By Melanie Schmocker | Contributor
It's been over a month since North Carolina passed HB2, the "bathroom bill" designed to keep transgender people out of women's restrooms (keeping them out of men's bathrooms never seems to cross anybody's mind), and my Facebook newsfeed has blown up about it in the past few weeks. More recently, in reaction to HB2, Target passed a policy specifically authorizing trans people to use the bathrooms they feel most comfortable in.
Some Christians have reacted by threatening to boycott the store. I'm actually thrilled that Target doesn't discriminate against trans people using the bathroom.
All too often in debating policies, we forget the real people the policies affect. Trans people face enormously high rates of violence and sexual assault in general, and public bathrooms in particular are dangerous for them.
One of my best friends is transgender, and even in places where she is not explicitly barred from the restroom, she's usually scared to use it. I've seen many times the conflict of "I want to stay, but I need to leave so I can get home and pee safely," or the panic of the unexpected restroom trip in a place where they're not safe for her.
A post on Facebook the other day suggested, "Take the transgender solidarity challenge: don't use gendered restrooms in public." On campus, if I tried to do this, I would have to hold it for twelve hours. The only gender-neutral restroom I've found on campus is in Breu, and peeing "at home" would mean only peeing in my dorm.
If I leave campus on the weekends, the stores, restaurants and gas stations I frequent all have single-gender bathrooms. When my friend comes to visit me on campus, she's always antsy to leave, partially because she feels Taylor as a whole isn't welcoming to trans people, and partially because she knows that if she needs to pee, she can't.
Public bathrooms are required by building code in most places of business, and must be available to all "occupants" (employees and customers). Barring trans people from using bathrooms directly contradicts the spirit of these policies. It's an affront to human dignity.
Additionally, bathroom policies specifically mentioning trans people are impractical and impossible to enforce. Name a trait belonging to only cisgender men or trans women that you can see at a glance, whether at their clothed body or ID, and I'll find you a counterexample. I know a cis woman with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) who is very proud of her beard, and I have several other cis female friends who naturally have mustaches and bleach or shave them because they are perceived as unfeminine. There are cis women with short haircuts, boxy builds or deep voices. Some trans people have updated the gender marker on their licenses, and some have even updated their birth certificates, depending on state laws.
The closest thing to a visual way to check if someone is trans is by inspecting everyone's genitals closely enough that you can recognize if they are surgically altered or not-and even that's not entirely accurate. There is no good way to enforce these laws without profiling and discriminating based on gender stereotypes, which is illegal under Title IX.
Already, I have seen videos of cis men, feeling newly empowered, following cis women into restrooms to harass them about their gender presentation. Ironically, HB2 is causing men to enter women's restrooms to harass women, something it claims to prevent.
There has not been a single reported instance of a trans person assaulting someone else in the bathroom, yet plenty of cases where registered sex offenders have caused trouble in public bathrooms-and there are no laws barring them from entering. It's hard to believe, then, that bathroom bills are actually motivated by safety concerns rather than fear and hatred.
Barring trans people from bathrooms based on the fear of what a completely separate group will do is discrimination, and it doesn't make sense. People who enter the bathrooms to peep or harass women have a litany of lies they can use that come at much less social cost than claiming, "I think I'm a woman"-an argument that could get them murdered by "panicked" bystanders (the "trans panic" defense is still legal in 49 states).
HB2 is discriminatory and impossible to enforce. Target will still enforce sanctions against harassment. Allowing everyone to use the bathroom is something I respect the company for.
