Jump to content

User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in South Carolina

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Public toilets in South Carolina
Toilet facility on wheels
The late-2010s reconstruction of the southbound Interstate 95 South Carolina Welcome Center, in Dillon County, South Carolina had portable toilets for workers.
Language of toilets
Local wordswashroom
restroom
john
Men's toiletsMen
Women's toiletsWomen
Public toilet statistics
Toilets per 100,000 people6 (2021)
Total toilets??
Public toilet use
TypeWestern style sit toilet
Locations???
Average cost???
Often equipped with???
Percent accessible???
Date first modern public toilets???
.

Public toilets in South Carolina, commonly called washrooms, are found at a rate of around six public toilets per 100,000 people. Some were built to fight the spread of disease. Racial segregation policies played a role in their existence.

Public toilets

[edit]
A map of US states showing which mandate all single-person restrooms to be all-gender.

washroom is one of the most commonly used words for public toilet in the United States.[1] Euphemisms are often used to avoid discussing the purpose of toilets.  Words used include toilet, restroom, bathroom, lavatory and john.[2]

A 2021 study found there were six public toilets per 100,000 people.[3]

The toilets at Charleston Distilling in Charleston were third in Cintas' America’s Best Restroom Contest in 2015.[4]

History

[edit]

The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission was founded in 1909 to combat hookworm disease in the South. A survey was done of 11 southern states, which confirmed the presence of hookworm in 700 countries.  A chief cause of spread of hookworm disease as open defecation in farmland.  The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission program helped install public toilets and promote their use as part of their efforts to reduce hookworm disease.  This was coupled with offering free exams and health treatment for hookworm disease.[5]

Because Prohibition saw an increase in the construction of public toilets to address the new found demand, many municipalities located outside the South built sex-segregated public toilets that were essentially the same construction inside, with the same number of stalls and layout for each. In the South, public toilet facilities tended to have four toilet sections that reinforced racial segregation, one for white women, one for white men, one for colored men and one for colored women.[6]

There was a push back against building public toilets in Jim Crow states during the period between 1865 and 1960, because it meant that local governments were not just required to build two toilets, one for men and one for women, but four toilets, one each for men and women who were white and who were colored.[7] Racially segregated public toilets were very common in the 1960s.[7]

Gavin Grimm filed a lawsuit challenging Gloucester County School Board's rule that said students must use the public toilet that matches with their sex and not their gender identity or use a single occupancy toilet in 2016.  The case saw an appeals court decided that the rule was in violation of Title IX.  An earlier court had said it was not a violation.  An appeal was made to the Supreme Court decided in June 2021 not to look at the case, and instead left in place the 2020 Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said it was a Title IX violation. Failure to take the case, with Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito indicating they would have liked to, meant that the decision was only applicable to Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia whose jurisdiction is covered by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.[8][9]

Arkansas, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming sued the Obama administration in July 2016 over the administration's requirement that children be allowed to use school toilets based on their gender identity instead of their sex.[10]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Hess, Nico (2019-08-04). Introducing Global Englishes. Scientific e-Resources. ISBN 978-1-83947-299-2.
  2. ^ Farb, Peter (2015-08-19). Word Play: What Happens When People Talk. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-101-97129-1.
  3. ^ QS Supplies (11 October 2021). "Which Cities Have The Most and Fewest Public Toilets?". QS Supplies. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
  4. ^ "Are these the best public restrooms in the US?". Quartz. 2015-11-20. Retrieved 2022-11-01.
  5. ^ Tisdale, E. S.; Atkins, C. H. (November 1943). "The Sanitary Privy and Its Relation to Public Health". American Journal of Public Health and the Nations Health. 33 (11): 1319–1322. doi:10.2105/AJPH.33.11.1319. ISSN 0002-9572. PMC 1527454. PMID 18015900.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format (link)
  6. ^ Baldwin, P. C. (2014-12-01). "Public Privacy: Restrooms in American Cities, 1869-1932". Journal of Social History. 48 (2): 264–288. doi:10.1093/jsh/shu073. ISSN 0022-4529.
  7. ^ a b Yuko, Elizabeth (5 November 2021). "Where Did All the Public Bathrooms Go?". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 12 October 2022.
  8. ^ "US Supreme Court blocks transgender toilet ruling". BBC News. 2016-08-03. Retrieved 2022-10-26.
  9. ^ Hurley, Lawrence; Hurley, Lawrence (2021-06-28). "Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal". Reuters. Retrieved 2022-10-26.
  10. ^ "Ten states sue Obama administration over transgender bathroom policy". the Guardian. 2016-07-08. Retrieved 2022-10-31.