Bathroom hysteria based on misconceptions

The Columbia Basin Herald’s coverage of the new ruling allowing transgender people to use locker rooms and bathrooms reflects the discomfort that a lot of people feel regarding transgender issues. However, I think a lot of the discomfort comes from misunderstandings and misconceptions. We need to do more to understand the issues, rather than just attacking this new ruling.

I understand people’s concern about who is in the locker room or bathroom they, or their children, are using. However, I think everyone needs to wake up and smell the air freshener. It is impossible to eliminate the possibility of sharing a locker room with people who have the potential to be sexually attracted to you. There have been lesbians in the women’s locker room and gay men in the men’s locker room since the beginning of all locker rooms. Also, the thing that seems to worry people the most — a heterosexual man dressing as a woman so that he can be a Peeping Tom — has always been a possibility, and there have been numerous cases in Washington that date to long before this ruling. We haven’t opened any door that wasn’t already open for sexual predators. Why punish transgender people for something that might be done by a criminal regardless of what the rules state?

On the topic of preserving people’s comfort in bathrooms and locker rooms, consider what happens if rules like this aren’t in place. Being acquainted with five transgender men, I wouldn’t bat an eye if any of them were using the sink next to me in the men’s room, but I can guarantee that if any of them used the women’s room, there would be plenty of discomfort to go around. They’re men. They don’t belong in the women’s bathroom or locker room because they don’t look, act, or live their lives like women.

Americans have had arguments before about whether certain people had a right to use the same facilities as the rest of us. Although Americans at that time were certain that they were right, we tend to look back on that time as a misguided and hateful era when people simply needed to be educated on the issues. I believe the same is true today.

Steve Close

Moses Lake