As one ages, one’s bladder capacity and urinary dysfunction are altered due to pregnancy, prostate problems and general protoplasmic trials and tribulations. If you’re raised in a house with four brothers and an older sister with one shared bathroom, you learn about holding your water, privacy and sharing in a way that public restrooms generally don’t allow.

The recent action by the Charlotte City Council to allow both sexes access to either’s designated restroom without regard to genetic/sexual identity is stupid or just plain dumb. The issue isn’t LBGT rights but failure to protect personal privacy, which is paramount when elimination of bodily waste is concerned.

As young children, my sons went into conniptions when they had to use the women’s bathrooms where their walled off privacy stalls were more than male urinal accommodations provided. A challenge for fathers with custody of their small daughters needing to go is taking them to the male facilitates.

In Israel there are rest areas which can accommodate either way with water/toilet closets and a common trough for hand washing.  In airports the designated family facilities accommodate either sex as well as have diaper changing stations.

We are taking accommodations too far when there are often simple alternatives for bathroom privacy.  In schools, faculty/individual bathrooms are usually available which do not identify physically/genetically as male or female could access.  Building codes should be modified toward preference for handicapped-type stalls, some of which have hand washing capabilities. 

This larger, safer space beats the rows of toilets which those of us of the oversized variety may have to back into while the able bodied too often hog those designated for the disabled.

I have learned to accept that there are people in the world who don’t share my lifestyle values, but there is a biological imperative on certain issues involving the need for privacy in making personal choices which may supersede collective individual rights. Times are a-changing, but forcing a wrong which offends the needs of those of us who relish in our natural anatomy and sexuality isn’t right.

Let us be who we are and have some privacy in the bathroom, please.

Dr. Ada M. Fisher of Salisbury is the N.C. Republican National Committee Woman. Contact her at P. O. Box 777; Salisbury, NC 28145 or  DrFisher@DrAdaMFIsher.org