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Cohen Testifies at Hearing on Restroom Gender Parity in Federal Buildings

May 12, 2010

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN-9) today testified at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s hearing on the “Restroom Gender Parity in Federal Buildings Act.” The Congressman authored Tennessee’s restroom gender parity laws when he was a member of the Tennessee State Senate.

“Women should have as many facilities as men,” said Congressman Cohen. “Some older buildings that were built decades ago still do not have an appropriate amount of restrooms for women. This bill would ensure that all new federal buildings and those that are renovated are properly equipped to accommodate women.”

The committee took testimony from the U.S. General Services Administration and other experts on the Restroom Gender Parity in Federal Buildings Act (H.R. 4869), which was authored by Congressman Ed Towns (D-NY-10). The measure would revise the Federal Acquisition Regulation to require that the number of toilets in women's restrooms equal or exceed the number of toilets and urinals in men's restrooms in all future federal buildings or in major renovations of existing federal buildings.

Historically, access to public restrooms has been an instrument of discrimination, limiting access by race, gender or physical disability. Federal legislation has eliminated much of this discrimination. Racially segregated public restrooms were prohibited in 1964 with the passage of Title II of the Civil Rights Act. In 1968, the Architectural Barriers Act required that facilities built, renovated, leased and/or financed by the federal government be constructed so as to be accessible by persons with disabilities. In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act required reasonable access for disabled people to private sector facilities, including restrooms.

Nevertheless, while this is not outright discrimination women are often forced to wait in long lines to use public restrooms while men rarely do. This has a number of causes. Many public buildings were constructed decades ago before women entered the workforce in large numbers. Further, procurement officers, contractors, architects, engineers, and builders were overwhelmingly male, and rarely considered the needs of women.

Within the last couple of decades, public appreciation of gender parity issues has gradually resulted in improvements in restroom gender parity. As of 2006, at least 21 states had adopted statutes addressing restroom gender parity. The potential health complications for women waiting in long restroom lines are now more widely understood. These include abdominal pain, and greater risk of cystitis and other urinary tract infections that, if left untreated, can cause renal damage.

The Tennessee Equitable Restrooms Act, which was authored by Congressman Cohen when he was a State Senator and was enacted in 1994, requires any publicly or privately-owned facilities where the public congregates – like sports and entertainment arenas, convention centers, and amusement parks – to be equipped with sufficient restrooms.