Trans People Aren’t Surprised, Trump Told You He Would Take Our Rights
No one, I repeat, no one is using bathroom-protection laws to prey on children
by LAURA KATE
Let’s get this out the way — protecting transgender people’s access to public bathrooms will in no way enable sexual predators to commit acts of sexual harassment, sexual abuse or any other crime.
Transgender bathroom protections have existed in numerous American states for years, and there has never been a single reported incident of a non-transgender person using them as a shield to commit a sexual crime. No court has ever convicted a single transgender person of committing sexual assault in a bathroom. Not a single time. It’s an imagined problem that does not and has never existed.
The number of times Pres. Donald Trump has admitted to barging into gendered space under false pretenses is greater than the entire transgender population of the United States. Trump has bragged about more sex crimes than trans people have ever committed in bathrooms.
The argument against laws that let people go to the bathroom in their preferred space is outlandish. In short, people against such protections argue that sexual predators will use them as cover to commit heinous crimes. The idea of a non-transgender person using transgender bathroom protections to commit crimes of a sexual nature is so ridiculous that it falls apart if you think it through for more than a few seconds.
Let’s hypothetically say a non-transgender man walks into a women’s bathroom, puts his camera under a stall door and photographs a woman peeing. When questioned, he says he’s a trans woman. In that case, a woman walked into the lady’s bathroom and took a picture of a another woman peeing. That’s still a crime.
If this imagined predator walking into a gendered space under the guise of being transgender takes photographs of naked people without consent, touches them without consent — pretty much does anything but walk in, pee, wash their hands and leave — whatever crime they commit is still a crime regardless of transgender bathroom rights.
There is literally no crime that suddenly becomes legal for a non-transgender person to commit just by virtue of them saying they are transgender.
Now, this is all important context, because on Feb. 23, Trump repealed one of the only national level protections that existed for transgender Americans and their access to gendered spaces. In doing so, he put trans people at risk in an attempt to stamp out a threat which does not exist.
Back in May 2013, Pres. Barack Obama issued federal level guidance to schools across the United States. According to the guidance, schools receiving federal cash would need to protect the gendered space access rights of transgender students to keep receiving federal funds.
This guidance came as a result of the Justice Department interpreting unclear wording in Title IX, which bans federally funded institutions from discrimination on the grounds of sex.
The Obama administration’s guidance interpreted that provision in Title IX as protecting the rights of transgender individuals to be free from discrimination in federally funded settings, and set a clear expectation — on a federal level — that the government should protect trans people’s gendered space access rights.
This came alongside the administration suing North Carolina over its anti trans bathroom bill and then Attorney General Loretta Lynch delivering a powerful speech in which she spoke out to the transgender community. She promised that the federal government saw them and would protect them.
Trump’s repeal of these guidelines is bluster and signaling. He’s just trying to make a point about his Administration’s view of the transgender community. It won’t change anything, a federal court already suspended Obama’s guidance back in the Summer of 2016. There’s already a Supreme Court case — set for the end of March — which will attempt to settle the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX.
This was Trump trying his best to tell the world that his administration does not view Title IX as protecting the transgender community, and that his administration does not believe trans people deserve protection under federal law. And honestly, if you’re a transgender person, this likely doesn’t surprise you. Trump has been promising to roll back our rights since long before the election.
First up and most obvious, his selection of Mike Pence as his running mate. Pence is well known advocate for LGBT conversion therapy — the idea that with enough electrocutions and self loathing you can change someone’s sexuality or gender identity.
These treatments do nothing but cause untold suffering for those who go through them. Trump’s ambivalence to Pence’s beliefs said a hell of a lot more about Trump’s views on the LGBT community than any half-hearted statements he made about supporting us.
Worse, Trump said that transgender access rights to gendered spaces should be a states’ rights issue rather than a national level protection. “The state, they know what’s going on, they see what’s happening and generally speaking I’m with the state on things like this,” he said. “I’ve spoken with your governor, I’ve spoken with a lot of people and I’m going with the state.”
It’s true that Trump allowed Caitlyn Jenner to use whatever bathroom she wanted at Trump Tower, but when contrasted with his views on overall protections for trans people, it seems his support for gendered space access within the trans community only stretches as far as protections for famous and highly visible trans people. When it comes to protecting trans kids right to pee in safety, Trump is putting out the message that the federal government does not stand with them.
We live in a world where more than one third of transgender kids have altered their eating and drinking habits, avoiding food or water, just to get through life without using public gendered bathrooms. We should never need children to avoid healthy food and drink consumption to remain safe.
Trump’s repeal of Obama’s guidelines does nothing but tell trans kids that they are alone and that the government will not protect them should someone decided they shouldn’t be using a set bathroom. It tells trans kids that if their state bans them from certain basic rights, their president will not be fighting on their side to protect them. Trans kids have lost the ability to count the president of the united states as an ally.
Worse, Trump’s actions have emboldened people who stand against basic human rights for trans people. People who now see transgender people as mentally ill or deficient in some way will feel their discrimination has the support of the President of the United States. They think Trump is backing them up.
We need to stand up and fight now for the rights of transgender Americans. Withdrawing one of the few national level protections transgender kids had is a terrifying sign of things to come under Trump. If he won’t stand with trans kids in America, let’s stand by them in his place.
Fuck you Trump. You won’t dictate where trans people like me pee. Letting us use the bathrooms we identify with costs you nothing and means the world to us. Protecting that right is nothing short of strengthening our ability to exist in public life, something that’s already hard enough with the people in power making harder for no reason.
Stay defiant.
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