In light of President Trump's revocation of Obama's transgender rights laws, I felt the need to write this article. There are many fears and misconceptions surrounding transgender bathroom laws, and I want to address those who are against the idea of protections for transgender men and women using the bathroom consistent with their gender identity. I want to start by addressing just three of the concerns I have heard.

"I don't want a man/woman in my bathroom."

This is actually kind of the intent behind these laws. Look at the actress Laverne Cox, a transgender woman. Would you, as a man, want her, in her dresses and high heels, peeing in the restroom with you? Women, look at Chaz Bono, the son of Sonny and Cher, and ask yourselves if you would be comfortable with him, beard and all, walking into your bathroom. If the answer to either of those questions is no, then I hope you're beginning to understand the need for these laws. Certainly neither Cox nor Bono would feel safe going into the bathroom that matched the sex they were assigned at birth, and those around them wouldn't be comfortable either. There is no need for you to know that the person you are in the bathroom with is transgender, and if you're seeing someone's genitalia in a public restroom, there's a larger issue than whether you're seeing a penis or vagina.

"It increases the chance of predators preying on women."

I'm going to assume that when people say this they're talking about cisgender predators pretending to be trans, because there has never been a documented case of a transgender person assaulting someone in a public restroom. Peeping, assault, and rape are still illegal, regardless of the person's gender identity or gender presentation at the time of the crime. The kind of people who would dress as another gender in order to find victims are the kind of people who would do so without a false sense of security from the law. If a predator is willing to go to such lengths, they know that they're a predator, and they know what they're doing is illegal. It's inherently wrong to associate transgender people with predators; they're not. Even if there were an uptake in sexual crimes in bathrooms following the passing of these protections, it would not be the fault of the transgender people that are being protected. More often than not, they are themselves victims of these kind of crimes, with upwards of 64% of transgender people experiencing sexual assault at some point in their lives. I also find it problematic that these statements are so often directed towards the victimization of women because men can be victims of sexual crimes as well.

"It takes away my rights in order to give another group freedom."

Personally, I don't see how the rights of cisgender people are being revoked. I know change can make people uncomfortable, but being uncomfortable is not the same as having your rights taken away. Cis people can still use the restroom, we don't have to associate with anyone in those bathrooms if we don't want to, we don't have to worry about which public places will allow us to use the bathroom, and we aren't being harassed for being in the same restroom as a trans person. I want you to ask yourselves a question. Are you honestly willing to put an entire group of people through a legitimately increased chance of assault, increased chance of harassment, limitations on places to go because of lack of restrooms, and potentially a lifetime of discomfort because you are uncomfortable with the five minutes you are knowingly in the bathroom with a transgender person?

There are more arguments against transgender bathrooms that I do not have the time nor the space to talk about at the moment because there is another issue I want to bring up. The topic of transgender bathrooms is not merely a question of where people can pee. As Laverne Cox so gracefully said, quoting Chris Strangio, "These laws are not about bathrooms. They about whether transgender people have the right to exist in public space." When we say that transgender people cannot use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity, and we know that they cannot safely use the bathroom that corresponds with their birth sex, we're saying that we don't want to have to acknowledge their presence in our communities, regardless of the consequences to them. This doesn't have to be intentional to be present and powerful. It's time we acknowledge and respect everybody we interact with.

At the end of the day, nobody wants to spend any considerable length of time in a public restroom. They're usually gross and smell funny. We go in, use the toilet, wash our hands and leave. We don't need to know anything personal about the people in the stalls next to us. What's in their pants is none of our business; it never was.