Voices: Gender-neutral restrooms could be the answer

AUSTIN — Another battle over bathroom rights is looming in Texas.

Some Texas activists and lawmakers say they plan to introduce a bill next session that would bar transgender women from using women's restrooms. This comes on the heels of a similar controversial North Carolina law, House Bill 2, that has sparked a national debate and provoked a business backlash against the state. PayPal announced it was canceling plans to open a global operations center in North Carolina, and more than 120 businesses, including Hyatt, Kellogg and Northrop Grumman, have signed an open letter urging its repeal.

North Carolina anti-LGBT law sparks protests

The issue even entered the presidential race, with GOP front-runner Donald Trump initially saying there have been few problems with the bathrooms rules as they are and the states should leave it alone, before backtracking slightly. His main rival, Ted Cruz, slammed the real estate mogul for following the same political correctness as Democratic leaders.

Trump, Cruz spar over North Carolina transgender 'bathroom law'

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is unfazed by the controversy or the potential of an economic backlash hitting Texas if a bathroom law is enacted. In an interview with The Texas Tribune, he called the issue a priority for the next legislative session, which begins next year.

"I think the handwriting is on the bathroom wall: Men need to stay out of the ladies’ room," Patrick told the Tribune. "This is about common sense, common decency and allowing women to have comfort when they’re in the bathroom."

Jessica Shortall, managing director of Texas Competes, a coalition of businesses that favor LGBT rights, said reaction to a Texas law could be withering. Her group started with 100 businesses in 2014 and has grown to 870 today, she told me. Of those, 194 businesses have signed up since the North Carolina law passed in March.

"We've had some Texas business leaders say point blank: 'This type of law has the potential of harming our competitive advantage,'" she says.

Here’s my solution to all this: Gender-neutral restrooms.

It’s long befuddled me that men and women were relegated to separate bathrooms. Were there feminine secrets hatching in the prohibited women’s restroom? Men and women are equal on so many levels yet when nature calls we’re segregated to separate corrals?

When my local Starbucks recently introduced gender-neutral restrooms, it felt like a remarkable evolutionary event, like space travel or Google Maps, instantly cutting down wait times and removing the embarrassing potential of accidentally wandering into the wrong room.

Gender-neutral restrooms are not a novel idea. Europe has used them for decades, and cities such as West Hollywood, Calif., and Austin have passed recent ordinances requiring businesses to relabel their single-occupancy restrooms as gender-neutral.

Moss Design, a Chicago-based architecture and design firm, is designing and advocating for more gender-neutral restrooms across the USA. It has designed two – in a Chicago hotel and restaurant – and more are in the works.

I reached out to Moss’s founder, Matt Nardella, for further insight. A minute into our conversation, I knew I had the right guy. “My involvement in bathrooms, whether I like it or not, goes back a way,” he told me.

Turns out Nardella was working at an architectural firm in San Diego in 1998 when 9-year-old Matthew Cecchi was murdered in a public restroom in nearby Oceanside, Calif., while his aunt waited outside for him. That incident prompted San Diego to redesign its public restrooms to include “Family Friendly” restrooms, where parents can accompany children inside. Nardella was involved with that project.

Ever since, he’s had bathrooms on the brain.

Nardella’s recent designs for gender-neutral restrooms are simple: Single-stall gender-neutral bathrooms alongside handicap-accessible stalls and a shared sink for everyone. In his view, bathrooms should also be nearer to the front of a restaurant or hotel lobby instead of at the end of a dark hall in the back.

The design saves space, money and, most important, does away with gender-specific, multi-stall rooms that are, according to Nardella, “disgusting.”

“They can be thought of as common space, like a lobby, rather than a backroom bathroom where bad things happen,” he says of the new design. “In the long run, not only is it going to be better for transgender people but also, I think, just makes everyone feels safer.”

It seems amazing that, 50 years after we desegregated restrooms, we’re back to fighting for civil rights over the use of a toilet. Maybe a little smart designing can see us past this.

Jervis is USA TODAY's Austin-based correspondent.