The Urban Management Authority of Guangzhou, located in South China’s Guangdong Province, has begun gathering public feedback on a proposal to convert some men’s restrooms into unisex facilities. This initiative aims to address the issue of long waiting lines outside women’s restrooms and the imbalance in the number of male and female stalls, drawing significant public attention.
According to a statement published on the Guangzhou Urban Management and Comprehensive Law Enforcement Bureau’s website, the city plans to continue expanding public restroom infrastructure by constructing new facilities, renovating and enlarging existing ones, and repurposing some men’s restrooms into unisex toilets. This strategy is meant to alleviate the shortage of women’s restrooms in certain areas, as reported by Guangzhou Daily on Wednesday.
The draft proposal includes transforming some public restrooms into gender-neutral facilities accessible to both men and women, addressing the unequal ratio of stalls and the underutilization of male facilities. It also outlines plans for restroom renovations. The estimated demand for public toilets in Guangzhou between 2024 and 2035 is projected to range from 6,405 to 10,675. While the current availability of public restrooms satisfies the standard requirement of three to five per square kilometer, their distribution across the city remains uneven, according to The Paper on Wednesday.
Additionally, the proposal suggests building child-friendly restrooms to meet the needs of young users and providing more human-centered services for children.
The initiative has sparked lively discussions online, with many netizens advocating for an increase in the number of women’s restrooms. An official from the Urban Management and Comprehensive Law Enforcement Bureau clarified that the unisex restrooms, or all-gender restrooms, are designed to be used by either men or women. These facilities are equipped with an indicator light outside the door to show when they are occupied, as reported by Nanfang Daily on Wednesday.
The city has already implemented more than a dozen gender-neutral restrooms, enabling a flexible allocation of stalls for men and women to adapt to varying demands and improve efficiency. Under the proposal, 933 new or expanded restrooms are planned by 2035, with 308 scheduled for completion by 2030.
