Why Transgender Bathroom Laws Are A Problem

Although this is not my typical parenting post, I am always doing lots of advocacy in the community, on our campus university, and on and off social networking. Recently I responded to a few Facebook posts that supported the Anti-Trans Bathroom Law in North Carolina and was asked to put my response in a shareable format, so here it is! 

I understand the fear surrounding this issue - we all want to keep our children safe. I'm the mother of two small boys and thinking of someone hurting them in any way is very scary. And this fear of the bathroom predator has certainly been garnered and perpetuated by the political arguments and advertisements on this issue. The message is clearly that our little girls will be preyed upon by predators in the bathroom.

 

Let's talk about a few important points:

1. Nothing can stop a man from walking into the women's bathroom or dressing room before anyone even heard of someone who is transgender. Of course, if someone looks like a man and is in the women's bathroom, they are not transgender - This woman below, as an example, is a female trans person. Not exactly the creeper in the plaid shirt hovering over the parentless child in the restroom. The man in those advertisements is clearly not trans; really, the suggestion is that predators will pretend to be trans in order to molest children. So let's take a look at that idea.
 

 

2. Fortunately, preying on children in bathrooms is incredibly rare. The reason is that bathrooms are incredibly risky in terms of being discovered, which is why it is rare. They can't control who comes in and when; and, they don't know if the children's parents are there as well. Having someone specifically pretend to be Trans to prey on someone in a bathroom has happened only one recorded time - in Canada by someone who was mentally ill. When a child is abused or molested, unfortunately it is about 90% likely to be either a family member or an acquaintance. Predators do NOT lurk in bathrooms awaiting the chance to pounce on girls the moment their parents turn their back. More frighteningly, they hide in plain sight. When a child is abused in any form, it is likely their parents (see graph above). When it isn't the parent, it is their partners, neighbors, family members, religious leaders, and acquaintances. 

When you look specifically at sexual abuse, you can see from the graph to the side, that again, it is far more likely to be someone the child knows and trusts (only about 1% is by a stranger). These perpetrators groom children, getting the child and/or their parents to trust them before molesting them. So for all practical purposes, this law does NOTHING to prevent molestation. Also, remember that this law does not target pedophiles at all. Even if bathroom molestations were a true risk, if the perpetrator was male, they are still allowed to use the male public restroom, putting our boys "at risk" in the way that people believe the young girls are at risk. So, truly, who does this law help or protect? If we really want to keep children safe, we would be doing more education and support for families - because clearly the child is in the most danger from their direct family or friend of the family. Yes, it would be a lot simpler and easier to understand and protect against if stranger danger was the greatest risk for sure, but it is clearly not. And even when a stranger does attack a child, the restroom is not an environment that they target. So if it can't protect against molestation, what does the law really do?

3. The argument against trans people using the bathroom basically works like this:

Pedophiles could pretend to be trans people; therefore trans people should be put at risk. While a pedophile pretending to be trans molesting someone is basically at the level of myth, people who are trans are at a HUGE risk of being abused, bullied, harassed and attacked. Making someone, like Sarah in the picture to the right, who looks like a female, use the male bathroom, will clearly out her as trans and/or assure that she will be harassed and or attacked. Or maybe you prefer Aydian, pictured below to use the ladies room. Take a wild guess what would happen if Aydian walks into the womens' room in any public restroom.

4. This argument also violates trans people's rights. Again, the argument goes like this: Pedophiles could pretend to be trans people; therefore we should take their right away to use the bathroom that matches their identity. Let's make a similar argument with a twist. Priests have been found to molest children before, much more frequently then we ever knew. Therefore, no priest should ever be allowed around children. In this situation, priests actually have molested thousands of children, unlike trans people. So why not hold all of

them accountable for the actions of those pedophiles, because after all, another pedophile is VERY likely to use religion to molest children. But we would not ever make this argument about priests or pastors, because you can't hold people accountable or punish them for things they've never done. But this is exactly what the bathroom arguments/laws are doing. Not to mention that the people who actually DO molest children actually get very little to no punishment for doing so, like Dennis Hastert, the politician who admitted to being a serial molester and only received 15 months for paying blackmail money to hide it. The vast majority of rape and molestation cases never go to trial; the treatment of women and children are so poor that most do not even report the crime. Women in some states actually have to pay for their own rape kits. Instead of punishing people for peeing in a room that doesn't match their genitalia, doesn't it make more sense to focus on and reform the laws that allow molesters to get away with the abuse of children?

5. Another huge issue is how in the world will they enforce this law? Will they just approach anyone who looks trans and make a citizen's arrest? Force them to disrobe? Show your ID to use the bathroom? Imagine someone asking you to do any of those things. How humiliating that would be. This is not going to just impact trans people, who will more likely be asked to

show their identification in the bathroom of their birth sex, when they are following the law, it will also impact anyone whose gender is a little different than the norm - this could be due to typical gender variance, sexual/affectional orientation, a hormonal disturbance/ disability, or the person being intersex (having both or ambiguous genitalia, present at birth. We find it rude for strangers to ask too personal questions, but this law allows you to ask anyone that looks a little different what they have between their legs. Think for a moment how that would feel if someone did that to you. Violating? None of their business? Exactly.

6. If you are against strict gun regulations, it is important to think critically about why you don't support gun restrictions, but do support regulations on toilets. Some of those arguments include: 1) you cannot stop people from doing bad things, 2) that freedom is essential to our rights, 3) big brother should not be regulating everything, 4) laws do not apply to criminals - they will not follow them anyway, so it will only impact law-abiding citizens, and 5) the world isn't perfect and you cannot regulate it to perfection. All of those same arguments can be used against the bathroom law here; and are even more ridiculous since instead of talking about a lethal weapon, we are talking about a potty. One key difference, however, is that if you are in support of this law, it is likely not going to impact you or take away your rights.

7. Finally, it is important to know about what trans people experience. Having a gender in one's mind and body disconnect is a result of a mismatch of hormones in the right time during the fetal period. Testosterone and estrogen, and a few other key hormones, are what makes us female or male; and that gender is not binary in the brain, it is on a spectrum from very masculine to very feminine. The secondary sex characteristics, such as facial hair, square jaw, larger facial features, adam's apple, etc., all result from this delicate process.
 

It results in the person having a brain which appears to be the opposite sex (actually visible

on brain scans) and a body which doesn't match. A similar mismatched gender population is those who are intersexed (formerly called hermaphrodite) - they are just born with this mismatch on the outside (they will also be impacted by this law). There are many ways that this process can vary from the 'norm' from creating gender variance, to creating a genetic condition where someone is genetically male, born a female because their cells did not receive testosterone, and then turn male in puberty (called guevedoces). There are MULTIPLE conditions like this, teaching us one thing, that gender is not a neat, uncomplicated process. Other characteristics and disabilities occur during this sensitive period of development as well, but none do we punish so harshly, for something that is completely out of the control of the baby.

Gender is so important in our culture; and having a mismatched one will get you harassed, bullied, and abused. Think of how often little boys are told to "man up", not like girl things, not show emotions. When someone does not conform to gender, their life is hell - trans kids are likely to be suicidal as young children, as young as age 3 - that's how awful their lives are made. It is further made miserable by the fact that if they voice their feelings/thoughts, this abuse can come from parents, teachers and peers who believe that they can change this child. But, no amount of intervention can change the gender of the brain - in anyone. 

If these kids are lucky enough to have supportive parents, then they will undergo a delicate and risky hormonal replacement therapy, if they can afford it - these are about $1,500 a year and some insurance companies won't cover it - they will need this for the rest of their life. The male to female trans youth can get a sex change when they turn 18, if they can afford it AND after a year of being on the hormones and getting counseling. These are anywhere from $30,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars. They require extensive surgery and intervention. Not everyone can afford this nor does everyone want this. Sometimes the surgeries can have negative side effects, like removing the ability to orgasm. Ever. And they don't very often do the surgery for female to male trans individuals - it's not very successful. So, a trans person's genitalia may not always match what their gender is.

Then even if they are successful, if they are not "passable" or are outed in some way, in most states, they can be fired and kicked out of their rental properties, with no legal recourse. They are very likely to be harassed and are at risk for hate crimes. And now we'd like to take their right to pee in a public bathroom away from them. Because that is what they are doing - they can't possibly use the other bathroom - they WILL be harassed because they clearly do not belong in those bathrooms (as in the pictures above).

I always ask people to please, please, please take a few minutes to check out Riley's story to help them understand these kids. 

I completely understand that most people cannot truly understand a transgender experience; I also do not have any idea what it would be like. I have always felt female. I also understand that it is very difficult to understand the complex nature and biology of gender, gender presentation and expression. I also understand that this issue seems to challenge people's religious and gender beliefs in a way that makes people defensive and angry. I would only ask that, no matter what your beliefs, that you think critically about the impact of your stated opinion and support of this law. If you cannot argue with any of the above reasons (particularly the ones about constitutional rights), then you have to admit that your position is purely out of bias, not concern for little girls. 

And I would hope that we can also think of little girls like Riley, who was born with what she calls a birth defect that made her suicidal. She just wants to be normal, and has a loving family who fear that someone will hurt her.  This law just made that possibility much more likely for a lot of little girls like Riley.

If we can't possibly have empathy for someone that different than us, then we need to at least acknowledge that each of us should probably treat others in the way that we would want to be treated. If we had a condition that no one understood, we might want the world to be a little more understanding, and certainly not demonize us or make unfair laws targeting us. 

No matter what your beliefs are, thank you for reading this. Light, love, and compassion to you and your loved ones.