I have no idea. In college all of our bathrooms were for everyone. Men and women. We had showers, bathroom stalls, urinals, and sinks. No one had the slightest problem with it. I’ve frequently used men’s rooms when the line for the woman’s room was too long. No one has ever had a problem with it.
Certainly having “all sexes” bathrooms will improve situations for parents, who currently don’t have many options. If you’re a male dad out with two daughters, or a female mom with young sons, what do you do?
I think the risk of being raped in a bathroom is vastly over-stated and will not be prevented by laws keeping men or transmen out of women’s bathrooms. If a rapist is going to do it in the bathroom, he’ll just go in anyway. In fact, it is possible that if both men and women use the same bathrooms, rapists might be slightly more wary about going in.
Having survived a few stalkers I have to disagree. Relieving one’s bladder should not be activity that requires a concealed handgun for protection. No men in the women’s restroom, shower room, changing room, etc. is a reasonable protective filter that keeps a lot of the more stupid criminals from bothering people and gives authorities more leverage to intervene and possibly prevent harmful acts by the more intelligent criminals. The fact that a potential rapist will be arrested, prosecuted, and end up in prison and on a sex abuse registry for entering women only areas is effective. And family restrooms are provided for parents with children of opposite gender.
Do you think someone willing to commit felony sexual assault is gonna say, “Oh, I was GONNA go into that women’s room to rape a lady, but now that going into the women’s room is a misdemeanor, never mind”?
I mean, not to diminish the problem, but I don’t think this is a solution to it. It’s like trying to prevent burglary by making it a misdemeanor not to wipe your feet before going into a house.
I take your point. But the injury done by sexual violence against women in public spaces is not limited to the specific injuries inflicted on women who are assaulted. There’s also the constant or recurring fear that most or all women experience, with varying degrees of severity, that they may be assaulted in a public place.
So, a woman may be adversely affected by the mere presence of a man in a space like a lavatory, even if the man has no intention of assaulting her, and would never dream of doing such a thing.
So, yeah, a rule banning men from women’s lavatories may do little to prevent the injuries done to women who are assaulted by men who enter the lavatory for that purpose. But since it will deter most men from entering the women’s lavatory for more conventional reasons, it may ameliorate the fear of assault that women feel if there’s a man in the lavatory with them.
But, yeah, none of this justifies a rule aimed at transgender women. I struggle to think that if a cis woman in a bathroom becomes aware that she is sharing it with a trans woman (and I imagine that she normally won’t be aware of this) her first thought is “she might rape me!” Until I see evidence that this is a real-world problem, I don’t see any need for a legislative solution.
Well, I’ve gone to some very small venues that have a single “unisex” (it should be "bisexual, but nevermind, losing battle) bathroom. I have also gone to places where the women’s room has been closed for cleaning or maintenance, and a sign has been up saying women should use them men’s room. It’ll be a room with an outside lock and a single stall.
Then, there have been times when I have just used the men’s room. There have been people ahead of me waiting for the women’s room, and no one waiting for the men’s room, and I really had to go.
On top of that, though, I took my son into the women’s room until he was about six (whether or not I took him sometimes depended on the place). No one has ever interfered with me.
I think the issue is less that going into the wrong bathroom is in and of itself a crime, as rules regarding indecent exposure are suspended in them, and bringing in someone of the opposite gender alters the dynamics of that space. Some people are going to feel violated if the space is violated. If the violation rises to the criminal level, then you have a problem. It’s legally a public space, and yet it’s governed by certain mores of privacy that no other public space is.
FWIW, I know a few trans people who have gotten birth certificates reissued with their new gender. I’ll bet it’s not going to be happening in NC, but if you transition in another state where you can get a reissued BC, and then you happen to move to NC, you’ll be able to use the “right” bathroom.
This is also going to be hell for people who were actually assigned the wrong gender at birth because they had ambiguous genitalia-- micropenis or enlarged clitoris, particularly one with a urethra (it happens), but later, when someone does an internal exam, discovers that the person has the internal plumbing of the other gender, prompting a chromosome exam. Maybe even in NC you can get a reissued BC under those circumstances. I know that’s a minority of people, but we’re talking about a whole state, so it’s several births a year.
That makes total sense, if there are a group of men who either enjoy being in the women’s bathrooms or locker rooms for prurient reason or to commit rapes then those men need to be stopped. It is important for women to feel safe in public places.
If all these men need is a wig and a claim to be transgender to have a get out of jail free card, that does not seem like a good idea.
I really don’t see a good alternative to this type of law. I guess you could have some sort of government list of transgendered people who are investigated and approved to go into women’s bathrooms but that seems like a huge intrusion.
Does anyone know the statistics about how many transgender people are arrested for going into women’s restrooms? If the number is small it may not be worth the hassle of creating a registry.
I think someone willing to commit felony sexual assault is going to think out which situations are going to be the most conductive to succeeding in that endeavor. They are going to avoid places where their behavior will automatically arouse suspicion and law enforcement interest. If being in the women’s locker room or women’s public restroom is an automatic arrest, those places will be marked off the list of potential target hunting.
ISTM that there are two separate situations which have different dynamics.
One situation is where everyone knows the birth and current gender identity of the person involved. In such cases, the trans person’s appearance is not the determinant, because people are used to thinking of that person as being their birth gender. This is not the situation people have been focused on in this and similar threads, but is commonly the situation when it’s trans kids in school, and many of the bathroom wars have been fought over such situations.
The other situation - which has been the focus here - is where it’s anonymous strangers using public bathrooms. In such cases, regardless of what any law says, as a practical matter it would seem that trans people whose clothed appearance is in line with their gender identity can use that bathroom with impunity. I don’t think anyone is contemplating having guards checking people’s ID in bathrooms, and it would seem that conventional standards of modesty would prevent anyone else in that bathroom from discovering anything more in the normal course of events.
I think it’s a very very small risk, but there’s certainly that possibility.
I wasn’t suggesting that this means transgender people would have as easy a time of it under such laws as cis people but that it’s not like they would face arrest every time either.
As a practical matter, if you were, for example, a transman who looked very much like a man, and you had a choice of using either the men’s room or the women’s room, you would be far better off using the men’s room, law or no law. That’s certainly what I would do if I were in that situation.
The title of this thread and OP were about situations where “a mom and daughter in the female restroom, and in walks what seems to them to be a dude - bearded and all” etc. I don’t think that’s actually going to happen, regardless of any law (unless as part of some protest effort).
You may well be right. Trans men in NC are likely to quietly break the law, because the law is so foolish that following it is clearly going to cause more distress to everyone involved than breaking it will.
The fact that people who follow the law would make people a lot more uncomfortable, and risk safety a lot more, than people who follow the law, is a good sign that maybe it’s not the world’s best law.
The people who would follow the law would be those in the first situation that I described, where people know the trans person involved.
Which is probably what the law is more about (scare tactics about potential rapists notwithstanding). If some random transwoman who looks like a woman uses the women’s room and everyone in that room has no idea she’s a transwoman, then no one is discomforted and everything works out the best for everyone. But if people are already used to thinking of so-and-so as a boy then some percentage of girls will be discomforted by her presence, and this is where the law would take effect.
The law very specifically says “gender on birth certificate,” not “birth gender,” because most trans people I know will tell you they were born the gender they consider themselves.
People in posts are starting to shorthand it “birth gender,” which is a little confusing. If you want shorthand, maybe we should say “BC gender.”
Is this a matter of public interest that merited the attention of the legislature in any respect? How many people have been inconvenienced by transgendered people using a restroom? Has it ever happened to anyone you even know? How is this even a thing people expend an iota of energy on?
ISTM that the matter is currently the focus of attention primarily due to the law passed in NC. That, in turn, seems to have been triggered by an amendment passed by the Charlotte City Council - the purpose of the state was to override the Charlotte rule.
I can tell you that here in NC, none of the pro-HB2 folks I’ve read have brought up the first situation you described, where the trans person is well-known, as is their trans status. Every single example I’ve read of folks arguing for this law has involved precisely the same scenario: a trans woman (called, by these schmuckos, “a man in a dress” or another obnoxious shorthand) going into a bathroom/locker room/shower room with either women (rarer) or little girls (more common).
Every single example.
This really is about scare tactics, not about actual concerns.