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Who Do You Really Want In Your Bathroom

Who Do You Really Want In Your Bathroom

Last updated on: January 24, 2018 at 1:33 pm by Bekah Evie Bel

Who Do You Really Want In Your Bathroom 2018-01-24T13:33:23+10:00 Bekah Evie Bel

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This isn’t really a Pagan related post, but everyone is talking about trans rights lately, within and outside of Paganism and I have a question about the whole bathroom thing. And some observations.

We all know what’s going on with the bathrooms. Trans rights activists want trans people to be able to use the bathroom of the gender they identify as,

Transwomen in womens bathrooms
Transmen in mens bathrooms

Anti-trans activists want people to use the bathroom of their biological sex only,

Transmen (who were born women) not in mens bathrooms
Transwomen (who were born men) not in womens bathrooms

Why?

The first reason the anti-trans activists want this is because they believe that trans people, specifically transwomen, are really men, they probably all have penises and are therefore violent, rapey and dangerous. Woe be unto all cis women and children in the ladies room if they must face a trans woman.

Ugh. Trans people are people, humans. They are no more or less inclined to violence and rapey behaviour than any cis person. Shut up with your idiocy. Is it a possibility that some trans woman could be violent or something? Sure. It is just as much a possibility for a cis (indeed cishet) woman to be violent too. At the moment it actually seems more likely that cishet women will be violent towards people they think are transwomen.

I don’t really want to spend time on this part of it, because it’s stupid. And it’s not the point I want to make here.

toilet sign

By AIGA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The second reason the anti-trans activists want to ban trans people from their identified bathroom is not actually about the trans people themselves – it is about cis people taking advantage of the situation. Some people think that perverted, violent and/or rapey cis men will take advantage of trans rights and pretend to be women – cis or trans – to get into womens bathrooms and do their rapey violent and perverted things. In order to do so that would require the cis man to dress up as a woman wouldn’t it? I can’t think how they could get away with it otherwise.

This belief of theirs, which I admit is a possibility, if a remote one, ignores the reality of the opposite situation.

I said above they want trans men out the mens rooms, and transwomen out of the ladies room. This translates as

Transmen in the womens room
Transwomen in the mens room

I have seen a lot of trans rights activists point out the danger here for trans women. People who look like and identify as women going into the mens room. Not only is this a direct admission from the transwoman that she is trans, but she is someone who looks like a woman having to face men in the mens room. Her safety is in question here.

But I’ll be honest, I am actually more concerned for the safety of the transmen in this scenario.

Lately there have been reports of cis and trans women being attacked, verbally and physically and stalkery, for being in the ladies room while looking a bit manly – short hair, square chin, that sort of thing. They look like women with slightly male attributes. And they get attacked for it.

What will happen when transmen, “women who look like men” are forced to use the ladies room?

Transwomen face an obvious danger, but transmen face one that is not so obvious, and as such is more likely to become a reality. See, transwomen being attacked in the mens room would be a hate crime. Transmen being attacked in the ladies room would be, “I thought it was a man here to rape me!” and therefore much easier to excuse, thus, more likely to happen.

But now we move on to my question.

You don’t want people who look like women, but may “be men”, in the womens room. So you are demanding that people who look like and identify as men use the ladies room?

If you are worried about bad cis men taking advantage of trans bathroom laws, then you should be worried about what you are demanding should happen. If I were a rapey cis man, I would be overjoyed at this law. How much easier would it be for me to go into the ladies room and do my nasty things, when I can LOOK LIKE A MAN when walking in there. I just have to say, “Oh I am a trans man it’s cool”. You would be making it easy for the bad cis men.

So. Because you are worried some people who look like women may, possibly, perhaps, have a penis – you want the following to happen,

Endanger the safety and perhaps lives of trans people.
Allow, no FORCE, people who look like and identify as men into the ladies room.
Make it easier for rapey and perverted cis men to enter the ladies room.

So tell me…

Who do you really want in your bathroom?

Aphroditus statue

Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s none of your business and only pervs would ask her. Public domain. Wikimedia commons.

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