We Are The Ones Who Need To Worry

The right wing conservatives are always harping about bathroom safety, and I agree, it can be deadly for trans-people. Case in point…

Man attacks transgender college student, carves "IT" into his chest
by Joseph Erbentraut
EDGE Contributor
Wednesday Apr 28, 2010

The attack happened around 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 15, when the 27-year-old graduate student encountered a man who addressed him by name inside a men’s bathroom outside the lecture hall in which he had a class. The attacker slammed the student against a stall, pulled his t-shirt over his head and carved "IT" into his chest with a sharp object before fleeing the scene. CSULB [California State University-Long Beach] police continue to investigate the incident as a hate crime.

This is not an isolated incident…

A Quest for a Restroom That's Neither Men's Room Nor Women's Room
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN
Published: March 4, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO - Political epiphanies can occur in unexpected places. For Riki Dennis, a 35-year-old humanities student who is transsexual, it was the women's room at a rest stop on Highway 101 north of Santa Barbara.

"The boyfriend hit me, even in mellow California," said Ms. Dennis, who was in the early stages of becoming female when she was assaulted by a stranger after using the women's room. "I said, 'Sir, I have no designs on your girlfriend.' I just want to use the bathroom."

Amnesty International in July of 2007, reported that,

Christina Sforza, a transgender woman, told Amnesty International how she was attacked in a New York restaurant in July 2006 by a man wielding a lead pipe. She said she was attacked for spending too long in the women's rest room which an employee gave her permission to use. The assailant shouted verbal abuse that was picked up by other staff and customers who allegedly egged him on shouting "kill the fag". Christina Sforza says that when officers from the New York Police Department (NYPD) arrived they refused to allow the emergency medical services to examine her injuries and arrested her, not her attacker.

Not all assaults get reported to the police or make the headlines. The Transgender Law Center wrote in their booklet “Peeing In Peace” that,

For many transgender people, finding a safe place to use the bathroom is a daily struggle. Even in cities or towns that are generally considered good places to be transgender (like San Francisco or Los Angeles), many transgender people are harassed, beaten and questioned by authorities in both women’s and men’s rooms. In a 2002 survey conducted by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, nearly 50% of respondents reported having been harassed or assaulted in a public bathroom. Because of this, many transgender people avoid public bathrooms altogether and can develop health problems as a result. This not only affects people who think of themselves as transgender, but also many others who express their gender in a non-stereotypical way but who may not identify as transgender (for instance, a masculine woman or an effeminate man).

It is not just trans-persons who are caught up in this conservative bathroom phobia. In 2006, I wrote about a lesbian that was harassed going the bathroom and in 2007, I wrote about lesbians who were thrown out of bar because they tried to enter the women’s bathroom.

It is time to end this madness and hysteria that the far right wing conservatives is trying to create and bring about some sanity to the bathroom issue.