Op-Ed: Restroom Hype — Don’t Let It Get Ya

The current hype over restroom and locker room rights for trans people is just that, hype, intended to arouse Republican conservative voters so they will come out in large numbers in the fall and re-elect their legislators, replace some Democrats, and install a Republican president.
When we look at the kerfuffle from our side, the trans perspective, we know that we are not monsters, or perverts who seek to enter spaces that are dedicated to providing privacy for women. We are not interested in peeking under restroom stalls or groping women while they primp in front of the mirror. Trans women are women who need to use the restroom for its main purpose and forcing them to use facilities for men is wrong and dangerous.

Viewed from the conservative side the restriction of women’s restrooms and locker rooms to those born with female reproductive organs makes perfect sense. Conservatives do not accept that gender can be fluid, that people can be born with a body that expresses one sex but feel like they are the other sex. To them men are men and women are women. When they think of a trans girl going into a female locker room at the local high school they see a “boy with a penis” entering the locker room and walking around naked to shower with the girls while he shows off his privates. And that would be weird — if the trans girl was actually a boy. Which she isn’t. What trans girl would be open to standing in front of her classmates naked with exposed male genitals? Not any that I can think of. The goal of most trans females is to be accepted by other women as a woman. Exposing ones male genitals is not going to help attain that goal.

So yes, the locker room is an area that requires some thought. Conservatives shout that President Obama is “forcing girls to shower with boys.” That’s not what the President’s guidelines recommend. What they do say is that trans students must be accommodated. Some schools have abided by the guidelines by providing a curtained off area where trans students can change and shower. Yes that is a special accommodation but it should satisfy most trans girl’s modesty. You won’t hear conservatives mention that solution, though.

Back to the restroom issue. Those on the trans side of the argument already know that there is nothing to be worried about. We have been using the lady’s room for years. I could not count how many times I have used public lady’s rooms in the past twenty years. When you’re presenting yourself as a woman you don’t want to go into a men’s room. The men tend to get upset.
The conservatives screaming about this issue seem to think that the whole idea of trans women in the lady’s rooms just popped up a few months ago. Why don’t they realize we’ve been in there with them all these years? Because restrooms are made for privacy. Some restrooms don’t have stalls with space underneath and above the partitions but walls that go from floor to ceiling separating the toilets. Women go into the restroom, enter a stall, do their business (as the Charmin bears say in the television ad “Enjoy the do”) and leave after a quick hand washing and maybe a makeup touch up. No one has any opportunity so see what genitals anyone in there happens to own.

Men’s rooms are far less private since often the urinals are not separated by any barrier. With just a turn of the head a man can get a look at the next guy’s junk. Last Thursday on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah the host did a segment on the restroom issue and said that nobody wants to see another man’s penis while he’s in the restroom. If you’ve been in a men’s room you know it’s true. No one talks to anyone that they are not acquainted with already, and even that chat is kept to a minimum. Eyes are on the wall and no one dares to glance to the right or left. We have taboos about this that are most likely due to homophobia. Whatever the reason no one is going to look.

Conservatives also, almost without exception, never mention trans men in the restroom. The one exception seems to be the case of a trans male student named Gavin Grimm. He was not allowed to use the boy’s facilities at his high school, sued, and won his case. Would he have walked into the locker room with the other guys after gym class and not kept his vagina covered? Not likely but someone at the school seemed to think that he would. For the most part though trans men seem to be invisible to conservatives. If they did stop to think about it their requirement that trans people use the restroom of their birth sex is going to cause a lot more upset if trans men all start going to the lady’s room. Women will not be happy when bearded men are in there with them. But maybe the trans men will distract the women so much they won’t notice the trans woman slipping into a stall to relieve herself.

The contention by many that anti-discrimination legislation will allow any man to go into the lady’s room any time he wants is the other point the conservatives love to hammer home. They say “men can just declare that they feel like a woman and go into the lady’s room.”  That’s just ludicrous. The idea seems to be that sexual predators will use the cover of the anti-discrimination laws to say they are trans women so they can walk into to any restroom they please with legal cover. But they can go into any facility now without any enabling law. Predators will stalk their prey wherever and whenever they want. They aren’t just holding off waiting for a law they can use as justification.

So keep in mind, when you are feeling that people are spewing hate at you for being who you are and you fear you will never be able to use the restroom of your choice, you do have power. It’s called your vote, along with the votes of all the other trans people and allies who stand against the oppression imposed by politicians pandering to low information voters’ fear. Make sure you vote for those politicians who support equal rights for all in any election at any level of government. If North Carolina had not be bought by a rich conservative their HB 2 law would never have been introduced. We may suffer for a while longer with oppressive and regressive governments but we can oust them if we all vote. In the meanwhile we have to work on ways to reach the low information voters and let them know we are not a threat. That’s your assignment for the next election. Now get to work.

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Tags: featured, opinion, restroom wars

Category: Transgender Opinion