my elementary school. Instead of having just one restroom attached to the classroom there was a “girls” room and a “boys” room in the hallway. They were still single restrooms no stalls or anything fancy. In fact they were identical to the ones upstairs besides the signs on the doors. So why in 4^th grade did we need to separate the restrooms? In 3^rd grade the unisex restroom was just fine, now for some reason I had one restroom and could go in and want I could not. Because they were single restrooms and they were 100% identical the need to differentiate between “boys” and “girls” seems absurd. I mean maybe if there were stalls I’d see the point but to me this was just crazy. I would be waiting to use a restroom and there would be one perfectly fine restroom open that I was not permitted to use. It was ridicules. Can men and women not pee in the same toilet? We do a peoples homes all the time, so why in public places such as schools or libraries is it different?

I was in restaurant about a year ago and the women’s room was occupied so I used the men’s single person restroom. Upon coming out I received a weird look form an older man waiting. He looked at me as if I was from Mars. When really I had just used a restroom identical to the one next store. Why was it just a big deal to him? I had in no way tarnished “his” restroom. It was just as I had found it when I had came in. I am amazed at how much signs with stick figures control our lives. How the different sexes much be kept from using the same facilities. Every time I see a single restroom with a sign indicating a specific gender I am baffled. I always ask myself “Why?” and I always end up at the same answer, “There is no reason, it’s pointless to me.”