This morning I saw that KSL ran a story on North Carolina’s new law, which requires its residents to exclusively use the bathroom that corresponds to the assigned sex on their birth certificate. On KSL’s Facebook page, they posted the story, asking for their readers’ reactions. Bracing myself for what I knew I would find, I started reading them. Sure enough, the most-liked comments were by people saying they support the law and think that Utah should follow suit. However, such a law is not only unnecessary but would also be counterproductive.
Most of the opposition to the idea of transgender individuals using the bathroom of their choice say that it’s not “appropriate,” comparing it to the way that boys shouldn’t be sneaking into the girl’s middle school locker room. Well, I don’t know what goes on in women’s bathrooms, but in men’s bathrooms, at least, no one is stripping down to their underwear or getting naked like they would in a locker room. People do their business in the stalls or urinals. I’ve never seen another person’s genitals in the bathroom. So why should genitals matter? I may have used the same public bathroom as a transgender man a hundred times in my life and never even noticed. Why? Because they do their business in a private stall, which literally bothers NO ONE.
Some people say that it would be fine to let transgender people use the bathroom of their choice if it weren’t for all the perverts who would take advantage of the law by going into women’s bathrooms to sexually assault women and children. That is a ridiculous idea. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that one percent of transgender people are just dying to commit sexual assault. And we’ll assume that they’ve determined the best place to carry out said sexual assault is in a public bathroom. Now, does this person sound like the kind who’s going to say, “Oh, gee, there’s a law that I can’t go in that bathroom, so I guess today’s sexual assault will have to be cancelled.” If they’re planning to commit assault, they’re probably not going to be stopped by a law that requires you to use the bathroom that corresponds to your assigned sex. Even if a significant portion of the transgender community was dangerous (which isn’t true) these kinds of laws would do nothing to stop them.
Let’s imagine what’s going to happen in North Carolina now. A transgender man will now have to use the women’s restroom, and transgender women will have to use the men’s bathroom. Imagine you’re a young mother with a daughter, and you’ve been convinced that transgender people should have to use the bathroom of the sex they were born in. You’re happy that your home state of North Carolina has passed this new law, until one day you go to use a public bathroom with your daughter and there’s a big guy with a full beard and arms covered in tattoos in the bathroom. “What are you doing in here? This is the ladies’ room,” you say. The gentleman then explains to you that thanks to the new law, he has to use the women’s bathroom. At this point, you would probably start to reconsider your position. There’s no way to enforce this kind of law without checking people’s birth certificates at the door to every public bathroom, and that’s a world that no one wants to live in. You decide that it’s probably best to just let people use whatever bathroom they feel most comfortable using because that’s just easier for everyone.
Legislation that decides who can use what bathroom is a Pandora’s box that will only produce an endless number of uncomfortable situations, increased harassment towards transgender people and complicated legal battles. Let transgender people use whatever bathroom they choose or at least provide gender-neutral bathrooms to use. Let us all just pee in peace.