California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a law requiring K-12 schools to provide gender-neutral bathrooms by July 2026.
The new law, Senate Bill 760, was among a series of laws signed by Newsom Saturday to expand protections for the state’s LGBTQ community.
“California is proud to have some of the most robust laws in the nation when it comes to protecting and supporting our LGBTQ+ community,” Newsom said in a statement.
Under the law, “each school district, county office of education, and charter school” would be required to have at least one gender-neutral bathroom on campus on or before July 1, 2026. The bathroom must be available for use during school hours and during school functions when students are present, the law states.
I went to a gender neutral restroom in California a couple months ago. Each toilet was in its own little private room, and there was a common area of sinks for hand washing. My only thought was that all public restrooms should be like that. Even apart from the equal access issue for LGBTQ+ people, why make one gender stand in line when there are unused facilities right next door.
Honestly, I just like the privacy anyways. Who wants to make eye contact with someone through the 1in gap in the stall doors?
It’s how I’ve met my firmest friends.
Yeah it’s literally just better for everyone
Except for those who desperately want to hurt people they don’t like.
Recently went to Paris, and most toilets were like this. It was fantastic.
My only thought was that all public restrooms should be like that.
Agrreed. Sadly, “arrow doesn’t turn”.
I am passionate about gendered bathrooms. Sorry ladies, you take far too long to pee.
/s
Combined bathrooms but keep the piss trough.
I’ve heard some women say they feel unsafe and uncomfortable with men there. Sounds a bit ridic to me but maybe I just don’t understand
Hey, was that at Sino on Santana Row? I almost told the exact same story.
Just wait until conservatives find out there are already gender neutral bathrooms in their own homes!
Oh the horror!
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So are most gender neutral bathrooms at businesses. I bet most of the conservatives don’t care if they are, and if asked would still oppose them on principle (even if they don’t actually notice when they use them at businesses)
Someone doesn’t have kids or a spouse…
Or a dog
Can you teach my dog how to flush. Thanks.
Doesn’t stop me and my siblings from crossing streams in one toilet. Though it is harder for our sister.
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i never really got the whole separated toilets thing anyway, it’s a toilet, do your thing and skedaddle
we need to redesign toilet stalls to be more private anyways
My biggest reason for wanting separate bathrooms is the propensity for women to squat and spray the seat. I know guys can make a mess too but usually the women’s restroom is dirtier than men’s. Also women’s restroom is more likely to have a line.
But I’m sure building-wise it would be easier to just make one big bathroom so it should probably be that way, long as it’s big enough.
How do you have experience with both men and women’s restrooms?
Edit: ow the downvotes
Not OP but the one who cleans sees all.
I envy a life where you’ve never had to clean a bathroom.
I have but it was unisex lol
Idk about them, but my transition experience was the opposite. Neither is free of animals who were never taught how to operate their bodies in a public space, but my men’s room experiences were gross way more often than my women’s room experiences are. And now that I share a single toilet bathroom with men at work again, piss in weird places all the time. I understand that there are some places where the women’s room is routinely worse, but the average has been the opposite in my experience.
I used to work in a restaurant so I’ve had to clean both.
Women are utterly disgusting. Men sometimes pee on the seats but women shit on the walls.
I was stunned the first time. After having it happen once a week or so, you really start to wonder WTF is wrong with women
Online discussions I’ve seen on this subject make it sound like it’s very location specific when one is routinely worse than the other. I switched public restrooms when I transitioned ~4.5 years ago. My experience has been that both peak at the same level of gross, but men’s restrooms were gross more often. A busy enough restroom will inevitably have a user who doesn’t know how to manage their body in public, but men’s restrooms always seemed just a little more casually dirty. So maybe you should have been wondering who the fuck among your coworkers kept blowing up the women’s room x_x Because it’s not a gender thing. You just had a serial wall shitter who happened to be a woman.
It’s customers, not coworkers
Wherever, whoever, what matters is that you most likely had a serial wall shitter.
Maybe woman bring toddlers to the bathroom more often?
You mean you don’t have signs up in your house for your guests to direct them to entirely different bathrooms?
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Make all toilets more private than thin sheets of wood with an inch wide gap between them and it shouldn’t be a problem.
Yah, this is not the men making this an issue. I couldn’t give a fuck if woman walks into the mens room, I’m here pissing and I’m not going to worry about anyone looking. Gods help you if it went the other way, you’d end up on a list.
I’m not sure why you’re receiving down votes. It’s simple as that.
Disabled, my favorite gender
Disabled toilets are already gender neutral, I guess they’ll just stick another sign on the door?
only if they’re single-occupant bathrooms. which. for schools… are usually not going to be the case. personally, that should be the solution. just rip out both bathrooms, install single occupant cells. nobody cares what you are. the only sign needed is an ‘occupied’/‘vacant’ on the latch.
(edit: well, you’d still have to have a placard with braille on it so blind people can know what kind of room it is.)
Most of the disabled stalls I’ve encountered (at least in the US) are within the gendered bathrooms. So even if the stall is nominally gender neutral one first has to enter the men’s room or women’s room.
Ah, in the UK the disabled ones are separate and you need a key
So much of the online bathroom discussion makes more sense when one realises that US public restroom designs are insane.
Yeah here in the good ol (hahahaha) USA most establishments have a separate “restroom” for men and women which consist of a row of sinks for washing up and a number of stalls for toilets (and urinals in men’s rooms of course).
Sometimes the urinals are just in a row on the wall with no dividers between. But there’s usually one or two disabled stalls as well, although they’re not locked in any way.
and you need a key
Why? It is already so invenient for people without disabilities to somewhere and ask for something, that for disabled it will be nearly-impossible.
Disabled people can buy keys for a couple of quid
Not disable also can. Kinda useless.
It’s not. I have ulcerative colitis and find it very useful.
Do you know you can just buy those keys online?
I didn’t know this for years. So handy.
But be careful as people will ask staff for the key and open it on you haha
Wow I would have thought it would at least have a regular deadbolt from the inside in addition to the external lock.
Also typing this comment makes me realise it’s a little weird to externally lock public toilets in the first place. But I know we can’t have nice things.
It turns out, California is not part of the UK and your experience isn’t relevant.
Are you always a dick, or just Tuesdays?
I have seen some separate restrooms that are unisex plus handicap accessible. Think they are labeled “Family Restroom.” Haven’t used one though.
It really was just a regular bathroom all along.
The gender neutral bathroom was inside here the whole time.
Under the law, “each school district, county office of education, and charter school” would be required to have at least one gender-neutral bathroom on campus on or before July 1, 2026.
Whut?? Why not just make them all human restrooms? How does it takes two+ years to switch some signage and inform people to use whatever door they wish?
I’ve been living in a city with “gender-neutral” restrooms for so long that I forget what it used to be like. Well, aside from sports and entertainment complexes.
They may want to allow time for remodeling instead of just new signage. Maybe better stalls for actual privacy. I hate the typical stall I see in the US.
Moron politics. They only get shit done that doesn’t really matter for good looks.
Essentially I guess this was needed for redneck morons to know they can use the same bathroom as anyone else because they aren’t extra special…
(This post isn’t anti lgbtq+)
Ah, so more like two years to give
rednecksconservatives a heads up that this is happening. That does make some sense.
it’s heartening that the governor has been working so hard to solve the state’s crippling housing crisis…oh wait…what?
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So there will stil be regular male/female toilets? In the end I’m kinda whatever about this as long as it’s not used as an excuse to remove urinals.
Yes, every gender neutral bathroom I’ve seen here at elementary schools and college campuses have single occupancy gender neutral bathroom/s next to the men’s and women’s bathrooms.
I haven’t read the text of the law, but unless it explicitly says otherwise, I suspect it will be up to the schools/districts. If they have the money and room to build separate non-gendered bathrooms, then some of them will do so. But I suspect that most will simply convert existing bathrooms and not have gender specific bathrooms at all.
if all the bathrooms are neutral there’s no need to have " regular bathrooms"
stares in confusion But urinals are the absolute worst. Benefits: cost less money and less space. Drawbacks: lack of privacy and inevitable splashback. Why would you want them?
So I don’t have to sit on a public toilet of questionable cleanliness. A small bit of splashback from my own piss is preferable.
The privacy just has never been a concern bc no one is trying to look at other people’s dicks while pissing.
If you can use a urinal, you can piss in a toilet without sitting down.
…which has all the same splashback issues except youre much more likely to have some piss spray in sone random spot outside the bowl
Urinals are more convenient when you just need to take a quick piss. I don’t get why another person next to you is a problem. Also just don’t piss dead center into the thing considering splashback. Do I really have to explain pissing now?
Urinals offer exactly zero additional convenience, and there is no splashback-free angle.
You are doing something wrong. Urinals are designed to not have splashback.
No, they aren’t. They’re designed to be cheap, not effective.
I really don’t know why we have to have this conversation right now.
Sorry to break it to you, but I guess you suck at taking a piss lol.
What using urinals offer:
- don’t need to close a door
- don’t need to touch the seat to lift/lower it
- takes up much less space than toilets
- can chat with the bros
There is much less splash using a urinal than standing at a toilet. You’re doing something very wrong if it’s splashing all over the place (how tf?).
Basic physics. Toilets have zero splash because gravity exists. Urinals have maximum splash due to conservation of momentum.
Also you can put a wall between urinals
Yes, it’s not rocket science.
Rocket science isn’t hard either
Do you have a urinal in your house?
Just jumping in to say my grandfather did. Not a popular fixture, but you always can add one.
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Every gender neutral bathroom I’ve been in has removed the urinals. It’s fucking annoying.
Yeah that’s what my comment is about. Just removing stuff until you end up at the common (worst) denominator is the worst kind of equality.
Can we adopt the It’s always sunny sign instead?
“Animal Shit House”
“Animal Shit House”
You are correct, humans are not plants, fungi, bacterias or viruses, but what about colorful ponies? Our toilets are unlikely to fit them.
“animal shit house” does not necessarily imply that multiple types of animal use it
Humans are animals, we use the shit house, therefore it is an animal shit house
Important consequence of this in the context of elementary schools: most little boys don’t lift up the seat when they pee and their aim is atrocious. At my kids’ school, the gender neutral bathrooms are the toilets of last resort.
Can we just have a pee bathroom and a poop bathroom?
Ah yes the four genders: woman, man, oh my god what the fuck happened to you, now youre disabled
Big port-a-potty in bed with politicians
