North Carolina’s LGBTQ pro-discrimination law might actually make it more uncomfortable for their straight, heteronormative population. The transgender bathroom requirement section requires that individuals use the bathroom corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates. Even folks that have fully transitioned to the other gender - sex-reassignment surgery and all - will still be required to use their “birth gender” bathroom. A package-check at the door won’t even suffice… anyone who could conceivably have their gender questioned will want to carry their birth certificate.
I posit that this policy - in practice - is actually contrary to what trans-phobic people would want. Consider a mom and daughter in the female restroom, and in walks what seems to them to be a dude - bearded and all. He’ll want to quickly show them his birth certificate for reassurance - and so they don’t scream and call the cops. Now mom also needs to have a very uncomfortable (for her) talk with her young daughter.
A lot of trans individuals successfully “pass” as their new gender, especially once beginning hormone treatment. So shouldn’t the bigots just try to live in blissful-ignorance? From their perspective, wouldn’t it be less traumatic to have someone of possibly “questionable” gender use the same bathroom as them, versus someone who has visually transitioned to the opposite gender?
As an aside… Gender reassignment surgery or not, I’d bet that most trans guys use the stall (which isn’t even an issue on the other side). Imagine the continual anxiety around being discovered or ‘outed’ when using the bathroom (and the potential consequences!), and how careful that must make people…
BTW, I’d recommend reading Stone Butch Blues for anyone wanting some insight into the trans experience.
I absolutely agree with you. This is a kneejerk response to a non-existent problem, and like most kneejerk responses it doesn’t even do what it’s supposed to.
I don’t know if it’s legit, but I’ve seen a number of viral Facebook posts about trans people who physically appear to be their birth gender (I’m not sure that’s the correct term) carrying cards that say, “the legislature is making me use this restroom. I’m sorry if you are uncomfortable. Please call your representative and senator and tell them you oppose HB3,” or something along those lines.
If the law stands, I hope transmen flood the public bathrooms of NC and make a public spectacle of using the bathroom of their birth gender to illustrate the absurdity of it all.
Plenty of trans folks don’t use hormones or get surgery, yet still dress and live as the other gender. What exactly would be solved by making these illegal?
Let’s just cut to the chase, and make it illegal for folks to be LGBTQ, now that will solve the problem!
Like many discriminatory efforts, this could end up accelerating general cultural acceptance of the rights that the attempted discrimination is trying to suppress.
Many white Americans who were basically indifferent to the fundamental injustice of racial segregation became uncomfortable with the brutality of the attacks by segregation supporters on civil-rights advocates. Many straight Americans who were initially unsympathetic to the idea of same-sex marriage became disgusted with the spitefulness of self-described “defenders of marriage” actively seeking to deny marriage to same-sex couples.
Similarly, I bet you a lot of non-transgender Americans who currently just vaguely equate transgender people with freaks and deviants are going to end up being revolted at the idea of having to show one’s birth certificate, much less one’s genitalia, in order to be allowed to use a restroom.
Even people who’ve never seriously questioned the routine prejudices and discriminatory policies of the society they live in are apt to notice when such policies get ramped up to new initiatives of full-on persecution. You don’t have to be any kind of trans ally to feel that people who are minding their own business and not drawing attention to themselves in a public restroom should be left the fuck alone.
Not even sure if randomly is the best plan- set up next to (or inside!) a bathroom and ask everyone entering for proof of their birth gender. Make sure you’ve got your birth certificate with you. Request law enforcement to remove anyone without proof. Probably best done by someone whose certificate doesn’t match their appearance. Heck, if I were braver (and closer), I’d consider shaving (face, arms, and legs), putting on a dress and trying it my self.
Bonus points for doing it in the capitol building.
They’re not passing this bill because they don’t want people using their preferred restrooms; they’re doing it because they don’t want them to transition. Ignorantly short-sighted and wrong, but that’s their “reasoning.” Same as with the opposition to same-sex marriage–it wasn’t that they didn’t want two guys or two gals getting married, it was that they didn’t want them to be gay, and if they won’t stop being gay, would they please just go back into the closet like in the good old days?
As Oliver Wendell Holmes put it 30 years ago, “Kicking and screaming will the foolish be dragged into the 21st century.”
I assume previous to this law it was legal to use whatever bathroom or locker room you felt like? I know Creed from the Office always used the women’s restroom and he mentioned paying a price for that.
This brings up the point, why even have different bathrooms for men and women? I know I have no problem going to bathroom or changing in front of the opposite sex.
Setting aside this law, was there ever any law in any state enforcing the gender segregation of restrooms? I always thought that it was mostly a social custom and that it was only enforced, if it was enforced, by the owner/operator of the building.
At most concerts where there is no line for the men’s room, but the line for the women’s room stretches into the next county (because only God knows what you all do in there for so long) many females are in the men’s room, sometimes using the sink. I never heard any complaints.
Do gender discrimination laws in any state currently PROHIBIT a private business owner from enforcing the gender restrictions? For example, if in my business I get a complaint that a man is using the women’s restroom, can I walk in and tell him to use the men’s room? What if he says that he is currently transitioning to a female, can I still tell him/her the same thing? MUST I conform to some law regarding this? I would be opposed to such prohibition.
However, this law is just the opposite. My first reaction is that it seems as this is a solution in search of a problem. Are there any reported incidents of transgendered people “abusing” (for lack of a better term) the social expectations of gender segregated restrooms? In other words, say, a male at birth who has transitioned into a female using the women’s restroom for some nefarious purpose?
This is a serious question and not a gotcha because I have simply never seen nor heard of any issue related to this that needs a government solution.
I can’t give an exact and up-to-date answer, but many places do have such a law or did at some point. However, I believe that they would generally say people can’t enter the opposite gender’s bathroom “for prurient purposes” or “with the intent to cause a disturbance” or so forth. Thus a janitor could actually clean bathrooms of both genders.
In most cases the police will arrest a man caught going into a restroom marked for women only. This is because for millennium women have been victimized by sexually predatory males and declaring women’s restrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms off-limits is one measure to minimize the danger women have to deal with in public places. It helps to create safe zones. I sometimes think because trans women grew up as boys they often don’t realize the amount of precautions women are trained to take to avoid being victims (Hint: that slice of fear that transgendered people experience whenever they are confronted by anti-trans people is something biological women have to deal with anytime we are around men that we can’t physically subdue because we have learned that even men we’ve known and worked alongside for years can turn dangerous).
I do not know about transgendered people “abusing” the social expectations of gender segregated restrooms. I do know there have been problems with predatory males using the vulnerable state women are in inside a restroom as an opportunity to stalk, harass or attack them. In college one of my friends was raped by a man inside a restroom and even after that it still took the threat of a major lawsuit to get the university to enforce rules keeping men out of the women’s restrooms. In truth, I don’t think transgendered women are the problem creating these laws rather it is the problem of predatory people (because I’m sure somewhere some woman has something prurient in men’s restrooms) being able to use legal loophole to hunt victims. I think the best solution would be that the people, the police and the courts are going to have to take it on a case by case basis whether someone is using the “wrong” restroom for prurient purposes. I advise my transgendered friends that in a world where it’s possible to watch a woman with a visible mustache breastfeed (so obviously she’s born with XX chromosome combination) throw a scarf over the Adam’s apple. Beyond that unless you are really, really, really sloppy about it no one is probably going to realize you’re transgendered.
