Why are bathrooms separated? Why are there cracks in stall doors – and on that note why are stall walls barely high enough to limit (what is hopefully perceived as) awkward eye contact? Who made these stupid rules and standardized these poorly designed bathrooms; and why do we all conform?

The South is not only the ‘bible belt’ of America, but is the metaphorical weight

jacket, ankle weights and trash bag poor Uncle Sam is forced to wear as he jogs along in preparation for the natural progression of human civilization. In fact North Carolina prides itself on that notion, and wanted to remind the rest of America that this will not be an easy run.

Without too much detail, North Carolina has established a law which requires a ‘man’, who identifies as a woman is wearing a cute polka dot dress, has large fake breasts, and makeup on to use the same bathroom as a mildly drunk truck driving man, asscrack just slightly and ever so tastefully peaking out over the rim of his faded denim jeans.

The law punishes those who use a bathroom that does not match what is on their birth certificate – a law made legal due to a deep rooted fear of rape; and progressive change. However it should be noted; firstly, that entering a bathroom to harm or harass somebody is already illegal, and secondly, according to a Huffington Post article, in the 17 states, and 200 cities which expressly allow transgendered people to use whichever bathroom they wish there has been no increase in sexual assaults.

California is one of those states which explicitly allows transgendered people to use whichever restroom they feel most comfortable with. Fullerton College in particular has taken a further step to solve the problem; they have installed unisex bathrooms across campus to further comfort those who are curious on which bathroom to use.

“Fullerton College has a lot of changes coming in the next 20 years,” according to Fullerton College’s Director of Campus Communications, Lisa McPheron. She went on, “This is not North Carolina, far from it. I think with the coming building renovations we will see some bathroom issues addressed,” she did mention that nothing specific on the issue is in the works.

But if we’re going to the lengths of telling people they can use whichever bathrooms they choose renovating buildings and allocating unisex bathrooms to help alleviate the problem, why even segregate the bathrooms in the first place?

Our concept for standard bathrooms needs to be re-thought. Let’s have one shared bathroom as opposed to two separate bathrooms, sharing space and costing less to clean and care for. But before you get all weirdly grossed out that you’re now sharing restrooms with the opposite sex let’s change the design too, to make everyone more comfortable.

Stalls currently are the absolute worst designed concept in the modern bathroom (even worse than poorly designed urinals that splashes pee on your feet when you wear sandals and for those of you without a penis, yes, that happens). Stalls have crummy locks easy for a perpetrator or even just someone desperately searching for an empty stall to open up with a hard enough push.

Stalls are shorter than I am. If there is another guy who’s approximately 6 feet tall and standing next to me I can see him eye to eye over the stall and that sucks. There’s clearly a dangerous element to that because anyone over 6 feet can easily peer over the stall door if they so pervertedly choose to do so.

We need to address real issues of safety concerns, so that we can all feel comfortable and safe using any restroom available to us. Also while we’re on the issue of stalls and how to improve them I can’t stand when the automatic flush flushes while I’m still sitting, and why don’t all stalls automatically have coat hangers in them?!