Non-gender and Women

I almost forget today that I can stop at any public library and use the wifi free, so I can stop looking for a whole foods, macdonalds, or starbucks!

The library I pull over at is located right off I74 in a very small town, but small or large, in the u.s.ofa. you can always depend on there being a library with internet access - bring your own laptop or using theirs.

Sure enuff, after I've parked in the sun so my solar batteries can charge in the bright sun after a few hours of dark skies and rain, when I enter the library I'm given the password and directed to a table I can work at.

I of course need to use the bathroom before I start working and what do you know, here in the middle of wide expanses of golden brown corn fields and trees turning colors and a handful of houses with the occaisional gas station at an freeway exit, even here where the library serves several outlying areas of exactly 1,500 individuals, on one of the single use bathroom doors the sign reads "Non-Gender and Women".

Really? Fuckin really?

I proceed inside and what do you know yet again - there's a urinal and seperate toilet so obviously this was the previous men's room. What an acknowledgement that men will be peeing alongside women here.

I go to the other bathroom and see "Men" written on the door. I enter and low and behold there's just a toilet - no urinal.

When it's time for me to go, I ask the two librarians at the desk, one the obvious supervisor, why the non-gender designation was added to women and not to men?

The supervisor said she didn't know, it was done before her time.

As I state the obvious about womyn always being the ones to have to sacrifice, the other librarian spoke with authority about the previous supervisor being totally disorganized and messy (obviously not their only fault) and no longer working there but because of this tendency to be disorganized. Therefore the first bathroom was the only one that was accessible by wheelchair.

The supervisor then said that probably both bathrooms should say "Gender neutral".

I said I think they should say "Women" on one, "Men" on the other but if it has to be anything other, I guess "gender neutral" is a compromise.