Much ado about … bathrooms

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/03/2024 (820 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you’re lucky enough some day to end up in Brussels, Belgium, you might get the opportunity to visit the Maison Européenne des Auteurs et des Autrices on Rue du Prince Royal — the European House of Authors.

If you also happen to be a Canadian author, you might also be incredibly jealous.

There, in a pair of restored large buildings, there are workstations for authors and space for conferences, and even a café, if you’d prefer to work there. The whole place gives you a feeling that authors are respected as professionals, and that they might be a valued part of an educated economy

Oh, and there’s even a neighbourhood guest cat, with a penchant for strolling through open doors into conferences or meetings.

You might be luckier still if you get to visit the Tope restaurant and bar on the rooftop of the Hoxton Brussels Hotel, to sample both the view and the signature tacos — perhaps the Cameron Frito: “Prawn tempura, chipotle mayo, lettuce, pickled chili”, three for 15 Euros.

They may seem like two very different places, but the authors’ house and the rooftop bar have something interesting in common.

In fact, something that many parts of Brussels have in common.

They both have single large washrooms open to everyone, regardless of sex or orientation.

Hotels still have separately gendered public washrooms, perhaps to keep from startling North American guests. Many tourist facilities do as well.

But in many places, everyone uses the same washroom.

The washrooms are different: instead of North America’s standard stalls, with partitions that leave a gap under and over the door and both sides, each Brussels non-gendered toilet is instead in its own small room, with floor-to-ceiling walls and a locking door. The rest of the washroom — sinks and mirrors, for example — are a common area for all.

It’s not nearly as fraught as you might imagine it to be.

People come into the washroom, use the washroom in complete privacy, wash and dry their hands (hopefully) and head out on their way.

Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, the idea that someone born male, but transitioning, might be more comfortable in a female washroom is close to a moral and existential crisis for some, let alone the idea of men and women sharing the same sets of private stalls at the same time to pee. Even political parties stake a policy claim on things like banning “biological males” from female washrooms.

Utah, on Jan. 29, was the latest of 11 U.S. states to limit or partially limit bathroom access to people based on their biological sex at birth. In Canada, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said he supports the same thing, though such regulation is a provincial or municipal matter.

The experience, to be sure, is a bit of a shock the first few times you encounter it. In fact, it’s hard to escape the urge to start walking backwards out of the washroom, waving your hands and muttering embarrassed apologies the whole way about having clearly walked into the wrong room.

But that fades, especially when you’re surrounded by people who clearly aren’t in the least bit concerned about the process.

Everyone using the same washrooms. Imagine that.

It is, in fact, what people seem to be able to do in most every private home in North America. And on airplanes — for that matter, airplanes that might be bringing you back from, say, a trip from Brussels with a photo of the European House of Authors guest cat safely ensconced in your iPhone.

Look at it that way, and the whole North American brouhaha about washrooms seems a little bit overwrought.