So the main argument for forcing people to use the bathroom corresponding to their birth gender seems to be “But then men can just dress up as women and hang out in the womens room doing pervy stuff and OMG!”
But…won’t his be way easier WITH these laws? Won’t the pervy men be able to just walk into womens restrooms claiming to be transmen, no disguise needed? Isn’t that way less effort? Don’t these laws, effectively, make it impossible to object to people who look like men just hanging out on womens restrooms?
In order to enforce the law they would have to have some way to identify people as to whether they were transmen or not. Sewing pink triangles on their shirts, for example.
Another thing that confuses me is what the real-world benefit is of letting trans men/women use the restroom of their self-identified gender? Is the idea that a transgender man is at less risk of violence by using the men’s room instead of being forced to use the women’s? I don’t understand that. Wouldn’t men who are prone to violence against trans women be just as likely to commit violence against trans men?
If they realize they’re transmen, perhaps. Which is a lot harder than recognizing a transwoman in a men’s restroom. Trans people have been using the restroom of their identified gender for decades and no one really noticed. Now he would be forced to use the ladies’ room and she would be forced to use a men’s room in NC.
Also, one of the main reasons to transition is so that they can live their lives like their preferred gender. They’re women; women use the women’s restroom; they want to use the women’s restroom because that’s what women do. Providing unisex bathrooms actually prevents them from fully realizing their transition. I don’t imagine they’ll complain, but it’s like studying hard for a test and then you find out it’s cancelled.
I understand this. But the arguments for allowing trans people to use the restroom of their self-identified gender always include the safety aspect. And I don’t really understand it.
The big safety issue is for transwomen who are at extraordinarily high risk of rape, even more so than ciswomen. They are also more likely to be murdered than ciswomen. There is a certain subset of men who view transwomen as vermin to be exterminated. I can’t wrap my mind around the mindset, and don’t particularly want to, but the crime stats indicate that this is a problem.
Una might be a better source for those stats, although I hesitate to drag her into this any more than she already has been given how much time and energy I know she spends on these issues in real life. I’ll see what I can find that’s pretty firm, it’s been a few years since I actually looked them up myself.
I’m pretty sure Ethilrist was being sarcastic. As in the Nazis used pink triangles to identify homosexuals. And sent them to extermination camps. And that our identifiing people in such a way (or making stupid demands about which bathroom a trans person must use) is fascist.
