Respected..... I think understood..... but if I MAY.....
1. Do we HAVE to respond (perhaps in very big ways) to every expressed "need?" Does "reasonable" come into play at all? Just a thought.... Because I'm pretty sure the list of what the LGBT activists want is never-ending, and IMO, each item is NOT unquestionable, unexaminable simply because it comes from ones who are at times persecuted (as MANY types are). I don't think it should be disregarded because it comes from a tiny subgroup of society (that WOULD be discriminating) but I think it needs to be reasonable.
No, we don't need to respond to every single thing that a small minority wants. But if we can respond to what they want and in a way that also offers a benefit to other groups of people (especially where they may be far less vocal about their needs) while also making life generally better for everyone, it seems like an obvious opportunity to kill multiple birds with one stone.
2. While I too expressed some openness to getting rid of urinals and installing only toilets - with FULL floor-to-ceiling petitions OR simply having all private, single-person-only restrooms, neither is simple or cheap. And I doubt we can soundproof all this (at least not reasonably). PERSONALLY, as a guy (who is not at all prudish, lol) I'd be okay with restrooms but there ARE noises and I think this would be absolutely RIPE for a whole host of offensive and potentially abusive things (which I will not mention here) - that I suspect the females would be more sensitive to. And of course, I go back to my point: Be thoughtful and respectful and considerate to those IN THE RESTROOM (noted by the "MEN" or "WOMEN" sign on the door).... mind your own business...... don't display anything or look for anything..... wash your hands..... throw the towel in the trash..... leave. I think this has worked for BILLIONS of people of ALL types for a very, very long time (some of whom have been LGBT), and I see no reason why it can't continue to work fine.
There's really no need for all that soundproofing. If you hear someone grunting in the cubicle next to you, what of it? It's a toilet cubicle and someone else is going to the toilet. Maybe I'd rather not hear someone grunting but at some point we have to accept that a public bathroom is just that. I'd rather hear someone grunting than realise a previous user didn't flush or sprinkled on the seat or whatever.
Be thoughtful and respectful is a great maxim to live by but whatever we put into place needs to keep in mind that there will always be those who are anything but thoughtful or respectful. There's no obvious way of keeping them out, so we need to be able to minimise the opportunity they have to upset people.
Things have worked for a long time, and to be honest to a large extent transgender people will already have been using the facilities that correspond to their presented gender rather than the gender assigned to them at birth. And the chances are people don't notice it - if a person wearing makeup and a skirt goes into the ladies' room, picks a cubicle, does what she needs to do and leaves, nobody will know (nor will they need to know) what's under her dress. It's only when you get into communal changing rooms that it's a bit harder to hide things, which then leads right back to the question of why we consider it acceptable to expect people to undress in front of complete strangers based on nothing more than comparable anatomy?
3. If we built full walls around each toilet - put a full, solid, lockable door, essentially soundproof - then your "solution" (to what?) has much going for it. But is that reasonable? Necessary? Would it mean great costs? Would it likely mean far fewer could be served and thus longer lines (talk to your wife about this! They've had this reality for a long time - seems it would get worse with several toilets removed for the space, and we guys would learn what long waits are all about, lol).
Never mind the soundproofing, it just means buying 7x4 sheets instead of 4x4 sheets. The cubicles would be much the same as they are now, maybe we'd get rid of urinals (which would suit me just fine, I hate the things) and replace them with a couple of extra cubicles. It would hopefully reduce lines because you'd immediately overcome the situation where there are 15 ladies standing in line while the men's room is empty (so at a stroke there's a benefit to women, who are approximately 50% of the population).
I think in SMALL venues, I think a very simple "solution" exists. My wife and I have a fave fish restaurant - quite small. They USED to have two restrooms - a MEN and a WOMEN restroom, although both small and with just a toilet and sink. Last time we were there, the signs were changed to simple "RESTROOM" and a notation, "Please lock door behind you" on the door and inside. Actually speeds things up for BOTH - and since only one could ever use it anyway, we simply now have 2 "family" non-gender restrooms. But this restaurant maybe has 30 people in it, including staff, at MAX. Its a little harder at the ballpark when you have 50,000..... or a playhouse when 500 all hit the restrooms during the 15 minute intermission. I don't think this is a workable solution. EASIER at big venues is to have a FEW (cuz we're talking at most 0.3 %) "Family Restrooms" for all those special cases - but this would need to be for FUTURE construction, as a part of the building code, it would be very difficult to make this retroactive.
Where a facility is literally a single toilet bowl and a single hand basin it's absurd to have them marked as "male" or "female" facilities - as you say it's for one person and it makes no difference whether the occupant is male or female or something in between.
The thing is that a restaurant that can cope with maybe 30 people will have two or three bathroom stalls. A theme park with 50,000 visitors will have vastly more bathroom stalls, and will also have vastly more income to modify them. It's not even as if everything needs to be done at once - if it's done in stages you can have a men's room, a women's room, and a general restroom. Over time as the restrooms are upgraded they become unisex. So right off the cuff anyone uncertain about which bathroom to use can seek out a unisex facility, and over time things adapt.
In the playhouse where 500 people hit the bathroom in a 15 minute intermission it makes sense to have full usage of every stall. That's not achieved if half the people standing in line can only use half the stalls. If you've got lines outside one room while the other room is mostly empty, you're slowing down the process of getting everyone through the bathroom.
I suspect you are correct. Some of that 0.3% (MAX) won't like anything that is done. And, again, my hunch is, no matter what is done - we'll move on to the next thing the LGBT political activies demand because of the persecution they face.... But that's no excuse to not consider this one.
I suspect at least some of the LGBT community will find a reason to insist that they need special treatment, but at least changes can offer benefits to everyone else even if the only benefit regarding the transgender community is that it forces them to break cover and admit that they don't actually want to be treated the same as everyone else.
