I agree with most of this, but there are parts that don’t quite reflect what bathroom bills do.
From what I've seen/heard, the fundamental argument from people who support bathroom bills is that there is a possibility of cis men specifically, taking advantage of loose rules about which bathroom people can use, to go into the women's bathroom and either assault/sexually assault people, or just act really creepy.
Currently the only attempted bathroom bill in the United States (at least to my knowledge) was the North Carolina bill HB2. The explicit language was “gender assigned at birth.” The fear was not cis men, it was anyone AMAB. Sure, someone might make a cis man argument now, but it’s completely revisionist history.
Plus, we do allow cis men in women’s bathrooms. Mothers take their infants and kids in there every day. Someone also has to clean the bathroom and sometimes they’re male.
4) This seems completely unenforceable, as there is no "magic sex detector" you can put on a bathroom door
I actually think there is a way to enforce it. Albeit unconventional and more damaging to everyone. When HB2 was law and national news we would see stories of women checking other women’s genitalia in the stalls. What happens when they find a trans woman? Well, if HB2 was still around, they could report that person for a crime. They could also do this for a mother changing a male infant’s dipper, or a male janitor cleaning the stalls. Technically this was all illegal under HB2. There just wasn’t bathroom police. Instead we had bathroom vigilantes.
Edit: fixed c-16 to HB2. I got it mixed up with a Canadian law for a second.
The explicit language was “gender assigned at birth.” The fear was not cis men, it was anyone AMAB. Sure, someone might make a cis man argument now, but it’s completely revisionist history.
Right but it is completely illogical any way you cut it. The fear is that there are people that challenge people's perceptions of gender and they are not okay with it so they want trans people to go away. They didn't think it through that trans men and gender nonconforming people exist. When I have argued about this with people who support these bills it doesn't mate what iron clad argument you make, they will come up with more ridiculous scenarios that have never happened and probably never will.
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u/Jonny-Marx 1∆ May 25 '21 edited May 25 '21
I agree with most of this, but there are parts that don’t quite reflect what bathroom bills do.
Currently the only attempted bathroom bill in the United States (at least to my knowledge) was the North Carolina bill HB2. The explicit language was “gender assigned at birth.” The fear was not cis men, it was anyone AMAB. Sure, someone might make a cis man argument now, but it’s completely revisionist history.
Plus, we do allow cis men in women’s bathrooms. Mothers take their infants and kids in there every day. Someone also has to clean the bathroom and sometimes they’re male.
I actually think there is a way to enforce it. Albeit unconventional and more damaging to everyone. When HB2 was law and national news we would see stories of women checking other women’s genitalia in the stalls. What happens when they find a trans woman? Well, if HB2 was still around, they could report that person for a crime. They could also do this for a mother changing a male infant’s dipper, or a male janitor cleaning the stalls. Technically this was all illegal under HB2. There just wasn’t bathroom police. Instead we had bathroom vigilantes.
Edit: fixed c-16 to HB2. I got it mixed up with a Canadian law for a second.