Holy crap, people, will you calm down about the bathroom?
Transwomen -- that is, people with Y chromosomes who identify as women -- are not dressing as women and going into ladies' rooms in order to molest grown women or little girls. They are going in there to pee. They want out of there as quickly as you and I do.
Oh, sure, some perverts/aggressive men may dress in women's weeds and pretend to be trans in order to molest women, but my gut tells me that the percentage of rapist who do this is a small one. My sense is that a true predictor on the prowl and looking for a lone and vulnerable victim is going to enter a ladies room to nab their prey with or without a dress on.
Nevertheless, there's been a disturbing trend based upon this bathroom transphobia: Y chromosome persons identifying as men, real He-Men men, have been entering ladies rooms to stop actual women from going to the ladies room because these women didn't look feminine enough for these protectors of the social order, these bathroom gender conformity vigilantes.
So ladies who do not look lady enough in the estimation of random strangers have to prove that they are in-fact lady enough to use the ladies room?
How does that work?
Do they drop trou?
Do they flash a boob?
Do they carry around a copy of their birth certificate?
What about this guy?
This guy is Chaz Bono. He was born Chastity Bono. Two X chromosomes.
It's okay for him to use the ladies room, right? I mean, it's mandatory, right?, because two X chromosomes, and all.
You see the problem here?
Well, maybe you see the obvious problem, but what about the feminist angle?
The feminist angle, Working Mom? What do you mean? This is a trans/transphobic issue, not a feminist issue.
No, there's where you are wrong: Because implicit in all of this is an argument about what it means to be a woman and what a REAL woman looks like.
If you're kind of a butch chick, or a little bit of an old fashion 1970s tomboy, you are, apparently, de facto suspect.
No. Guys like the ding-dongs who try to eject not-feminine-enough-by-their-subjective-standards women from the ladies room want women to look a certain way. They want us to be properly and traditionally feminine. And if we aren't, well, we should expect to be followed into the ladies room by (irony abounds) some man wanting you to prove your right to be in there.
Meanwhile, certain states want to pass laws (and have in some instances) to bar this person from the WC with the stick figure in a skirt:
(That's Laverne Cox, transwoman and star of Orange is the New Black, a television show of some sort that I am barely aware of.)
Look, I am traditionally feminine-looking most of the time (but, hey, weekends: baggy jeans, ball cap, baggy sweatshirt and I may become gender-not-so-clear), but I have friends who are not feminine looking ladies. And they deserve to use the potty in peace same as anyone, without having to prove their bona fides as an actual owner of Two Xs in order earn the right to pee in the room with a stick figure in a skirt on the door.
In short: People need to CFTD about bathrooms. Go to the bathroom. Do your business. And keep your nose out of the business of anyone else who may have entered that bathroom in proximate time with you to do their business. Chances are things will be just fine. Because, chances are, they're not interested in your shit either.
