Although I travel extensively, it seems that I need to get out more. Last Friday, my friend Elizabeth took me to a trendy restaurant on New York's Lower East Side (the hippest neighborhood in Manhattan) recently opened by her friend. Normally, I don't eat at swanky restaurants, as cheap holes-the-wall are more my style. However, if not for Elizabeth and her entrepreneurial foodie friend, I would not only have missed out on excellent Nuevo Latino food, but also the unisex bathroom.

The bathroom came as a complete surprise to me. When I excused myself from the table, Elizabeth informed me that the facilities were down two flights of stairs. As I descended into the basement, I noticed a super fancy trough sink in the center of the room.

"Ah, what an efficient use of space," I thought. Then I noticed exactly how efficient it was. There was no "men" and "women" (or caballeros o damas in this case) doors leading to separate but equal bathrooms, only a long row of stalls, each fully enclosed by its own door. One of my many pet peeves is the insane need to label a single enclosed stall as male or female when either sex can easily use the toilet, as they are the only one in the room, so I peed with extra relish and delighted in washing my hands with guys and gals alike.

"Guess what?" I breathless exclaimed upon returning to my table. "The bathrooms are unisex! Isn't that great?"

Elizabeth was unfazed. "Oh yeah, a lot of restaurants are like that down here. Balthazar and Schiller's Liquor Bar also have the same set up."

Needless to say, I have not been to either of those fine eateries, but I was impressed with the trendy folks who are trended toward unisex. My friend Sara, who works at New York City's Office of Management and Budget, speculated that the design might be the result of a new ordinance passed by the City requiring all new clubs and restaurants with more than two stalls to have more women's facilities than men's. (This is a good theory, but Balthazar has been around for many years.) I believe that it might just be a very clever way to save on outrageous construction costs, in which plumbing contributes rather highly too.

What really intrigues me about the unisex bathrooms is how little anyone else seemed to care about them. In the 1970s, opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) insisted that the legislation would ban separate sex bathrooms in public places. Of course, this ridiculous, shrill reaction couldn't be further from the truth, but it tapped into some mainstream fears and helped ensure that it didn't muster the votes it needed from the States to ratify equal rights. If Generation X and Y don’t mind peeing together, maybe we are making progress towards greater gender equality or neutrality.

The other thing I like about unisex bathrooms is that they would remove a barrier often faced by transgendered individuals. Often forced to use the bathroom of a sex they do not identify with or face criminal charges, public washrooms can cause dilemmas for transgendered people that most of us take for granted. If unisex bathrooms became universal, this obstacle would be eliminated.

Since I like unisex bathrooms so much, I just may have to eat out more often at tasty, upscale restaurants to show my support, literally putting my money where my mouth is. (The good food part, not the nice toilets – I don't think I want toilets anywhere near my mouth, no matter how fancy or equal they are.) It's a win-win situation for me.

For more thoughts on the topic of unisex bathrooms, ERA, and/or transgender individuals and public bathrooms, check out the following blogs:

New Drive Afoot to Pass Equal Rights Amendment by Ginny's Bloggity Blog
Again with the Bathrooms at 100 Word Minimum
Bathrooms in Arizona... at (en)Gender

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Suzanne also blogs at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) and Other Rants