The Disappearing Public Toilet
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The Disappearing Public Toilet
Taunya Lovell Banks*
Not having a place to go must surely be one of life's great indignities ...
[I]nequities of class, gender, and physical capacity gain their expression in
moments of anxiety over how to eliminate one's waste.'
Contemporary discussions about toilets in the public sphere focus on
access to public toilets and discrimination based on sex and gender
identity. These discussions largely presuppose that public toilets are
widely available. Free or low-cost public toilets operated by the
government, however, have largely disappeared, supplanted by toilets in
office buildings, hotels, department stores, restaurants, and theaters. Thus,
private businesses, who often limit access to their customers, control
access to toilet facilities in the public sphere. As a result, many people lack
reasonable access to toilets outside their home, as private operators
determine who has access and when. Further, many urban cities
criminalize public urination, considered a sex offense by some
jurisdictions. Lack of toilet access in the public sphere is a chronic
problem not limited to homeless individuals. It also impacts others whose
needs often are invisible to the casual observer-taxi drivers, utility
workers, gas and electric service workers, people doing street repair, and
pedestrians on main streets after normal business hours.
In this Article, I assert that the lack of government operated or
sponsored public toilets in urban areas and their replacement with toilets
controlled by private business creates opportunities to discriminate against
people seeking access to those toilets based on occupation, socioeconomic
status, gender-identification, race, and even medical condition. There also
are health issues related to lack of access to public toilets, including the
transmission of hepatitis A. Therefore, the lack of public toilets constitutes
* Jacob A. France Professor of Equality Jurisprudence, University of Maryland Francis King
Carey School of Law. The author thanks Thomas Kleven and William Moon for their
helpful comments and insights as well as Ava Claypool, Class of 2018, Avatara Smith-
Carrington, Class of 2019, and Susan McCarty for their research assistance. A special
thanks to the editors who worked through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Harvey Molotch, Peeing in Public, 7 CONTEXT 60, 60 (2008).
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The Disappearing Public Toilet
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