All bathrooms should be unisex to eliminate the stigma of transgender people in bathrooms.

Bathrooms are for everyone; everyone has bowels and has to use the bathroom. The bathroom is not just for one type of person either; it is for men, women, trans women, trans men and all genders in between. The bathroom is not a place for gender; it is a place for pooping.

Everywhere, there are two separate bathrooms. One big unisex bathroom with double the amount of stalls should replace them. Bathrooms shouldn’t be gendered because they are just toilets, and toilets aren’t gendered. The toilets, the stalls, the soap, the sinks and the mirrors are the same in both bathrooms. Establishments could save money not having to put up a wall between two seemingly identical rooms.

The fact that there are two separate bathrooms to begin with is mainly because of urinals, but cisgender men should be okay with waiting a few extra seconds for a stall to make a transgender person more comfortable in the bathroom. Unisex bathrooms are not an attack on gender or identity. It is to say everyone has the right to comfortably use the bathroom no matter what their gender or identity is.

Transphobia is the reason people do not want transgender people in the bathroom. They don’t want them in either bathroom because of their hatred. They mask this fear by suggesting sexual predators will take advantage of the situation by dressing as women to sneak into their bathroom. This argument does not make sense because rape is just as illegal in the women’s bathroom as it is anywhere else.

There is a stigma around transgender people in bathrooms if their genitals don’t match their genders. Stalls would eliminate this problem because if everyone minded their own business and left other people alone in the bathroom, everything would run smoothly. No one would be bothering anyone, as it should be.

In 2017, 16 states tried to pass legislation that would restrict locker rooms and other sex-segregated facilities on the basis of a gender consistent with their sex assigned at birth or their “biological sex.” This would force transgender women to go to the men’s bathroom and transgender men to go to the women’s bathroom.

Having one unisex bathroom would allow everyone in the bathroom without discrimination. Transgender people deal with discrimination everyday and everywhere. The bathroom should be one place they shouldn’t have to worry.

Ashlon Lusk is a 19-year-old mass communication freshman from Houston, Texas.