Hi, welcome to Gender Analysis. We’re barely
two months into 2016, and this year, there
have already been 29 bills filed in state
legislatures to prevent trans people from
using the restroom or locker room of their
gender. If these bills pass, trans women would
be forced to use men’s bathrooms and locker
rooms, and vice versa for trans men. This
is a subject I’ve dealt with before in 2015,
2013, and 2010. Yes, this issue has been going
on for so long that I was addressing it before
I even transitioned. And for the past six
years, one feature of this manufactured debate
has remained constant: the complete lack of
evidence for any alleged threat posed by allowing
trans people to use the facilities of their
gender. So far this year, in a country of
313 million people, there have been zero news
reports of trans people engaging in any sort
of provocative or harassing behavior in restrooms
or locker rooms. There has been one case of
a man in Washington who attempted to use a
women’s locker room before being asked to
leave. He was apparently doing so in protest
of laws allowing trans people to use the facilities
of their gender, and in the process demonstrating
that the specter of “men in women’s restrooms”
is quite literally an invented threat. Even
if we did blame this on policies allowing
trans people to use the proper facilities,
then there’s currently 1 anti-trans bill
being proposed for every 0.034 relevant incidents.
At this rate, and given an extremely generous
projection, there might be a total of six
incidents across the country this year. In
comparison, 11 people caught the plague last
year. So watch out – this locker room invasion
could happen in your state (but most likely
will not). I am beyond finished with pretending
that this is some kind of serious issue to
be debated. Transphobes are filming trans
people in restrooms, dragging trans youth
out of bathrooms and into international headlines,
and legislatively harassing us with no provocation
whatsoever. This is a modern-day witch hunt:
trans people are being targeted as the source
of problems that existed long before our so-called
“tipping point”. Public anxiety about
privacy in shared spaces such as restrooms
and locker rooms is due to far more substantial
factors – this was an issue long before
we walked through the door.
Consider the design of most multi-user public
restrooms. Even in stalls, the level of privacy
afforded to someone who’s going to the bathroom
is minimal. A closed door typically still
has gaps large enough for anyone to look through.
None of the walls extend to the floor, leaving
plenty of room for U.S. senators to harass
people for sex. These partial enclosures are
something we would never accept in our home
bathrooms – you might as well leave the
door half-open. What should be your space
at this private moment instead feels incredibly
vulnerable and porous, with others constantly
intruding into what feels like your personal
area. Is it any wonder that so many people
feel uncomfortable going to the bathroom in
public behind what’s basically a glorified
curtain? It’s easy to understand why somebody
would feel on guard, protective of their privacy,
and justified in acting as “bathroom police”
when most restrooms have so thoroughly failed
to respect their privacy on a structural level.
Some people might be willing to swing their
fists just to reestablish a sense of personal
space that they feel has been stripped from
them. Prior to transitioning, I was often
afraid of using men’s restrooms – a fear
that was more than justified when a stranger
in a men’s room demanded to know if I was
a man or a woman, before trying to rob me.
Such experiences in restrooms are not at all
out of the norm for trans people, and easily
could have escalated to something much worse.
Restrooms don’t have to be this way, but
many just aren’t aware that there are alternatives.
This was one of the best surprises when I
went to the Women in Secularism conference:
restrooms with floor-to-ceiling walls and
actual doors like you’d find in a house,
providing a complete enclosure for every stall.
In this space, everyone’s privacy was so
fully protected that myself and another trans
woman could be comfortable openly having a
conversation, knowing this wouldn’t be an
issue. To be clear: anywhere else, in any
typical restroom, that would be an absolutely
terrifying prospect. But the intentional planning
by the conference served to enhance everyone’s
sense of security. This solid separation,
psychological distance, and assurance of privacy
helped to mitigate many of the concerns about
trans people in restrooms – and more than
that, it afforded every person the respect
they deserve. There’s so much less reason
to act as the bathroom police when the bathroom
itself has designed away the need for that.
Locker rooms present a situation that could
easily be mistaken for a hypothetical worst-case
scenario argument about bathrooms: What if
there weren’t any doors, or any stalls?
Also, what if everyone had to get undressed
in front of each other? Transphobic political
groups with names like “Privacy For All”
were never concerned about protecting everyone’s
privacy until now. They assume that this is
only a problem when trans people are present:
someone might see genitals that aren’t like
theirs, and the world will end. This extremely
narrow focus neglects to consider the many
issues that are already inherent to this arrangement.
Think about a time when you felt uncomfortable
being in a locker room, but were still expected
to be okay with it just because everyone around
you was the same gender. At school, I had
skipped a couple grades, which meant I was
always younger than my classmates. Even in
freshman year of high school, I was still
very small for my age and years away from
starting puberty. Our swimming unit was the
first time we were required to completely
undress in the locker room. Twice a day for
six weeks, I had to get changed with students
who were more than a foot taller than me and
resembled men more than boys. The locker room
had a single enclosed bathroom stall that
I had to wait to get changed in every day.
To me, this was a necessity, not a choice.
At the time, I had no awareness that this
had anything to do with gender, even as I
constantly tried to cover up my chest at the
pool to keep from feeling so exposed in front
of these boys. I just knew that the thought
of them seeing me undressed was so profoundly
uncomfortable that I would rather get changed
next to a toilet. The assumption that our
superficial anatomical similarities somehow
made everything okay could not have been more
wrong – there was nothing okay about this
situation. There’s no reason why pursuing
personal fitness should come with the requirement
of literally being stripped naked in front
of strangers, particularly for youth who are
especially insecure about their changing bodies
and can be disastrously judgmental toward
each other. The presence of trans people has
only served to highlight how uncomfortable
and anxious many people already feel about
using locker rooms. Transphobia causes further
complications by introducing disagreements
over the basic organization of these spaces.
About 36% of Americans don’t believe we
should be using the restroom or locker room
of our gender. Certainly this is outdated,
disrespectful, and invalidating, but we’re
still going to have to find ways of safely
coexisting with these individuals. Not all
locker rooms consist of only open spaces – I’ve
been to gyms with several dedicated stalls
for changing and showering. High School District
211 in Illinois recently reached a settlement
and agreed to allow a trans girl to use the
girls’ locker room, while also installing
privacy curtains for anyone to use. The availability
of partitions means that anyone who doesn’t
want to be seen, regardless of the reason,
can still comfortably exercise their right
to use the space. It also undermines the argument
that the rights of trans people must specifically
be limited to ensure the comfort of others.
We don’t have to convince 36% of the population
to welcome us into these spaces when we can
instead change the nature of the space so
that this no longer matters.
Trans people appear to be responsible for
extremely few incidents in public restrooms
and locker rooms, so this outpouring of political
transphobia is not a response to any sort
of actual threat. More than that, the alleged
concerns about privacy raised by public officials
and transphobic organizations can be handled
with meaningful structural solutions, and
without infringing on anyone’s freedoms.
So what excuse do these opportunists have
for continuing to stir up hate and depict
us as a threat? Cis people have broadly failed
to design public spaces that are respectful
of everyone’s dignity. This would continue
to be a real problem even if every trans person
disappeared tomorrow, and transphobic legislation
would solve nothing but the imaginary problems
that transphobes have invented.
I’m Zinnia Jones. Thanks for watching, and
tune in next time for more Gender Analysis.
