Here’s An Opinion: Stop Restricting Transgender Bathroom Access AND End Clever Bar Bathroom Signs

“Here’s An Opinion” is a series of slightly informed takes and silly stances. To be 100% clear, these are jokes.

Earlier this week, a U.S. District Court judge in Fort Worth, Texas temporarily blocked President Obama’s May 2016 transgender bathroom access directive, which says that schools should allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms according to their gender identity. The state of Texas, along with the 12 other states suing the Obama administration, have argued that the President’s policy goes too far to overstep local control, and is a safety and privacy risk for other students.

First of all, the only person who should be worried about who goes into a bathroom with them is Janet Leigh in Psycho. Second of all, for too long, schools have had control over the “when” you can go to the bathroom — through hall passes, a stupid system which forces students to raise their hand and interrupt class just to obtain permission to go do something they literally don’t have the option not to do. Now, some schools are trying to take control over the “where.” When are we going to stop them? When it gets to the “how”? The only reason I work out is to get into “able to squat comfortably over a public toilet seat” shape, and that takes A LOT. If the government tells me or anyone else I’m not allowed to do that anymore, I’m going to be pissed. No pun intended.

Also: It’s kind of ridiculous that these people are so worked up by what they think transgender kids will do in the “wrong” bathrooms, yet they have no problem with this judge just openly waving his dick around at the President. This Texas judge has given legitimacy to court cases that should have never advanced further than Judge Judy. Or preferably, they never would have advanced further than unfinished Word Docs that got saved on a dusty old laptop and then lost when the laptop became riddled with viruses from too many porn downloads.

And now all these poor kids have to sit around waiting for permission to go pee comfortably indefinitely, or be forced to pee where they’re not comfortable. Have you ever had to pee in a place where you don’t want to? Like the woods? How vulnerable did having to pee in the woods feel, when you weren’t expecting to? You were probably angry and scared and thinking “Why the fuck did I ever come to the woods? The woods suck.” That’s what these states are making school like for these kids.

For now, the best solution might be to just go pee on this federal judge’s desk. Sure, it’ll be a little bit out of the way for some kids because Texas is HUGE (just ask the women who have to travel hundreds of miles to get an abortion at one of the only 19 clinics the state has allowed to remain open), but boy oh boy will it be satisfying once they get there.

I’m not saying we should trust and follow every single thing the President says just because they’re the President. My coming-of-age years fell during the first and second Dubya Bush elections, so I’ve been disillusioned by our government since before I was even old enough to vote. But hey, you know what, when they try to put rules in place to ensure that every citizen of this country is treated like an actual human being with equal rights to everyone else, gee, maybe they’re onto something there.

There’s precedent for changed attitudes and legislative progress leading to real change on civil rights issues in this country, so I like to think that it’s going to happen eventually, whether these bigots like it or not. At least on paper — and then to actually overcome systemic prejudices and truly reach equality, it will still take another…well, who knows how long. So give transgender people this inch, Arkansas, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. You’ll probably get to spend the rest of your lives taking back miles upon miles. Xoxo, women and black people and immigrants and everyone else who isn’t a straight white man who only “checks his privilege” to go “Yup, still there.”

If we’re going to tackle any gendered bathroom issue in this country, you know what it should be? Bars that try to get too clever with ’em. You know what I’m talking about — those faux-dive joints in trendy neighborhoods that consult the Merriam Hipster’s Dictionary to designate their men’s and women’s rooms, or even worse, just use a vague picture. I can’t tell the difference between a male and a female seahorse, hipster bar. Oh, the difference is that the male is the one that gets pregnant and carries the babies? Now I’m even more confused. Gender roles are stupid enough without bringing horse fish into it.

TL;DR — Assholes need to stop using unwarranted fears about certain people using certain bathrooms as a cover for their bigotry (bathrooms should only be used as a cover when it comes to doing coke), and we should just get rid of restrictive gender labels on bathrooms in general. And fucking stupid ones on Brooklyn bar bathrooms in particular.