because I need somewhere to unload. pun not intended.
- these are kids. Which means even the standard flimsy arguments against trans-inclusive bathrooms can't even apply, unless there's an epidemic of 6 year old sex predators roaming the hallways waiting for an opportunity to exploit an obscure legal loophole and rape their peers. High schoolers, maybe, we'll get to that later. But there's zero justification for rescinding protections across the board even for elementary schools.
- again, these are kids. For prepubescents, transitioning just means a change of clothes and hairstyle and name and just like that they will instantly blend in and become indistinguishable from others of their gender. Which means the whole panic over cis girls seeing an obvious!male in the bathroom is completely unfounded, and will instead start happening when trans boys are forced in there with them.
- that's a lot of trans kids who'll have to choose between being outed - and made the target of all the bullying, plus having all their classmates know about their genitals and start seeing them as the other gender - or being able to pee. From my experience and those of other trans people I know of, they will choose not to pee. The trans community suffers from a disproportionate rate of UTIs for this reason, as well as kidney stones and other problems, like in the case of a trans girl in elementary school who wouldn't drink water all day so she wouldn't have to use the boy's bathroom and have all her friends know she's ~really a boy~. She was eventually hospitalized for dehydration, and afaik no sexual predators were the least bit hindered by these happenings.
- using the nurse's bathrooms or handicapped stalls might sound plausible in practice but not in reality, especially in schools when kids are rushing between classes; not to mention how it would mean outing yourself or at least standing out as weird if all your friends are going to the regular bathrooms and you have to make a shameful walk to another floor or the other side of the building
- I saw comments from someone who was very angry about trans people using even handicapped stalls, because those stalls are meant for the handicapped
- So, high schoolers. Yeah, many of them are perverts who'd love to exploit a loophole to perv on girls. Those tend to be the same people for whom it would already be social suicide to claim to be gay, let alone a girl. Either they'd have to keep up the charade for years, and suffer the same bullying and abuse given to actual trans girls, or their friends would be in on the joke and I doubt that could stay secret for long with all the sniggering that's likely to happen. I also don't know how people think anyone would be able to do this without word eventually getting out to their parents, who may very well respond abusively. Or supportively, offering to buy them girl clothes and change their name and refer to them with female pronouns, maybe even help them find an understanding surgeon to invert their dick, in which case any cis guy who can go along with that for years without dying slowly from humiliation and gender dysphoria is probably not that cis to begin with, and the point is moot.
- fun fact: trans guys are more likely to rape girls than trans girls are. Testosterone + need to prove one's manhood + public humiliation from being forced into the female bathrooms = does not end well. Most of the rape I've read about from trans people were from trans men, including one activist who got away with it twice because everyone was too busy freaking out over trans women. And that guy who raped a 13 year old multiple times and initially wasn't even charged (because trans men are women and women can't rape!) until the appeal, and is now thankfully in jail.
- as usual, enforcing bathroom use by sex on birth certificate would just make it easier for a would-be predator to claim he was born female and has to be there. He wouldn't even need to dress up as a woman or pretend to be one. Yet no one seems concerned about that, presumably because they can't imagine that a guy would be secure enough in his masculinity to claim he doesn't have a dick and is therefore a woman. Oh wait.
- another fun fact: Singapore has 2 years of compulsory military service for all able-bodied, legally male citizens when they turn 18. Lots of them dread this and are furious about this, and go to extreme lengths to get out of it or assigned to an admin rather than combat position: faking mental illnesses, trying to get diagnosed with actual illnesses, running off to another country and ensuring they'll be jailed if they ever return (my cousin did this), and so on. However, gay men and trans women are automatically disqualified from combat. All a straight cis dude would have to do is tell the officer "I'm gay", or "I'm a girl", and they'd be free. And yet they don't; they would rather risk actual death in combat training than suffer the indignity of claiming they're one of those people.
- there seems to be this misconception that trans people instantly want to use the bathroom of their identified gender. But I have trans female friends who look male and use the male bathrooms because they don't want to get murdered. And I have trans female friends who look female and use the female bathrooms because they don't want to get raped and murdered. This is pretty much the case for every trans person I know, even the genderfluid ones who don't in fact change bathrooms according to their current identity, but all stick to the one where they're least likely to stand out or get murdered.
- someone on Reddit said that he'd never considered that trans people might be risking their lives by being made to use birth certificate sexed bathrooms. Why the hell else do they think people are freaking out?
- I'm also puzzled by the folks who say that trans people can use their gender bathrooms only after they've had genital surgery. But then, by their logic, what's to stop a would-be predator from claiming he's a trans woman who no longer has a dick? Who's going to check? Does this hypothetical scenario take place in a nudist colony?
- someone undeterred by a law that says "don't rape people" is highly unlikely to be deterred by a law that says "don't go in there."
- "but wait!" random men say. "What if I see a sketchy man following my daughter into the bathroom? I should have the right to run in there and confront him before he hurts her!" YES. YES YOU SHOULD. The same applies even if that sketchy person was obviously female. And thus I hope they can see how ridiculous it would be if the only way for them to do that would be to break the law themselves, instead of being made to stand outside wringing their hands as their child screams, and thinking, "oh, I'd love to save her, but it's illegal for me to enter the female bathrooms."
- Is it still possible that a sex predator might exploit trans-protection laws to sexually assault someone (which is still illegal)? Sure. But what's far more likely and already happens far too often is male teachers and priests sexually abusing children, and yet that somehow hasn't led to vast mobs of morally outraged people calling for men to be banned from education and the clergy.
/rant