Who should use the female’s room and who should use the women’s bathrooms? There was a time when that was simple, but the argument over who uses which room has become incredibly complicated as a result of the notion that Americans are free to be who they want to be.
A bill in the Louisiana legislature did forbid transgender people from using a public room at a university where their identity is not known at birth. It’s very simple: if you were born a male, you use the men’s room and if you were born a female then you use the women’s room. What’s so difficult about that?
Well, the problem arises when we discuss how to respect the right an American has to live a life that is in line with their deepest instincts and emotions. There has been a long struggle for the rights of gays in America, and the majority of Americans seem to agree that if a person is queer, their right to live as a gay man should be respected.
Being a gay male or female is a common practice in America today, but lately there has been a new category of trans people who have largely been the target of hate from conservative and Christian Americans.
For those who lack compassion, there seems to be a concern over anything that is misunderstood or confusing. Refusing change is one of the definitions of “conservative philosophy,” and some Americans find this to be complicated because of the popularity of trans people. Some people find it to be more than confounding to think that someone who is born with or suspected of having a vagina is asking to use the women’s room or that someone who is suspected of having a penis feels the need to use the men’s space.
The irrational fear is that if people are permitted to use the women’s room, that will allow molesters and perverts to enter any women’s room and molest adolescent girls. And what about people in the men’s area?
I have a feeling that the majority of Americans who brutally demonize trans people have never actually met a trans man. There are transgender people who were born with a penis and who have now grown to the point where they have a full beard, a man’s haircut, no breasts, and are dressed in men’s clothing that made them impossible to tell apart from other men. Should that person use the men’s room? If that transgender guy entered a women’s room, there would be an immediate response that would likely involve calling 911 or contacting security.
Also, there are trans women – born with a penis – that have a feminine appearance, breasts, a women’s haircut, dressed in women’s clothes, and wearing makeup that could not be distinguished from another woman. Should that person be in the men’s area? Because men are used to often seeing women in men’s restrooms at big events where the women’s room has a lengthy wait and cisgender women – real women – are using the men’s restrooms out of necessity, there would not be panic. A factor that differs from the fear women would feel if they thought a man was in their restroom is that men lack the fear of a woman in their restroom. I believe the best solution would be to have separate restrooms for trans people, but that is currently not possible, aside from places with single-occupancy restrooms. I have no doubt that there will be a new category of restrooms for people who are not in line with gender norms in the near future.
Remember that the majority of those who have a strict bias against trans people have never met a real trans person on purpose.
A listener on my talk show today called in who described herself as a post-op trans person who was born a man but had a vagina following surgery and opened up about the perspective of a real trans person.
