The first criminal bathroom ban with a jail sentence has just taken effect overnight in Florida. Florida is now dangerous for transgender people to travel through, with arrests likely in coming days.
I’m not who you asked, but I am also a trans person that’s not planning on bottom surgery so thought I might chime in here.
Personally, the best solution is simply: Don’t legislate anything regarding bathroom/gender. Leave the bathrooms as they are. Let people use the bathrooms that they feel fit them best, that they’re most comfortable in. And if someone attempts to sneak in and assault/harass women in the bathroom, that’s already a crime that we have laws for.
Places that want to be more friendly or progressive will generally provide gender-neutral options. To me, the presence of a gender-neutral or all-gender bathroom is a good signifier that the place of business could be considered a potentially “safe” space – the staff there are probably going to be more accepting/less tolerant of open hate or bigotry and I can afford to let my guard down a little bit.
Thank you for chiming in, this is being a good learning/reflection opportunity on many levels.
The problem I see, is that bathrooms need to be legislated somehow, otherwise it would let cost cutting places not install any, or keep them “for staff use only”, while public places can’t really do anything without some legislation in place. So the question is more of what that legislation should look like.
I agree that assault/harassment is orthogonal to any gender related legislation (men can as well assault men in men bathrooms), so maybe the legislation should tend towards all-gender bathrooms going forward, while removing gender prescriptions and just listing the kind of facilities offered for “legacy” ones? Or maybe change the facilities, like require stalls to be fully enclosed as a sort of private bathrooms?
The problem I see, is that bathrooms need to be legislated somehow, otherwise it would let cost cutting places not install any, or keep them “for staff use only”, while public places can’t really do anything without some legislation in place. So the question is more of what that legislation should look like.
Sorry, I meant more to keep bathroom legislation as it was prior to any legslation re: trans people.
As far as trying to shift culture towards mixed/all-gender bathrooms, I have mixed opinions. I’ve heard there have been studies done that show you can have as many/more people serviced by a space filled with single-stall non-gendered bathrooms, using the same footprint as our current separate men’s/women’s rooms set up, maybe that’s a way to go. But it feels kind of odd to me. Women’s bathrooms have served as a somewhat “safe” space for women, and from my understanding there was a big push by feminists to have men’s and women’s segregated bathrooms that I don’t feel a need to undo.
Honestly, it feels like you’re still buying the right-wing arguments that men are going to dress up as trans women to harass/assault people in women’s bathrooms. This is a made up problem created by bigots who are looking to come up with more ways to hate and belittle us, and spending time trying to find a better solution is only giving credence to the made-up bigoted bullshit in the first place. It feels like you’re only halfway accepting what trans people are saying.
If I tell you that the problem is completely made up on false pretenses, the response shouldn’t be “yes, but how do we solve that problem?” – we don’t. It’s not actually a problem. Trans people, by and large, aren’t upset that there are men’s and women’s rooms – we’re upset that we’re getting legislated out of the bathrooms that we belong and fit in. The solution is to recognize the bull it’s based on and stop any of that legislation, not to re-write how we do bathrooms altogether.
I’m not who you asked, but I am also a trans person that’s not planning on bottom surgery so thought I might chime in here.
Personally, the best solution is simply: Don’t legislate anything regarding bathroom/gender. Leave the bathrooms as they are. Let people use the bathrooms that they feel fit them best, that they’re most comfortable in. And if someone attempts to sneak in and assault/harass women in the bathroom, that’s already a crime that we have laws for.
Places that want to be more friendly or progressive will generally provide gender-neutral options. To me, the presence of a gender-neutral or all-gender bathroom is a good signifier that the place of business could be considered a potentially “safe” space – the staff there are probably going to be more accepting/less tolerant of open hate or bigotry and I can afford to let my guard down a little bit.
Thank you for chiming in, this is being a good learning/reflection opportunity on many levels.
The problem I see, is that bathrooms need to be legislated somehow, otherwise it would let cost cutting places not install any, or keep them “for staff use only”, while public places can’t really do anything without some legislation in place. So the question is more of what that legislation should look like.
I agree that assault/harassment is orthogonal to any gender related legislation (men can as well assault men in men bathrooms), so maybe the legislation should tend towards all-gender bathrooms going forward, while removing gender prescriptions and just listing the kind of facilities offered for “legacy” ones? Or maybe change the facilities, like require stalls to be fully enclosed as a sort of private bathrooms?
Sorry, I meant more to keep bathroom legislation as it was prior to any legslation re: trans people.
As far as trying to shift culture towards mixed/all-gender bathrooms, I have mixed opinions. I’ve heard there have been studies done that show you can have as many/more people serviced by a space filled with single-stall non-gendered bathrooms, using the same footprint as our current separate men’s/women’s rooms set up, maybe that’s a way to go. But it feels kind of odd to me. Women’s bathrooms have served as a somewhat “safe” space for women, and from my understanding there was a big push by feminists to have men’s and women’s segregated bathrooms that I don’t feel a need to undo.
Honestly, it feels like you’re still buying the right-wing arguments that men are going to dress up as trans women to harass/assault people in women’s bathrooms. This is a made up problem created by bigots who are looking to come up with more ways to hate and belittle us, and spending time trying to find a better solution is only giving credence to the made-up bigoted bullshit in the first place. It feels like you’re only halfway accepting what trans people are saying.
If I tell you that the problem is completely made up on false pretenses, the response shouldn’t be “yes, but how do we solve that problem?” – we don’t. It’s not actually a problem. Trans people, by and large, aren’t upset that there are men’s and women’s rooms – we’re upset that we’re getting legislated out of the bathrooms that we belong and fit in. The solution is to recognize the bull it’s based on and stop any of that legislation, not to re-write how we do bathrooms altogether.