I think I’m basically in agreement with you on this, but this part raised an eyebrow. I don’t know who’s in the stall next to me, unless I happen to see them walk in or out of it. But even then, if we were all mature adults even that wouldn’t be an issue. As I mentioned before that I’ve used the men’s room (and the ladies room with male janitors present), it wouldn’t bother me a bit to find any of the pictured people you guys have been posting.
The real solution to untwist all the knickers on this issue is unisex bathrooms where the stalls are completely enclosed. To be honest, I don’t see why we don’t build those (yeah, yeah, I know… cost. But I have found them in various restaurants, hotels and lots of places in Europe) and make them a little bigger so you can install a small sink in each one. Germaphobes would appreciate the ability to wash your hands before you spread your feces-covered hands (exxagerating for effect) on the stall door, the paper towel dispenser, the exit door, etc. We do that all ass backward in the USA.
I think you’re missing what’s actually going on.
Do a google image search for “target bathroom memes” and tell me that any of the people making those memes actually care who’s in the bathroom with who vs just trying to keep the transgender issue hidden where it’s out of sight and out of mind.
For example, the person that made this meme, has no idea how many times a big butch woman like Buck Angel has used the stall next to him. But now ‘she’ has to use the ladies room.
Again, how many people do these guys really thing are going to sneak into the wrong bathroom just to get their rocks off? Probably about as many as have always done it since forever.
What do you do about buildings that only have multi-occupancy restrooms?
Do you remodel the whole thing to make multiple rooms which I imagine would be hideously expensive (if it’s even possible) or turn a multiple person room into a single? Which might violate building codes requiring a certain number of restrooms based on occupancy.
The bill allows for (1) single-occupancy bathrooms, (2) single-gender multi-person bathrooms, or (3) mixed-gender multi-person bathrooms with attendants.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a building that only had mixed-gender multi-person bathrooms. If a building already has separate multi-occupancy bathrooms for males and females, they don’t need to do anything. If a building has multiple unisex single-occupancy bathrooms, that’s still legal too.
I can count on one hand, in all my travels, the number of mixed-gender restrooms I’ve seen. All of them were at “hipster” or very upscale places, and one did have an attendant.
The solution of fully-enclosed stalls is actually posited by the anti-transgender persons as being a worse solution, because then they claim it’s easier to silence the victims that all us transpeople are raping, and they can’t escape by squirming over or under the door (something most folks probably couldn’t do anyhow).
I’ve seen first-hand and close-up what happens when a transgender woman presenting female is forced to use a men’s room, from back when I had to present male. The way she was treated by the men in the room was shameful, disgusting, and to be blunt terrifying. I stood there silently by the sink while all the men made their jokes and comments and insults, and waited to see what was going to happen. I was outnumbered about 20:1, and even the smallest of them could have beaten me to a pulp had they been so inclined (it was a black-tie event, so that outcome was unlikely, but nonetheless I was terrified). But I stayed there as a silent “chaperone”, and had anyone raised a finger to touch her I was going to resign myself to a beating and get right up in people’s faces.
I still wish to this day I had defended her vocally, and not just silently. It’s a black mark on my honor that I let my fear silence me. Nowadays I don’t have that fear.
I personally know friends who were forced to use the men’s room while presenting female. Some were abused, some were physically attacked, a couple were sexually assaulted. One dear friend of mine who I used to go shopping with was raped in a men’s room in Washington DC - the bartender had told her she couldn’t use the women’s room, so she used the men’s (while she was very feminine in face and dress, she was 6’4" tall and unfortunately didn’t “pass” well enough for the bartender). A man followed her in, called her a tranny prostitute and worse things, and then forced her into a stall and violated her. She didn’t fight back because she thought he threatened her life if she made even a sound. The experience drove her into hiding, and she moved away and went deep stealth in a small city in Arizona. She even cut herself off from me, and I have only a tenuous connection that she is even still alive (after the rape she attempted suicide).
But yeah, if she had used the ladies’ room, someone might have been “uncomfortable.”
America has become surreal. Self-parody doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Am I trapped inside a Dali painting or a Kafka story? Are you all just bit players inhabiting my surreal dream, or are you all play-acting in some non-insane alternate America and laughing at me for my gullible hallucinations about a post-rational America?
