The national discussion of “bathroom bills” like North Carolina’s H.B. 2 is everywhere. Every time you turn on a news program or open the newspaper, it’s there. The discussion mainly focuses on how it aimed at transgender Americans, which it is, in part. But what’s often missing in the discussion is how this isn’t based on any facts related to crimes by trans people. That would be nearly impossible because there are so few of them. It’s based on the fear that straight men will dress like women in order to sexually assault people in women’s restrooms.
It’s just one more example of bigots using people’s fears against one of the most vulnerable groups in our country, a group with virtually no history of violence – sexual or otherwise – to advance their agenda. It’s the primary reason I and so many others were adamantly opposed to putting trans civil rights up for a vote in Michigan at this time.
Let’s face it, we DO have a real problem with male sexual predators in this country. Every time you turn on a news program or open the newspaper, it’s there. Story after story of some dirtbag assaulting a woman or a child. And, more often than not, it’s a straight male perpetrating the crime.
Preventing trans women from using public restrooms will do exactly NOTHING to solve that centuries-long intractable problem.
