Señor Wooly’s “¿Puedo ir al Baño?“ was a staple of my middle school life. We’d watch it in Spanish class, and it follows a character singing a lament to his unforgiving teacher, begging to be let out to use the bathroom. At the end of the video, after almost four minutes of telling his teacher that it’s an emergency, our protagonist is denied his request.
“¿Puedo ir al Baño?” is a fictional comedy video and language learning tool. That being said, its subject matter is something almost everyone has experienced – being denied the autonomy of going to the bathroom.
I only have one kidney. Because of that, all through my pre-college education, I’ve had a doctor’s note, telling my teachers that they have to let me use the bathroom whenever I need. Holding in urine can lead to serious kidney damage, so even though the one I have is roughly the size of a six-foot cis guy’s kidney, that’s not a risk I’m willing or able to take.
Holding in urinary and bowel movements isn’t just dangerous when you’ve only got one kidney. The least severe consequence of holding in fecal matter for too long is constipation — a digestive condition that makes it extremely difficult to pass stool. At its worst, though, not pooping when you need to can lead to incontinence or increased risk of colon cancer.
Aside from the risks, there are also several conditions of life that make holding it incredibly difficult. Young children, the elderly, the pregnant and many intellectually and physically disabled people are in positions that mean readily accessible toilets are a must.
An accessible public toilet can accommodate as many types of people as possible, meaning that it should be free, gender-neutral, large enough to fit anyone of any size or mobility status and compliant with the standards set out by the ADA. It should also be well-maintained in both cleanliness and function.
However, public toilets are a rarity, and when they do exist, they’re seldom accessible at all.
The lack of restrooms also tangibly makes urban areas worse to be in, but the smell of pee is nothing against the lack of dignity those without any access to even private toilets are subjected to. Anyone who has been downtown in cities like Portland, Oregon can confirm that the entire area smells distinctly of urine. I have personally seen human feces on the side of the road.
I can’t imagine my only option being to relieve myself in an open public area. This is, unfortunately, something that I can only say because I have the immense privilege of living somewhere that has a bathroom.
It is an injustice that 23 out of 10,000 people in the United States of America are discriminated against in such an invisible and cruel way. It is an injustice that the dialogue around their discrimination starts and ends with the smell of a city rather than the fact that there is an entire population of people who are automatically at higher risk for kidney, bladder and colon related issues. It is an injustice that this discrimination is not only legal, but socially acceptable.
Mentions of the toilet are usually framed as a joke, and not just any joke, an especially immature kind of humor that is almost exclusively reserved for children. Toilets aren’t a topic for “polite society.” In fact, the only mainstream bathroom issue that’s been talked about in recent years is which ones transgender and gender non-conforming people are allowed to use, which is another barrier to one’s ability to use the restroom.
Access to toilets should be a right, not a privilege. The fact that it isn’t, the fact that it’s so normal for teachers to restrict children’s ability to use the bathroom that it’s referenced so readily, is a failing on a societal and cultural level. It’s an invisible injustice, and we must start these conversations, or else nothing will be done about it.
