Human bodies (like all other animals) create bodily waste that must be evacuated out of our bodies; it is biology. Gender does not determine whether or not that is a necessity, because it just is. Basically, when you have to pee, you have to pee. With that said, why does it matter what "equipment you use" to perform this necessary bodily function?
Transgenders should have the right to use the restroom that agrees with their gender identity. Truth be told, they mostly already have been. More often than not, you just didn't realize it. Being transgender is being just that, they are no longer the gender that they were; they are the gender that they are. It isn't dressing in drag. It is literally being the gender that you identify with. And this isn't a threat to the safety of your women and children. Nor is this opening up some door to allow sexual assault. That door has already been open. Rapists and sexual predators have always been able to walk into a public restroom and assault someone if they so chose. But, if you are going to start a "Potty Police" checking birth certificates at the door, you are indeed helping to cause more assaults to actually happen. Transgender individuals are already brutally victimized, assaulted, and murdered based on their gender identity. If you are going to force them to walk into a restroom, based on their birth certificate, where they truly don't belong, you are asking for them to willingly walk into an unsafe place, risking their well-being as well as their lives.
This doesn't just affect transgender individuals, this will and has affected anyone that doesn't fit within the gender binary. Truthfully, this makes public restrooms unsafe for anyone. Genderqueer, gender fluid, butch, femme, poof, twink, women with short hair, anyone that may dress in drag, etc. are all subject to threats because no matter how small the "infraction," if you don't fit or rather don't "appear" to fit within the gender binary, you could be at risk.
How often do you get self conscious about going into the public restroom? Even when your bladder is full to the brim and all you can think about is getting to that toilet. For some of us, that doesn't matter, we still get nervous to just walk through that door.
From the Perspective of a Genderqueer Individual
“Are you a boy or a girl?” I’ve heard this most of my life. Well, besides being told that I look like Ellen DeGeneres. I hold a door for someone and hear, “Thank you, sir.” Sometimes a gentleman isn’t sure whether to give me an acknowledging nod or to shake my hand. This isn’t to say that I get mistaken for a man, no, I get mistaken for a teenage boy when merely glanced at. I’m a new form of Peter Pan, causing heads to do a double take when I walk into the ladies’ room.
I’ve been lucky. I haven’t been assaulted physically, only verbally, based on my appearance.
Fag, dyke, queer.
Hey, do you wish you had a penis, I’ve got a penis for you to handle.
Girls that dress like that, I never know whether I want to screw them or kick their ass.
Or I will get an earful of their social political views on same-sex marriage and/or how I’m the downfall of society.
When I was born, I was the blonde, blue-eyed little girl that my mother had dreamed of since the age of 12. She loved to dress me up in little red dresses, because she thought I looked so good in red. However, once I could dress myself, the dresses stopped; then the confusion and disappointment began. When you are a young girl that is athletic and dressed boyish, you are considered a tomboy, and this is a "quirk" that they hope and expect you to eventually grow out of it. I didn’t grow out of it. Now, in high school I did try to fulfill society’s expectations of a cis-female, that is, a female that identifies with the female gender assigned at birth they were assigned at birth. I grew out my hair and tried really, really hard to be just like Gwen Stefani. While this attempt of exerting an appearance of confident femininity may have solved the confusion others had towards me, it caused me further confusion about my own identity.
In my early twenties, I went through the quarter life crisis most people go through right after college. I was sad, and I was tired. I was tired of trying to be what society expects of all females, of what was expected of me, rather than being true to myself. I'm an adult tomboy that does happen to be gay, which makes the challenge of defending your gender fluidity a bit harder when you walk around in public dressing less than feminine while holding the hand of your girlfriend.
My defining moment, happened when I took part in a production of The Vagina Monologues. The costumes were to be all black with an element of red. At this point, I had fully accepted that I was definitely gay, and I was in my first serious relationship. I felt bold and ready to keep embracing the parts of myself that make me, me. I decided my red element would be a little red tie. This clothing choice didn’t change my biological gender, nor did it change who I am. It was merely the first step in fully accepting that while what you wear can label you, it doesn’t define who you are.
It is a rough journey to figure out who you are and how you want to be. There is absolutely no reason for any of us to go through that journey only to end up unsafe, threatened, and/or abused based on which room structure we use to evacuate our bodily waste. Just go take a shit or pee, and let others do the same. And if you give me a weird look as we pass each on our ways to take that shit or piss, I’ll still hold the door for you even if you call me “sir.”
