Portland Bans Urinals In Its Municipal Services Building

                The city of Portland has banned urinals in its self-titled Portland Building, the home of the city’s administrative offices, even though they use less water than toilets. What’s more, the many existing urinals will be removed from the building, as part of its extensive and expensive remodel-- to be completed in 2020-- and a spokeswoman told NBC affiliate KGW News that she could not provide an estimate of how much the removal will cost.

                Chief Administrative Officer Tom Rinehart attempted to justify the urinal ban in an email to employees. Rinehart stated: "We will continue to have gender-specific (male and female) multi-stall restrooms that are readily available to any employee that prefers to use one. But there will be no urinals in any restroom in the building. This will give us the flexibility we need for any future changes in signage.” So, removing all the urinals in the building and capping the plumbing, etc., will be less expensive than changing some signage?

                The building will have multiple gender-neutral, multi-stall bathrooms for the simultaneous use of men and women, and every floor will have at least one bathroom open to “any gender.” There will be a total of 42 “all-user stalls.”

                Rinehart also said in his email that: "I am convinced that this is the right way to ensure success as your employer, remove arbitrary barriers in our community, and provide leadership that is reflective of our shared values." And shared bathrooms. We’ve got to remove arbitrary barriers-- like those between men and women who are urinating and defecating! The right to shared bowel movements is one of the great civil rights…um, movements… of our time!

                Numerous men have already utilized Target store’s gender-neutral bathroom and changing room policy to perv on girls and women in various states of undress, but, apparently, that’s as nothing compared to the heinous bigotry of someone refusing to call a man a woman…or vice-versa.

                So, good-bye urinals, you are nothing more than white, porcelain relics of a bygone era when men and women were considered biologically different, and each was afforded respect and privacy. At least when going to the bathroom.