The Toilet (a.k.a. The Restroom)

One of the basic fundamental thoughts about existentialism is the question: “What was first? The idea/concept or the result/object?”

Imagine living before the dark ages has started, before Christianity became popular, before we had proper houses, before paper was invented, and in a time when there were a mere 1 billion people on this planet. Biologically we are simply transforming food into shit. We eat, take all out the body needs and dispose what we don’t need. That has to come out eventually, sometimes “a little bit” faster when something bad enters our bodies, but that’s a whole different story.

In order to dispose our waste we make either our backs a bit longer or we “water the flowers”, at least, back then. That’s a whole big pile of shit we produce and soon we found out that we need to contain it, or put it in canals. Soon after that wasn’t good enough either and we developed a sewerage. We got sick, not only of the smell, but literary we got sick!

As men and women are biologically are different, yes, it is, by far for most, most comfortable that women and men have gotten their own designated areas. Women aren’t keen on the urinals and men, well, at least me, simply are happy not having to see the disposal of pads and tampons. Also the prevention of unwanted attention of what is done in a certain privacy was established.

All of that resulted in the toilet, a clean (if it’s cleaned) place to hygienically dispose your own produced basis of compose. Or the result of the idea to maintain a good level of health.

In the same breath, existentialism also concerns about life. What was first? The idea of life or creation (for the religious people among us)? God, Allah, all-knowingly created human life to fulfill the need and deed of the holy books and live a humble, respectful, loving they neighbor as you love yourself concept. Or, we simply are born because our parents did the deed and we are born into a world to decide on our own faith. In any of the two versions, we were here unknowingly, found out who we are and how to find purpose to our lives.

Yes, yes, God doesn’t make mistakes, but (always a but), there are simply people who don’t feel well in their own body. Name them, shame them, respect them, love them, whatever your opinion is, that doesn’t take the fact away that these people simply feel that way. Now, living in the 21st century, we have managed that far that we physically can change our gender. Name it, shame it, it doesn’t matter, it is possible. I am very happy for those people to be able to use it and give the true existence to their own lives. Yahooo!!!

So here I need help. As I truly don’t understand it, and please comment on it in the comment section: We have a full functioning waste disposal system as in toilets, we have divided it into men and women. We have control over our own lives, specifically over our on existence and gender. Then, some random people, who happen to have some influence, just decide on whatever ground not to respect people giving themselves the identity and very existence they want to have out of their free will?

I mean, a face of either a man/woman, boobs (or not anymore), right tone of voice, through hormonal intake the skin and all changed just as any man/woman is. And those men and women, who not only are looking like men and women but ARE (or became) men and/or women, cannot go to a toilet designed for men or women because they aren’t born as one? And if they are discriminated against, they cannot go to court? Seriously? Do I understand that correctly?

“‘Men should not be going to the bathroom with little girls,’ Cruz said during a taping of an MSNBC town hall today. ‘As the father of daughters I’m not terribly excited about men being able to go alone into a bathroom with my daughters.'” – Ted Cruz (from Daily Mail)

Dear Ted! What ‘men’ are you talking about? What is the factual probability that a woman, who happened to be born as a man, “is going to be to the bathroom with little girls”? Do you think such a woman is taking a little girl by their hands, into a cube, lowering pants, better, lifting up her skirt, so that this poor little girl can see something that doesn’t look quite the same as her own downstairs?

I might have an understanding that there can be a confusion when a transvestite/drag queen who resembles to a man (unshaven like Chonticha Wurst) would go to a women’s toilet that there can be an objection. It’s a difficult situation as for the transvestite/drag queen it is not easy to go to the toilet of their own gender as their own gender might harass that person, and for the opposite gender a problem because it’s an opposite gender coming in that toilet.

But wait! Bear with me! There is more! Cultures aren’t the same! Wait!

In India, people do not use toilet paper! They swing their fingers smoothly around their hole, wash it off, and done! No clue how women do it during their period, but, I did join in on that culture. Clean with the left hand, eat with the right. What’s the deal? In, often, rural India women cannot go to the fields ‘to do their business’ after sunrise and before sunset. Men can. Yes, India is one of the countries that doesn’t have toilets for everyone in rural villages. Should women be protected from harassing men by doing their business only in the dark? Is it such a shame to be a woman to be discriminated against that way?

Or what about China! I was there at a high school, badly needing a toilet! I asked and they pointed to a building up a hill. So I went, and when I came around the corner, a whole row of boys with their asses over a concrete beam dropping their business in a big stinking hole! NO WAY! I turned around and didn’t need to go for the next 2 days straight! Not to generalize China at all, that was just a case I’ve experienced at that rural school. But still, there are more Chinese boys and girls pooping that way than there is a chance in the USA that there is a “man going to a restroom with a little girl”.

What about Thailand? When I, as teacher then, joined a school trip with a rented bus, I also noticed something absurd in Ted’s eyes. High school kids, the ‘ladyboys’, just went to the girl’s toilet! OMG! And the good thing about it was, when I asked the girls’ opinion? “But teacher! He is a girl!! Of course she goes to a girls toilet!” Okay, I thought, if that’s common for you and without any problem, then who am I to have any opinion about it. As we all know, Thailand is pretty developed and not a ‘backwards country’.

So, dear Teddy, and all the LGBT shamers, people are different, have their own values, culture, and beliefs from all different faiths. That’s not wrong, bad, or a risk. That’s human diversity and something we should be proud of. All humans have the right to live, to exist, and to give meaning to how they want to live meaningfully with respect and dignity towards themselves and others. Maybe you don’t swallow much, but that at least, you should!

Peace.