Sunday, November 24, 2013

Trans Awareness Month, Day 13 - Bathrooms

(This is part 13 of my observance of Transgender Awareness Month, my answers to the 30 Day Trans-Challenge.)

Sheesh, further and further behind schedule... oh well, doing my best here. Here's the next question in the series:

13) Bathrooms

This isn't a question. Buuut, given recent events, it's certainly an important topic of conversation, so let's go.

I prefer gender-neutral, or so-called "family" bathrooms. When those aren't an option, I use the men's restroom, but I never use urinals if I can help it, because honestly, I'd really prefer not to focus on certain... facts of my anatomy.

I realize that trans-friendly bathroom policies are a hot button issue for many trans folks and cis folks alike. Take the current brouhaha over California's recently passed law that allows trans kids to use the locker rooms (and play on the sports teams) corresponding to their gender identity. Conversatives have gone nuts, claiming that this will lead to big bad scary boys declaring that they're "feeling transgender today" so they can go into the girls' bathroom and... do horrible things, presumably. There are at least two problems I can find with that strawman scenario, right off the top of my head:

  1. I seriously doubt any school will roll over and let students change back and forth from day to day. This is intended to be more of a protection for the longsuffering trans kid that wants to permanently be associated with their identified gender.
  2. If the "trans for a day" scenario wasn't already unlikely enough... what red-blooded meathead teenage boy do you know who would actually risk his reputation by declaring himself to be transgender, even temporarily? The boys that people are claiming to be so worried about are, I expect, so misogynistic that the thought of anyone seeing them as less than the manliest of men is probably terrifying.

So, yeah. This is such a strawman issue. Unfortunately, however, it's one that opponents can use to create fear and uncertainty in the electorate. Which really ticks me off.

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