Gender signs

March 2, 2006 10:05 AM

Gender signs. A Flickr set and public group of photos of men's and women's bathroom signs from various places. So far these two are the best. (More info.)
posted by kirkaracha (22 comments total)

Strangely appealing.
posted by mrmojoflying at 10:27 AM on March 2, 2006

Great, now I have to pee.
posted by NationalKato at 10:43 AM on March 2, 2006

But inside German bathrooms, neatness is more important than gender.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:49 AM on March 2, 2006

Lobsters, squid. I don't know why that comic cracks me up, but it does.
posted by mendel at 10:53 AM on March 2, 2006

The funniest I've ever seen is a men & women's room designated with a nut & bolt.
posted by nuclear_soup at 11:25 AM on March 2, 2006

The most confused i've ever been about where to do my business is in Poland, where most doors are labelled with a circle and an upside-down triangle - is it gender, orientation, body type? That was a weekend full of surprises (for me and a number of hapless gentlemen).
posted by xanthippe at 11:35 AM on March 2, 2006

Longhorn steakhouse has "Bulls" for men and "Women" for women. I laugh when I think about the committee meeting that came up with that design decision.
posted by bovious at 11:59 AM on March 2, 2006

I have always wondered how the icon signs of the man figure in trousers and the woman figure in a skirt are handled in Scotland...
posted by Samuel Farrow at 12:24 PM on March 2, 2006

At this bar, there was a stylized penis for the women's, and a vagina for the men's, which were also the door handles. The instructions were "grab whatever you like best", which is kind of hetero-centric, I guess.
posted by signal at 12:49 PM on March 2, 2006

Ace Bar in Manhattan has the doors labeled with chromosomes (XX and XY) rather than traditional labels. Watching people who didn't do so hot in high school biology walk into the wrong restroom becomes an entertaining past time pretty quickly.
posted by mmcg at 12:57 PM on March 2, 2006

There was an awesome, down-home restaurant we used to go to when I was a kid in rural Alabama; the bathroom doors had pictures of dogs on them, one was a pointer, the other a setter. You had to know the difference and get the joke to know which bathroom to use.
posted by Pollomacho at 1:19 PM on March 2, 2006

kind of hetero-centric, I guess.

Depends on how strictly enforced it was I suppose!

Ace Bar in Manhattan has the doors labeled with chromosomes (XX and XY) rather than traditional labels.

Which one did hermaphrodites use?
posted by Pollomacho at 1:21 PM on March 2, 2006

I was in an Italian place once, it was new and chic. The bathroom doors were labeled maschio and femmina, which should be obvious right? Well they were in this hard to read ornate chrome, and I just followed a guy in -- not really paying attention. I noticed that there were no urinals, I proceeded to text my friends to come in to see a men's bathroom without urinals. Long story short, about 5 guys were standing around inside a woman's bathroom laughing at how it was "too classy to have urinals" and talking about how it was the cleanest restroom they've ever seen. We realized we were in the wrong restroom when a moritified straight-from-the-country-club WASP walks in. It was a priceless moment.
posted by geoff. at 2:29 PM on March 2, 2006

There's a really awesome Irish pub a couple of towns over from where I live, and their restrooms are marked "Himself" and "Herself." I love it (but then, I'm easily amused when I'm full of Guinness).
posted by Gator at 2:30 PM on March 2, 2006

I once got soused in an apparently feminism-inclined bar where the doors were marked with a fish and a bicycle. I didn't get it at the time, so I just picked one at random.
posted by Amanojaku at 4:41 PM on March 2, 2006

Oh my God, that's fabulous. Where, where was this bar and are there any pictures?
posted by Gator at 4:43 PM on March 2, 2006

I saw one once which had a penis with a line through it, and the other one had boobs with a line through them.
posted by chaz at 5:15 PM on March 2, 2006

I saw one once which had a penis with a line through it, and the other one had boobs with a line through them.

Again, not really helpful for the trannies that may stop by.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:28 PM on March 2, 2006

Well, I dunno about that. Boobs may be subjective, but you either have a penis or you don't, right?
posted by Gator at 5:30 PM on March 2, 2006

The cutesy vague restroom signs always kind of throw me for a loop.

Mind you if I am drinking I just choose at random
posted by Deep Dish at 6:24 PM on March 2, 2006

Where are the "bouys" and "gulls" from the classy seafood restaurants?
posted by Frank Grimes at 7:56 PM on March 2, 2006

Related: photo gallery of locks on toilet stalls.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:03 AM on March 14, 2006