Thursday, May 26, 2016

Transgender Bathrooms/Dressing Rooms

Everyone in this country has the right to practice what religion they wish, and to believe in what values they choose to.  Therefore, the discussion of transgenders being able to use their respective facilities of choice should be not be an issue of religion or beliefs, but one of security. 

The reason there is an issue of security, is due to the fact that there is no easy, immediate method of determining whether a person is truly a transgender versus a person simply dressed up as the opposite sex.  A transgender person identifies with the gender they are emulating.  This means they believe they ARE that gender, it is not just a pretense.  Unfortunately, you can’t determine this by just looking at a person.  This means that a man, who is not transgender, could dress up as a woman and enter the women’s facilities without a second glance because there is no way to determine that he is indeed NOT a transgender person.  Once inside, he can harass other women, intimidate them, and even sexually assault them.  Likewise, a woman, who is not transgender, could dress up as a man and enter the men’s facilities and do similar harm to the men. 


Since we cannot determine person’s intent through simple observation, perhaps the best solution is to create a third facility.  A unisex facility that is open to all genders and transgenders.  This provides a non-gender biased area for all transgenders, as well as providing the choice to people who are comfortable with the possibility of having someone of the opposite gender, or transgender,  using the same facility at the same time.  Those who are not comfortable with this idea can continue to use the original gender-biased facilities.

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