I’ve been keeping quiet about my opinion on the whole bathroom “situation” for a while now. I’ve kept my comments off Facebook and even quiet during real life conversations, but I’ve had enough.
After doing research and reading countless articles as to why transgender people shouldn’t be allowed to use their own restrooms, I summed everything up into three reasons: religion, parenting styles and plain ignorance.
Religion is a sticky situation when it comes to big situations like this. Everyone is entitled to practice their own religion and that’s fine, but isn’t everyone entitled to use the bathroom too?
Just because your religion says being transgender is wrong, doesn't mean you're right. That's the beauty of living in America; we get to practice whatever religion we want and interpret it however much or little as we want.
In my opinion, there’s a proper, religious way to explain the transgender community to children who may encounter them in a public restroom. The parent explaining it to their child can make it as loving or hell-bent as they wish, of course, but there is still a way it can be done. And at the end of the day, the only one who gets to judge is g/God.
The way people choose to raise their children is also another sticky situation. A lot of articles I read said that they didn’t want their children exposed to a “man in a women’s restroom." While it is the parents’ choice as to when they bring up situations like that, it doesn’t mean that their parenting style has justification over someone’s bathroom usage.
As a lesbian, I’ve gotten the side eyed look while holding my girlfriend’s hand in public many times, usually by moms with their small children in tow. In reality, that child probably didn’t realize I was holding a girl’s hand and if they did they didn’t think anything of it. Same goes for the bathrooms.
You and your child probably won’t even realize that the woman washing her hands next to you was born a biological man. You've probably already washed your hands next to a transgender woman and your child could possibly have a transgender classmate and you never knew.
Children aren't born hateful. Hate is something that is taught. Children don't realize differences until they are pointed out to them. The chance that younger children will bring this subject up on their own is slim to none and if a child is old enough to bring it up on their own then they need to be taught about what is going on in the world.
The ignorant side of the arguments against allowing transgender people to use their bathrooms is a little easier to shut down.
When people say the reason they don’t want transgender people to use their own bathrooms is because they don’t want their children to be raped, molested or kidnapped by “perverted men,” I can't help but laugh.
Not because those things are okay or funny because they’re not, but because people could say such an idiotic thing when they know nothing about being transgender or the transgender world in general.
What these ignorant people are saying is that they don’t want a man walking into a women’s restroom to do those horrible things to their daughters (or vice versa). Which is fine because a transgender woman doesn’t want a man walking into her restroom and doing those things either.
What these people are worried about are biological men who identify as men (horrible men, at that) taking advantage of places' policies on transgender bathroom usage to do horrible things.
Those disgusting men who want to do those things should be the ones being shamed. Not the woman who is trying to live her daily life as normal as possible.
So before you boycott Target or make another highly ignorant, opinionated Facebook status please do your research and really think about the basic right you are trying to take away from people.
