Over the past weeks, I've heard a lot of people talk about the now infamous North Carolina "bathroom bill." It's a new law in North Carolina that says a person must use the bathroom that matches the gender they were assigned at birth. This all comes after the relatively recent phenomena of high profile celebrities coming out as trans (i.e. Caitlyn Jenner) or trans people becoming celebrities (i.e. Laverne Cox). But these celebrities entering our national conscious does not make trans people feel "real" to the vast majority of people. You don't ever have to imagine existing in the same space as a Laverne or a Caitlyn. Most people can compartmentalize the existing of trans people into some foreign "other" category that they'll never have to actually deal with.
But now comes the "bathroom bill." And celebrities and businessess and politicians and even sports teams condemning the bill and even boycotting the state. And suddenly, people are being faced with the idea that *horror* a trans person might be sharing a bathroom with them.
And, of course, the right wing media hypes it up and tells horror stories of a creepy man putting on a skirt and wig just to enter a women's bathroom and assault some poor helpless woman.
So, first of all, lets get some things perfectly clear: there has never been a proven, documented case of someone using the cover of an anti-trans discrimination bill in order to sexually assault someone. There have been cases of mentally ill or criminally deranged men entering women's bathrooms and assaulting them, and the timing happened to coincide with a state legislature's debate over a new bathroom bill, so the legislators co-opted the tragedy as fodder for their own views. But those mentally ill or criminally deranged offenders? They'd never even heard of the political debate that they had unwittingly become a puppet in. There will also likely always be sexual predators who will assault people, and no law telling them what bathroom they are allowed to enter will suddenly stop them.
Imagine, for a moment, that sexual predator you are so worried about assaulting some token woman in your life. Imagine that he is following that woman, stalking her as she walks around a store, browsing for clothes, and keeps following her as she heads to another area of the store. He's excited and planning his own sick plan, when suddenly he realizes that the other area of the store your token woman is heading towards is a restroom with a little stick figured, skirted person on it. Do you really think, for even one iota of a second, that skirted stick figure will slow that predator down? The ONLY thing that will slow that predator down is if there are other people visible in the area. The state of trans protections or discrimination for use of public restrooms in that particular jurisdiction will not even factor into that predator's calculations, I can promise you.
But couching this debate in terms of "protecting" women from these "freaks" who "pretend" that they're women makes the whole thing nice and easy to scream about, to post memes about, and even to have some surface-level understanding of the arguments.
In practice, however, these "bathroom bills" are about something much more complicated and sinister.
Imagine for a second that you're a man waiting outside of the restrooms at your local movie theater, waiting for the woman you are there with to finish. You see three different people entering that bathroom. The first person has a short hair cut, loose flannel shirt, slim jeans, and Doc Marten boots. The second person has long, flowing blonde hair, is wearing a skin tight dress and high heels. The third person is wearing baggy jeans and a button down shirt, has short hair and no visible makeup or jewelry.
As you were scrutinizing the first person, you couldn't detect any hint of a chest, they had short, trimmed nails, but they moved passed you too fast for you to be able to tell if they had any hint of an adam's apple or a bulge in the crotch-area of their slim jeans. So you can't tell for sure if this person is a man or just a butch lesbian.
As you were scrutinizing the second person, you definitely saw a chest, but you can't tell if it's fake or not. You see a well done manicure, shaved legs, and a gorgeous figure. But you also think you might see the faintest hint of an adam's apple. Could this possibly be a trans woman?
As you were scrutinizing the third person, you can't see any shape whatsoever under their loose fitting clothing. Their hair styling is indistinct, and they'r wearing a pair of bland sneakers. Is this just a soccer mom with no time or care for personal style or is it a man sneaking into the women's restroom?
What do you do to protect your woman? There might be men and/or possibly trans people entering the same bathroom where she is trying to pee in peace.
And in those moments of scrutinizing every single inch of these three human beings who were also just trying to pee in peace, you became the potential predator. You scrutinized and policed these people's gender and made your own snap assessments of whether or not they were "woman" enough. And if you decided that one or more of these people did not meet up with your own assessment of who can or cannot be considered a "woman," what would you have done? Shouted at them to get out of the women's restroom because they don't belong there? Followed them into the women's restroom in order to physically drag them out? Contacted theatre security or police so that they can physically drag them out? Physically attacked them for threatening your woman by trying to enter this bathroom?
Since these bathroom bills have entered the national discourse, a short-haired lesbian has been attacked and physically removed from a women's restroom by some people who didn't think she looked female enough. A cis woman was arrested for using the "wrong" restroom when really she was just a soccer mom with not the greatest sense of style. And since the beginning of the year 11 trans women have been murdered because of their gender presentation.
There are real concerns at play here.
Sexual assault is rampant in this country. But it's not happening by people pretending to be trans so they can force their way into a certain bathroom.
The question of trans bathroom use becomes a little more tricky when you're dealing with high school and earlier educational settings. But that conversation needs to be nuanced and compassionate, not based in fear and myths.
Trans people and people who do not conform to strict norms of gender presentation (including lesbians, and, yes, even soccer moms) are targets under these bathroom bills. They are already targets. Trans people and masculine-presenting cis women already face discrimination, harassment, and even violence. The "protecting our women" line is a red herring and an excuse for state-justified discrimination against a group of people who aren't deemed "worthy" of the right to just pee in peace.
