A few days ago my son came in my office and asked: “What do you think about unisex toilets?”. Now my wife Cristina and I do not usually discuss toilets with our three boys, except for the usual “Can you please learn how to aim, flush and put down the seat?!” In a household of four males whose morning ritual has a five-centimetre margin of error, that mantra is losing whatever doubtful potency it had 20 years ago.

But this was more serious than that. He was asking me about the introduction of unisex toilets in a part of the University of Malta. I told him that for teachers, unisex toilets were old hat. I have worked in mixed staffrooms that were served by two toilets, and sometimes even one. You just went about your business as considerately as possible, ignored any noises (and smells) not coming from your own cubicle, and got on with your work.

My general experience is that unisex or almost-unisex toilets in mixed-gender staffrooms were cleaner than toilets in men-only staffrooms. And the same analogy could be made for the staffrooms themselves. I would prefer the banter and dyna­mics of a mixed-gender staffroom over the top-dog hierarchy of a men-old staffroom any day. It was simply more natural, and that really was the end of issue. There was already sufficiently rich comic material in the classrooms, the staffrooms, the school management offices and the copybooks we were correcting to bother about any sort of toilet humour.

Come to think of it, we all live in homes with unisex toilets, which obligingly serve any and all apertures and appendages, whatever additional use is made of said unmentionables outside the sphere of hygiene. Seriously now, would any parent reserve a toilet for their LGBT child, unless that child had a communicable disease? Is LGBT a communicable disease?

Would any parent reserve a toilet for their LGBT child, unless that child had a communicable disease? Is LGBT a communicable disease?

The Strange Case of the Unisex Toilet is not just about a toilet. In a deeper sense, it is about what we define as ‘normal’. One of the most enduring images of South African apartheid is the distinction between ‘black’ and ‘white’ toilets, symbolising the control of the State even on the most intimate functions of the bodies of its citizens.

I can understand that any attempts to redefine what is ‘normal’ can bring uncertainty and highlight insecurities – I have been there. One of my life-changing experiences when I was chairing the National Family Commission 10 years ago was meeting an LGBT group. I remember the pain that flowed from the testimonies I heard, and especially one young man who told his story in the third person, as if he was not in the room.

I think in spite of the progress in LGBT rights in recent years, many of us are still insensible to the stink of the drains of our lingering prejudices. There are some for whom the affirmation of LGBT rights has the unpleasant smell of political opportunism, of concessions made too quickly too soon. Nor is the LGBT lobby group immune from the inevitable temptations of any other successful lobby around the world.

But these are really transient concerns. We need to change the ‘normal’ not because it is politically incorrect, but because people are still getting hurt. The present ‘normal’ is unnatural – it should be as simple as that.

Sometimes insecurities are a good thing; they could be signalling a movement from a position of comfortable, unthinking injustice. And what is normal for all our families, what is natural, is for all of us to use our bathrooms with consideration. Our bathrooms are the great levellers, where we are all equal, where we are all entitled to have the same privacy and read a magazine in peace.

So my concern is not that a ‘disabled’ toilet has been rebranded as a ‘unisex’ toilet, thus expanding the definition of difference. It is that all toilets, in all entities, should be unisex. Of course, this would mean restructuring the facilities so that all users would be catered for. And if some of the men’s toilets I have had to endure in many public buildings need to turn unisex to become half-decent, that day cannot come too soon.

We need to recognise the incommensurable pain that our ‘normal’ has caused throughout the ages, in our complacent ignorance and our defensive insecurity, when we have looked at our brothers’ and sisters’ genitals rather than at their eyes and their hearts.

We should be opening our hearts to our LGBT brothers, sisters and friends. In so doing, our own hearts will be cleansed. And perhaps there can be no better metaphor, no better way of saying sorry, than opening all our toilets to them.

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