First off, maybe I should provide you with a little bit of background, just in case you have been living under a rock and haven't heard about this yet. We're talking about a bill that was just passed in North Carolina and may pass in other states, which keeps transgenders from using the bathroom they are more comfortable using, which aligns with their identity. It seems to be mostly leftists who agree that people have the right to pee where they please, while it seems to be mostly right-wingers who are afraid that this will open a door to perverted straight, cisgender men entering the women's restroom to attack women and little girls. I'd like to make a few points, which I think are pretty standard, which are points that a lot of people have been making, but I guess it's nice to compile them all into one nice blog entry for cis people to read while they sit in the comfort of the bathroom they have never had to worry whether or not they can use.
Sexual assault is a huge issue, and very few people are all for fighting against it than I am, but you have to realize what is an actual risk vs. what is not really a risk at all. From a woman's perspective, I have been afraid of being sexually assaulted pretty much anywhere and everywhere - walking on the street, in the workplace, at friends' houses, at parties, and even at home (at the hands of an intruder). I don't know a single woman who hasn't, at some point, been the victim of some kind of sexual assault, even if it was something as small as an unsolicited boob grab from a friend. But I tell you, never have I ever even thought once about being assaulted in a bathroom. That's the one place I've never given much thought about that, because it's just not something you hear about happening. It's just a place where people pee. There's like an unspoken law that most people follow, which states that no one shall violate the sanctity of the porcelain god or his followers who come to pray to him. It's like an old cathedral during the time of the gypsies - we all get to claim sanctuary when we enter those doors. The point is, this is a non-issue. This is a "problem" that someone made up to scare fear-mongers and distract everyone from the real issues our country, and the entire world, is facing right now.
But if we press the issue, why do general right-wingers think a law or a sign is going to stop perverts, should one actually decide to cause a problem in a bathroom? I mean, it's still illegal to peep, commit sexual assault, and harass people. If a pervert is going to ignore these laws, then surely he will ignore the one that says he can't dress up as a woman and enter the women's restroom to find his next victim. No one can really think a sign is going to stop a crime from happening if it's brewing. And what about little boys? As far as children go, the majority of children who are assaulted are done so by men - and it's usually a family member. (But we all know priests are very often the offenders.) This law isn't going to affect little boys at all, so maybe we should outlaw family functions and churches too. My point is, you can't protect everyone from everything, no matter how many rights you take away from people.
I beg you to tell me where you think transgenders have been peeing all along? They didn't just start popping up all over the place randomly in the past 10 years. They have always been around, so where have they been peeing? You have probably peed next to a transgender before and never knew it. Some are quite obviously transgender, but very many are very convincing - perhaps because they put effort into making their outward appearance match how they feel on the inside. So if transgenders have always been able to pee where they feel they belong, then by right-wingers' logic, why haven't we heard of more sexual assaults in women's bathrooms by straight cisgender men who have wrapped a skirt around their waist and put on a wig? There may have been a few scattered throughout time, but it is definitely not an epidemic. Studies have even shown that, in states where there are no discriminatory bathroom laws against transgenders, there have never been an unusual number of assaults in bathrooms, and in all of my research on this topic, I have only found out about one instance in which one man in Canada dressed up as a woman to enter the women's restroom, and stir up some trouble. ONE instance. This is why I call this a "non-issue", because we are arguing "what if" about a situation that will likely rarely occur, if ever! If you're going to argue for a law to be passed which ultimately causes the discrimination of an entire group of people, then there better be a legitimate risk at stake, not an irrational fear of a non-issue that is completely made up.
Speaking of which, it's funny how, when someone from the LGBTQ+ community is involved, right-wingers want to take away someone's rights based on "what if". What IF a woman is assaulted in a bathroom because we allowed transgenders to use the "wrong" bathroom? But when we turn it around on them and say, "But what IF someone gets shot because we allowed the sale of guns?", all of a sudden, right-wingers are on the opposite side of the argument, because we all know they love their guns. The only difference here is that one of these scenarios is not likely to happen, while the other WILL and DOES happen all the time. The truth of the matter is: BOTH should be perfectly legal. Shoot your guns, and pee where you want to, because this is America, land of the free! And we should be free to pee!
You know what else is interesting? The fact that women are being used as a scapegoat here. And I'm not just targeting right-wingers with this one; I'm targeting everyone, because both parties are guilty of this. Whenever someone wants to make a point for their cause, that person always uses women and children to justify their ridiculousness, whether it's to promote hatred and discrimination or something else entirely. We are always sitting in their back pocket, being completely ignored and ridiculed until we are needed to make a point that makes no sense. When I tell men I'm afraid when men cat-call me on the streets, they tell me I shouldn't be afraid but flattered. When I bring up feminism, men silence me without even understanding what feminism really is. When I bring up rape culture, men tell me it doesn't exist. When I tell a man no, and that I am not interested, he calls me all kinds of hideous names and degrades my appearance. And in many cases, the man becomes violent and/or takes from the woman what he wants anyway. Speaking of general right-wingers only this time, when women want to pass laws to help ourselves rise above all of this, they almost always shut us down - whether they take away our healthcare, our right to our own body, or our maternity leave. And don't get me started on how right-wingers treat women when we are raped - victim-blaming, slut-shaming, and accusing us of "asking for it". But it's just lovely to see that, all of a sudden, we matter when it proves their point. And that, my friends, is why this is not really about protecting women and children. Check out this well-written article for more of this point: https://driftingthrough.com/2016/04/29/your-silence-is-deafening-an-open-letter-to-the-target-boycotters/. This one is even better: http://americannewsx.com/human-interest/mom-shreds-every-bathroom-banner-startling-rant-everyone-must-read/.
And what about the hypocrisy? Right-wingers say they are all about small government, but now they want to regulate our private parts? Well, they've always tried to regulate women's private parts, but this is getting out of hand. They are literally trying to dictate where we pee, and right-wingers (speaking generally) don't see a problem with this? This is how tyranny starts. You give the government the right to dictate the small things we do in our daily lives, and now, all of a sudden, it's like we are living in an Ayn Rand book. Next thing you know, we'll have to pay to pee, like in that musical "Urinetown". They will deem it a "privilege to pee" and start charging us for it. I think the government has enough control over our lives as it is, don't you? The government doesn't have to step in to regulate everything, you know. We can have social norms and expectations without involving government regulations.
The irony here is, what right-wingers are trying to prevent is what they are causing to happen. They say they don't want men in women's bathrooms. Well, guess what? They're the ones putting men in women's bathrooms! If you put a transgender man (meaning he was born a woman biologically) - someone who looks like a man, smells like a man, talks like a man, and acts like a man - into a woman's restroom, then you are putting a man in a woman's restroom! As far as I'm concerned, that is a man, because all I can see is what is on the outside. I'm not going to drop his pants to see that there is actually a vagina down there; all I see is a rugged man with a beard and huge biceps in a muscle shirt, and that would creep me out much more than a transgender woman in a dress, wig, and lipstick, whose genitals I'll never even see to prove she is anything other than a woman. I don't know how other women feel about this, but coming from this woman, I am more than comfortable with transgender women using my bathroom, and I don't fear cisgender male predators dressing as women to gain access to my bathroom and assault me. Also, think about it. If the law says we can pee where we so choose, then the fear is that predators will dress as trans women to assault women. But if the law says we have to pee in the bathroom that matches our biological sex, then predators don't even have to dress up in order to gain access to women's restrooms! A cisgender male predator could just waltz right into a woman's restroom, beard and muscles and all, and claim to have been born with a vagina! What are we going to do? Force him to drop his pants to prove he has a vagina? And boom! Predators have now gained even easier access to women in women's restrooms. So instead of claiming to be a trans woman, they can just claim to be a trans man, and they don't even have to bother going to the trouble of dressing up. Either way, with or without this law, nothing is being accomplished, except the victimization of actual trans people. This further proves my argument that this law is silly and pointless, because people are going to do what they want to do. It's a lose-lose situation. We can't protect everyone from everything, no matter how hard we try. I beg everyone reading this to consider every standpoint and think this topic all the way through before deciding which side to stand on.
And the even bigger irony here is that general right-wingers say they want to protect women, but they don't realize that this is causing the exact opposite to happen. What about the safety of transgender women and men? It's funny how safety is only an issue when heterosexuals and cisgender people are in question. You stick a transgender woman wearing a dress in the men's bathroom, and what to do you think is going to happen? There have already been 2 cases that I've heard of, maybe more, in which transgender men were forced to use the women's bathroom, due to this law being passed in North Carolina, and guess what happened to them. They were assaulted, humiliated, harassed, and kicked out of the bathroom. Yes, in both instances, a biological female was kicked out of the women's bathroom by police officers, because they did not look like women. I saw the video of one occurrence, in which a (presumably) cisgender lesbian woman was followed into the women's bathroom by several male police officers, who asked to see her ID. She did not have her ID on her, so the officers put their hands on her and forced her to leave the restroom, despite the protests of every other woman in that bathroom. Talk about forming a police state! I don't know about you, but when I want to pee, I don't anticipate, nor do I desire for, male police officers to barge into the restroom and cause a scene. So the following question is directed toward the people reading this who still disagree with me on the matter: You force people to use the "correct" restroom, but when they do, you assault, harass, humiliate, and maybe even arrest them; how does that make any sense?
I don't even know why we are bothering to argue about this. It's not like anyone will know which biological sex you are when you pick a bathroom to use. There is no way to properly regulate this law. Cops aren't going to stand outside every single bathroom, demanding that we lift our skirts or remove our pants before we enter a restroom. They can ask for an ID, but not everyone will have his/her ID on them, and kids certainly won't have IDs. Also, I have heard that most transgenders typically change their IDs to match their gender identity as soon as they can. But that is a waste of police resources and time, it's a major overstep in their authority, and it is a total invasion of privacy, especially when cops follow someone into the bathroom to remove him/her. Literally the only things this law is causing are more problems, such as a greater divide between different groups of people, even more justified discrimination, hostility, anxiety, even more assault against transgenders, discomfort for everyone, embarrassment, and maybe even a tyrannical police state. Congratulations to all who haven't thought this through.
Look, we all know what's going on here. This isn't about protecting women or children; we've established that general right-wingers don't care about our safety. So come clean. If you're not just lying to us, then you're lying to yourself. If you're going to justify discrimination, then at least be honest about it. It's about being afraid of something you don't understand. Look, it's ok to not be able to understand something that you've never experienced yourself or through your loved ones. But it's not ok to not show sympathy for people you don't understand. See, humans have a habit of fearing things which they can not readily understand or explain. But it's 2016. It's time to love everyone and embrace our differences already. Rise above! And if you really and truly do fear for the women and children in your life, then consider the facts and logic I've explained in this blog entry before you choose, once again, to be on the wrong side of history.
Skipping to the end to read the conclusion? Too lazy to read all of this and want a good laugh? Check out the liberal redneck's video on this issue at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov-ocQpQtrw&feature=youtu.be. Majorly profane language alert! Don't say I didn't warn you. I also really like my favorite YouTuber's outlook & explanation of this issue, so check out her video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6-lx1DBbB4. Also, if you want some statistics on the matter, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IevheSbr4k&feature=youtu.be.
If you take anything from this blog entry, please take from it that all anyone wants to do in the restroom is pee. That's it. I mean, sometimes we do other things that are appropriate in the restroom, but for the sake of this argument and not getting too graphic, we all just want the same thing: to pee, and to be left alone whilst we are doing so.
If you take anything from this blog entry, please take from it that all anyone wants to do in the restroom is pee. That's it. I mean, sometimes we do other things that are appropriate in the restroom, but for the sake of this argument and not getting too graphic, we all just want the same thing: to pee, and to be left alone whilst we are doing so.
To diffuse the tension with not only hilarity, but truth.
This is Corey, a transgender girl. If this was your daughter, would you be comfortable sending her into the men's room? Because this law would make it illegal for her to use the ladies' room where she obviously belongs, based on the fact that she was born with male anatomy.
As a cisgender woman, I can't imagine what transgender people go through on a day to day basis or what tough decisions they have to make, so I try to make life as easy as possible for them.
If you truly do just have an irrational fear that women and children will be assaulted in bathrooms if transgenders are allowed to use the "wrong" restroom, then I'm not calling you a bigot. However, you are being a bit silly and not paying attention to the statistics on the matter.
Want to support a store that supports equality and abhors discrimination? Target has already stated they will have non-discriminatory bathrooms for everyone. This is causing a lot of people to boycott them, so if you're proud of them for making the right decision and standing up to the bullies of this nation, then support them.
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