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Today’s post is an open question for readers and friends!
I have a chunk of liberal friends and a chunk of conservative friends, and for the most part, never the twain shall meet.
At a group dinner one day with the more liberal group, I heard something to the effect of, “conservatives think transgender people are perverts,” and that this was at the root of the “bathroom bills” enforcing gender separation.
That struck me as odd.
(Note: this is not a topic on the virtues or vices of the bathroom bills themselves.)
I have always been under the impression that this was not the case. I know some concerned that their children will be made confused–unnecessarily questioning their own gender at an awkward age–by inflations of how many people are transgender. I have heard of–but do not know–people that think that some portion of transgender people are themselves simply confused, or odd.
But I hadn’t known of anyone (though as Nat says, “there’s one of everything in America–we have 330 million people”) that thought that transgender people were fundamentally perverted.
So I asked a few friends (conservative, men and women)! Here was the resounding response:
“No, no! If you allow anyone to decide whatever gender they are, and just wander into whatever bathroom they want, perverts will take advantage of this. It’s not like we’re going to have people carry around cards that say, ‘I identify as such-and-such gender.’ Perverted men can’t be stopped from entering women’s bathrooms and being creepy.”
So how big a risk this is, I cannot know, and the quality of the solution is not what I want to discuss. But it seems that the aim of the conservative position is to protect women from predatory cis straight men.
If my conservative friends represent a large chunk of conservatives (again, not all people who identify as conservative, for we are not simply two tribes), it would suggest this: that there is a large scope of agreement on a value very important to both political groups–protecting women from predatory men–and, in this case, a conflict in the minds of some between that and another value–helping individuals be comfortable in the places they go.
So the open question: do you as a liberal or conservative feel substantially differently from my representation? (Less helpful would be, “no, liberals/conservatives feel this awful thing and I know it to be true.”)
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I've been running into what I'm calling "the protection mandate" quite a lot lately, and I'm wondering if there isn't an underlying truth about risk. Whether it's care of the child, or protect the women, or protect the homeland, it seems that one side of the argument believes that safety outweighs any other factor. Fear is strong, and, despite there being a small percentage chance of actual danger, restrictions are put in place to protect someone. The other side of the argument has, sometimes is required to, go on living despite the risk. If risk is small or manageable, then a person should be allowed to do what a person wants to do.
The interesting thing is that which is more important, the risk or the individual mandate, seems to switch depending on which issue is being discussed. Child at the park? Possession of firearms? Genderless bathrooms? Banking and consumer protection? One should argue that our society allows an individual to choose for themselves or not, but this cherry picking of stances to occasionally prohibit choice in the name of societal safety and occasionally demand individual choice in the name of freedom is irrational.
Yes, this is exactly what my very conservative mother is afraid of: predatory cis men who will pretend to be trans to gain access into women's restrooms. And I think it's disingenuous at best and ignorant at worst for liberals like myself to paint the objectors so broadly as transphobic.
I fundamentally disagree with your perspective, based on a few things:
1. I do not believe everyone who likes these laws is transphobic, but I do think transphobic people wrote them and are convincing people of a problem that doesn't exist, and pretending that this law will help where it will not. I believe this because of the interviews I've watched and the articles I've read quoting the bills and their supporters.
2. Even if I'm wrong, and you're right about the intent of these laws: there is absolutely nothing stopping a man to enter a bathroom when the police aren't looking, law or no law, dress or no dress. I guarantee you this will do nothing to affect women's safety. Absolutely nothing.
3. If they actually cared about women's safety, they'd be doing something to tackle a higher bar on the pareto than perverts in the bathroom. In my opinion and experience, the true monsters and demons are elsewhere, and the data reflects that.
4. I disagree with your assessment of the intent of these laws, but regardless of that: its impact is the sin that is undeniable. These laws assert that your gender at birth is your true and accurate gender, and it's very clear what impact that is having on the transgender community (a community that is more likely to be assaulted, raped, abused, murdered, mistreated and fundamentally misunderstood than nearly any other group in America).
tl;dr: if you truly want to keep women safe, do something productive, relevant and effective that doesn't make the transgender community feel even less welcome in our society that constantly devalues them.
I have heard two comments that really resonated with me on this issue:
(1) If we wanted to protect women from predatory men, we could start with actually punishing rapists, firing serial sexual harassers, helping women out of abusive relationships, and believing victims. Any incremental harm from cis men in a bathroom is totally overwhelmed by all the way we're failing to protect women, and as a cis woman I find it ridiculous that this is the way a lawmaker would protect me...by ignoring the things that actually have the most potential to hurt me.
(2) A trans woman is much much much more likely to be seriously assaulted in the men's bathroom than any cis woman by a cis man in the woman's bathroom. Insisting that trans women not use the women's bathroom completely devalues THEIR safety.
There needs to be more of a dialogue not only between congress, but within the media that seem to not understand why 'conservatives' don't want transgenders to utilize the bathroom of their choice. Sen. Cruz gave me the impression what he was concerned about his little girls. This is obviously making the assumption that a predator, not a 'real' transgender will be in his daughter's bathroom. But what came to my mind was where is the mother when the girls go in or is he saying that he is in charge of them at the time? If this is the situation then I understand his concerns. (I'm a liberal.) Statistics can be flawed, more often it's opinions on a unending loop rather than addressing the issue: Do Transgenders have a civil right to use the bathroom of their choice? Assumptions, xenophobic tendencies aside you must consider a person as a person. I heard on PBS a while ago a transgender who would have to plan h/er day around where the clean bathrooms were, safe bathrooms were, or if s/he had to go home before she went on with her day or evening. If you have 3 choices such as male/female/unisex it might help a little, but there will always be those who feel threatened or worry about the what-ifs - as in all bathroom scenarios - know one knows. Assumptions and beliefs aside, disregarding the transgender community's civil rights it what is the issue.
As a centrist, I have heard the argument made often.
I reject it as having little basis in fact.
However, I do accept that the people making it sincerely believe it. They are wrong to do so, so the facts are not on their side, but if you are judging them by intent, transphobia isn't in there at all.
People can sincerely try to do the right thing, and have it in fact be totally wrong, invalid, and unfair. That doesn't make them guilty of trying to do the wrong thing. It makes them guilty of not understanding what is actually going on.
Tribalism in general, from all political extremes, makes "not understanding the facts" a much more prevalent problem.