Republican lawmakers have attempted to justify “bathroom bills” as legislation aimed to protect women and girls from harassment and violence in public restrooms. In their minds, these efforts were altruistic, even morally right. But, since the only consistent force governing the world is irony, their efforts to protect women and girls have ultimately had the opposite effect.
We all know that there is no evidence to support the urban myth that sexual assaults and harassment are higher in trans-inclusive jurisdictions. However, we now have evidence that Republican efforts to combat this phantom problem have led to harassment of cisgender women using public restrooms.
A few notable examples:
22-year-old Aimee Toms was washing her hands in a Danbury, Conn. Wal-Mart restroom and was verbally assaulted by another shopper. The shopper called Toms “disgusting” and told her “you don’t belong here,” because it’s apparent that having a pixie-style haircut and baseball cap automatically means someone is a dude. Following the incident, Toms posted a video about the experience, wherein she said:
“After experiencing the discrimination they face firsthand, I cannot fathom the discrimination transgender people must face in a lifetime. Can you imagine going out every day and having people tell you you should not be who you are or that people will not accept you as who you are?”
Jessica Rush, wearing her hair in a bleached blonde fauxhawk and a Texas Tech T-shirt, went to use a public restroom at Baylor Medical Center in Frisco, Texas. She found herself interrupted by a guy barging into the women’s restroom like the Kool-Aid Man playing potty detective to make sure Rush was peeing in the appropriate place.
Jessica Rush was born a woman and identifies as a woman. She just likes having a fauxhawk and wearing a T-shirt from her alma mater. After disrupting her, the crapper crusader told her he thought she was man and repeatedly said “you dress like a man” as he walked away from her.
And then there’s the infamous viral video of the lesbian woman in a public restroom with her friends being forcefully removed by police after she was unable to produce identification stating she was female. She, too, was wearing clothing that did not conform to “traditional female attire,” for lack of a better phrase, and even though all of her friends vouched for her, she was physically removed from the restroom by a bald, red-faced, male cop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuHAS2CtUM
No one ever foresaw this happening, right? But perhaps the takeaway here is that to guarantee you won’t end up on the receiving end of crass, unadulterated, unfounded conservative bigotry, make sure your hair is long and your breasts are clearly visible?
Cisgender women are finding themselves on the receiving end of harassment, transgender people are still on the receiving end of harassment, and Republican lawmakers continue to draft, pass, and endorse legislation to keep public restroom usage restricted to one’s gender assignment at birth. Meanwhile, journalists and activists are engaging in heated debates over the issue from all vantage points, liberal rednecks are “getting their red up,” and people are having familial processions through Target holding Bibles and ranting about how Target is engaging in the “wicked practice” of opening their bathrooms to “perverted men” and allowing “the devil to rape your children.”
This is how we handle social issues in the United States, folks. We fight, resort to aggressive partisan politics, and engage in reality show-esque behaviors to showcase and justify which side of fence we’re on. In some cases, such as this one, we create a problem where one didn’t previously exist in an attempt to use our religious or political attitudes to justify the corruption of human and civil rights.
After all, isn’t the timing of the bathroom debate interesting?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCIYsXhR1D0
Featured image by Sam Howzit, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
h/t Vox