"Which Restroom?" Dilemma: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

While this is almost always [[Played For Laughs]] in fiction, the sobering [[Truth in Television]] is that many trans, intersex, and gender-ambiguous people face this problem every day.

{{quote|''signs read "Boy's Changing Room", "Girl's Changing Room", and "Hideyoshi's Changing Room"''

'''Akishisa''': So is Hideyoshi a new gender? }}

 

== [[Film]] ==

 

== [[Literature]] ==

{{quote|It was uncomfortable - and only got tougher when, a couple of hours later, I desperately had to use the bathroom.

First, I had to decide which facility to use. At first I thought it might be wise to use the ladies's room, but when push came to shove I just couldn't go in. Finally, when my bladder threw up a white flag, I was forced to hike up my skirt, throw out my pride, and in my most macho posture, march into the men's room.

With that, I flicked my long hair back and locked myself in a stall. }}

* In the [[Andy Griffiths]] book ''Just Tricking'', one of the short stories (''Copy-Cat From Ballarat'') is about Andy disguised as a girl at a school dance as part of some scheme to annoy his sister Jen. At one point he needs to use the restroom, and automatically goes to the men's room, but a teacher stops him and tells him to use the ladies' instead.

* A little children's book about a talking moose attending school has the moose wondering which restroom to use.

 

* In ''[[Little Britain]]'', "Emily" (Eddie) Howard, the friendly neighbourhood cross dresser, goes to a swimming pool. "She" stands outside the ladies changing room for about a direction, motioning that she is about to go in, however the clerk does not give in and eventually she reluctantly gives in and storms into the male changing rooms.

* In an episode of ''[[Rentaghost]]'', one of the characters had reason to be loitering around the change rooms at a swiming pool. One of the attendants started looking at him stragely. He looked at the two signs and, being unsure of what to do and having been told to act like an 'innocent bystander', used his magical powers to create a third sign reading 'Innocent Bystanders' and headed off in that direction.

* One ''[[Private Eye]]'' cartoon just after the Anglican Church started accepting woman bishops was a woman bishop standing outside a set of toilet doors in confusion. Both of the signs were woman signs. Because bishops wear robes. And on the sign they'd look like dresses. Visual gag.

* An ''[[Insanity Streak]]'' strip had a human standing in alien bar and being completely baffled by the bizarre symbols on the restroom doors.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* A running gag on ''[[And Shine Heaven Now]]'' is that the new member of Iscariot wants to know what bathroom the gender-ambiguous Heinkel uses. {{spoiler|Finally answered in [http://hellsing.comicgenesis.com/d/20100222.html this strip]}}.

* Invoked in ''[[Girls with Slingshots]]'' to prove that "Aaron" is actually Erin.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* When the title character of ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' gets lost in the bizarre town of Rock Bottom he can't read the signs over the bathroom doors, since it's written in a strange language. So he waits for someone to walk into one of them so he can tell by context. Cue gender confusion.

* An subversion: in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', Lenny goes to a '50s theme bar and the toilets are "Cool Cats" and "Squares". He goes into one, women scream, goes into the other, same thing. He is confused.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

[[Category:Gender Blending Tropes]]

[[Category:Gender and Sexuality Tropes]]