The Ladies' Room

am wondering what you think happens in the women’s bathroom. When I walk through the first door from the hallway, do you imagine that I drop my pants to my ankles and squat around some kind of communal drain? Or do I just get naked entirely and ponce about in front of the many mirrors on the walls before spreading my legs and getting to potty business? In your mind’s eye, am I passing a parade of genitalia giving me a 21 vag salute?

I am asking because out of all the concerns I hear about the matter of trans rights, the most frequent cry is “I don't want my daughter sharing a bathroom with a man!” and I’m wondering how you think that would play out in practical terms.

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Leaving aside that a trans feminine person is not a “man”, I’ll go with your terminology for the time being. This bathroom sharing situation. Is the “man” in question sitting right there in the stall with your daughter? Maybe on her lap? Are they taking turns? Or are they just two humans in separate spaces each behind a closed door?

I ask because the latter version is how every women’s room I have ever entered works. At least in all the North American, Central American and European bathrooms, I can’t speak for how it shakes out (if you will) on the other continents. In the women’s rooms in which I have eliminated, I have walked through the door, passed a sink or two, and gone into a closet which varied in the height and width of the doors and walls but was universal in the presence of a toilet. Maybe there was a nice candle burning, maybe there was a place where I could toss some kind of used menstrual product but those were the broad strokes. A hook for my purse if you want to be fancy.

There might have been other people in other stalls near by. I have always assumed that they were also women, because, you know, “Women’s Room” and all, but honestly I would have had no way of knowing. Even if they presented as more or less female when I passed them at the sink, I have never once seen the naughty bits of a person in the lavatory unless they were on a table having a diaper changed. And even then I didn’t take a good look because who does that, for God’s sake?

So explain to me the big deal of your daughter sharing a bathroom with a “man”? And by “man” I assume you mean someone who has a penis, or at least had a penis at some point and potentially still may.

Are you imagining that some would-be offender is so invested in his mission of perversion that he is going to dress up and convincingly present as a woman for the sole purpose of achieving proximity to your daughter who is in the process of urinating? Is he just going to listen in or is he going to try and get a look from under the stall? I’m here to tell you that anyone doing more than a “check for feet” glance under a bathroom stall is going to 100% be labelled as a freak and will not be tolerated in any gender lavatory.

I guess there might be someone whose oddly specific kink involves sitting unobtrusively and listening to her tinkle. But statistically how common can that be? Common enough that we need to make a whole law about it? Particularly a low which would mostly be impacting people who have zero interest in your daughter’s fountain noises?

Or are we going the other route and assuming that this man you imagine (I’m imagining some awkward and unprofessional drag) is going to waltz in in his clever disguise and then surprise! Out comes old man Johnson and he makes his move on your little sweetie?

Dude. Did I miss something? Anyone molesting anyone is already illegal. A guy who is gonna go into a bathroom of any kind and make a play on any age or gender unwilling participant is a guy who is breaking the law. The existing law. We got it covered. I have been groped by strangers at a movie theater. And not in a sexy Erica Jong way, but in a creepy, hand slid into my lap across the empty seat between us way. That was out in a theater. Admittedly a dark one but my point is that sexual predators don't need to go through the song and dance of trying to pass themselves off as a whole not her gender in order to commit an assault. They just do it. Doesn’t it seem like kind of playing the long game to sneak into the women’s bathroom for these kind of shenanigans?

There is also the matter of a sexual predator actually having way more access to young people in a men’s room, if what I understand about the layout of urinals is accurate. But again, already illegal.

Let’s hammer on another point. A trans woman or a cis woman are both WOMEN. Maybe they were assigned that at birth and maybe they transitioned but that’s where they are now. No one who is a “man” is in the women’s bathroom. It’s just that some of the women in there may not have vaginas. Or may not always have had them.

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If someone’s gender identity makes you uncomfortable, start there. Don't act like this is not about your bias and your feelings. Stop pretending that it’s just a function of you carefully, logically weighing the benefits and the risks and making a new point that the rest of us haven’t thought of. Own that you have feelings about it and work on that. All this other mess about protecting your daughter in the bathroom is just the ticket you are using to get into the conversation.

Because on some level, you know that otherwise you have no business having an opinion about this, at least not on a policy level. I can’t think of anything that is less your business than someone else’s gender identity. And you want to try to make laws about it? Why aren’t the libertarians up in arms about this one?

I understand why people think they have the right to an opinion about things like other people’s reproductive choices. I don’t agree, but if you really believe that it’s murder to terminate a pregnancy, I see how you might get pretty turned up about it. It’s the same way you want other forms of murder to be illegal, the same way you want animal protection and safe food handling. Or whether or not other people should be allowed to have a gun, or to have position about YOUR having a gun.

But explain to me how you get to decide how other people experience their own gender. And get over the idea of “it’s not natural” because even in nature there is a pretty wide expression of both gender and biological sex. I used to deliver babies and I used to work at the STI clinic in Ft. Lauderdale and I’m here to tell you, there is way more diversity than you may imagine in terms of the downstairs stuff.

It’s hard to get used to the pronouns? Ok. Then practice. It’s hard to pronounce certain names and it’s hard to understand a lot of religions but if you are a polite human you make an effort and if you are not a polite human you need to admit that this is the sticking point. Just say “I’m narrow minded and I fear anything that is different from me and I can’t be bothered.”

You wouldn’t sit there and act like someone whose name is unfamiliar to you got that name on purpose in order to make your life difficult right? Like, even you aren’t that much of a narcissist are you?

Maybe it’s confusing and maybe it’s new to you but dude, I promise you it is a lot more difficult for the person who is gender nonconforming to be constantly justifying themselves to you than it is for you to be working on getting over it. And if you don't want to get over it, then just leave the issue alone and mind your business.