Hey there Ogre. Like you, after same-sex marriage won, I kind of stopped following along. If I’ve heard anything about LGBT laws it’s been about cases like the ACLU’s willingness to help sue a Christian fundamentalist for declining to make a wedding cake. I wasn’t aware that CA had passed a restroom law, and that it has been in effect for two years already. I guess over time there will be stats on any problems related to it. So far, I doubt anybody has noticed any change.
As I see it, there are already TG people in the restroom. Unless you live in the SF area, you probably don’t come across them often, if ever, and when you do you probably don’t notice. You’re right, the question isn’t really if you agree with the TG issue, or if you think it’s a disorder. For me it really comes down to, “Do these different laws involve more or less harm?” Harm to either the rare TG person, or harm to say women and children, or everybody else in the restroom.
Let’s even say that there’s some kind of legitimate harm to people who feel distress or discomfort. Just for the sake of argument, let’s say that’s completely reasonable to feel uncomfortable with the idea of seeing penises in the women’s room, or vaginas in the men’s room.
We put a pretty high value on individual freedom here in the US. We’ll usually choose to protect individual freedom instead of doing “what’s best for the collective” unless the individual is doing something that causes harm/ creates victims. You can do and say a lot of things that I might find offensive or embarrassing, or that make me uncomfortable. And we’re MUCH less likely to really stand up for laws that don’t seem to involve harm, but are just some kind of social rule where nobody’s really getting hurt.
If lawmakers decide that TG people have to use the restroom that aligns with their external genitalia, is it even enforceable?
Setting discrimination concerns aside, lets say the question isn’t if the TG person has a right to use the restroom, but which one results in less “harm” to everybody else.
Is there a downside to the birth certificate laws in terms of harm? Now we would have people who live their lives as men, with male secondary sex characteristics like beards, who would be forced to come into the women’s room. That might make me very uncomfortable. As EyeDentist pointed out, it might actually make it easier for predatory men to get access because they wouldn’t have to go to the trouble to “dress up” to make their gender expression match. TG people who pass as women who are currently unnoticed in the women’s room would now have to go into the men’s room. That could be someone who looks just like your wife or daughter walking in while you’re using the urinal because they now have to comply with the BC law.
Lets imagine that a MTF TG person like Jenae Kroc trains at your gym. The person has breast implants, wears make-up, and dresses like a woman, but has a penis. She usually uses the unisex bathroom, but lets say it’s broken today. She can come into the men’s room and make you uncomfortable when she walks by your locker while you’re changing, or she can come into the women’s room and make me uncomfortable when she walks by my locker while I’m changing. Is there more or less “harm” in either scenario? You can look at harm to everybody else, or possible harm to the TG person.
Putting discrimination issues aside, I think the courts will decide that the likelihood of harm, even if harm is defined as some low level harm like making people uncomfortable, wouldn’t really decrease with these birth certificate laws.