Bathroom Policing: How anti-transgender bathroom legislation does more harm than good
We all have to use the bathroom.
In theory, it should be pretty simple.
Walk into the bathroom of your assigned gender, and walk out when you're done.
However, for transgender individuals, people whose gender identity doesn't match with their biological sex, even this can be a struggle.
Recently, some states have passed legislation restricting bathroom access to those whose sex matches the gender the bathroom was intended for.
This is a huge problem for these individuals, who have been marginalized by society since society knew they existed.
Due to this legalization, transgender people are forced to return to an identity that they have worked hard to distance themselves from, which can lead to a stressful and distressing experience for them.
Even cisgender people hate to be misgendered, or assumed to be a gender opposite to what they really are.
Any behaviors or physical traits stereotypically matching the opposite sex are twisted to be insulting to the person possessing them.
There's a reason “like a girl” continues to be used to insult boys.
So, if a cisgender girl is distressed when a stranger mistakenly refers to them as “sir” or “son”, imagine how much worse that emotion is when the person has faced such experiences their entire life, and knows that their fight to be respected as the person they are has not yet led to an outward appearance easily identifiable as what they wish to be know as.
Using the bathroom of the opposite gender would be an uncomfortable experience for all of us, and this experience is what trans men and women are faced with every day due to this legislation.
Many supporters of this law have argued that the opposite is also true- that cisgender men and women will be extremely disturbed to see a person appearing to be a different gender than them walk into the bathroom of their specific gender.
However, wouldn't, for example, a woman seeing a trans man walk into the ladies room be disturbed as well?
The majority of trans individuals present as the gender they identify as.
Therefore, people noticeably dressed as women would be walking into the men's bathroom and masculine-presenting individuals would be in the women's bathroom.
Some transgender individuals have taken to social media to showcase this.
Transgender woman Brae Carnes has started a social media campaign featuring pictures of her in the men’s bathroom to protest an amendment to a transgender rights bill in Canada.
This amendment would force transgender individuals to use the bathroom of the gender they were assigned at birth.
In response, Carnes has posted selfies of herself fixing her makeup and even changing in the bathroom.
“I’m giving them what they want,” said Carnes in an interview with The Times Colonist. “I’m actively showing them what it would look like if that became law and how completely ridiculous that is. It’s just not right.”
Following her campaign, transgender man Michael Hughes posted similar selfies of himself in the women’s restroom, adding the tag #WeJustNeedtoPee.
“It was a bit of a tough decision, I knew I was forever outing myself,” said Hughes to The Advocate, “but I knew I could get at some of these conservatives by showing them a tall bearded man in a women’s bathroom.”
The ironic thing about this legislation is that it forces trans men like Hughes to use the women’s restroom and trans women like Carnes to use the men’s restroom, even though conservative politicians claim that one of the main goals of the law is to prevent women from being uncomfortable when “men” use their bathroom.
“Ordinance defied common sense, allowing men to use women’s bathroom/locker room for instance. That’s why I signed bipartisan bill to stop it,” said Pat McCrory, who signed the bill in North Carolina.
So, in an effort to keep men and women away from each other in the bathroom, they are forcing women to enter the men’s restroom and men to walk into the women’s.
This will obviously lead to many issues of harassment.
A study performed by UCLA showed that 70% of trans individuals have experienced negative interactions using the bathroom of the gender they were assigned at birth.
These interactions can range from verbal insults to physical and sexual threats.
Carnes has even been followed to her car and asked to have sex by a man who was banging on her windows, according to Planet Transgender.
According to the Office for Victims of Crimes, half of the transgender community are sexually abused or assaulted.
For reference, 20% of women are sexually assaulted, according to the New York Times, and 3% of men, according to RAINN.
However, one of the most prevalent arguments for the new legislation is the possibility of a cisgender male pretending to be transgender to enter the women’s bathroom and sexually assault the women inside.
There’s no denying that this has happened, with examples including Jason Pomare, a 33 year old man who was arrested in 2013 for filming women in a California bathroom.
This was two years after California passed its Gender Nondiscrimination Act, according to Huffpost Queer Voices.
Therefore, it is possible that this legislation allowed this man to perform such horrible actions.
However, there are cases of similar atrocities happening before nondiscrimination laws were passed allowing transgender individuals to use the bathroom of the gender they identify as.
One such example is Christopher Hambrook, who dressed as a woman to sexually assault two women in a shelter.
However, this incident occurred 5 months before Canada’s “Toby’s Law” allowed transgender individuals to use the bathrooms of their gender.
Its horrible, but if a person wants to assault someone, the threat of the law is not going to stop them.
Also, by forcing transgender women to use the men’s bathroom, they are put at a much greater risk.
As Terri Poore, policy director at the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, told The Huffington Post, “We know the threat of sexual assault is real and pervasive — we just don’t think discriminating against transgender people does anything to keep anyone safe,”
According to the Williams Institute, there are 700,000 transgender people in the United States.
These individuals face a horrific amount of discrimination, leading to an extremely high suicide rate of 41%.
Therefore, we have the responsibility to stand with them as they fight for their rights, and to speak against anyone using inaccurate and harmful stereotypes to convince society that the discrimination must increase.
As Hughes said in his social media campaign, they just need to pee.
PHOTO: SOPHIE ADAMS
