Their Concerns Are Real

It is hard for me to not to sound like I am marginalizing what happened to them because I know they are speaking from their heart.

Sexual Assault Victims Speak Out Against Washington’s Transgender Bathroom Policies
The Daily Signal
By Kelsey Harkness
January 25, 2016

OLYMPIA, Wash.—A group of women who say they are former victims of sexual assault are making an emotional plea to Washington state legislators to reverse a bathroom policy that they say leaves them and their young children vulnerable, exposed and unsafe.
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The Daily Signal met with Simon, Triller Haver, and Flores in Washington’s state capital to learn why they’re breaking their silence about their past experiences to fight what they believe are dangerous new policies.
“There is no doubt in my mind that many, many people will be hurt with this kind of policy,” Simon said.

The policies that they are talking are the YWCA and the Washington State Human Rights Organization’s polices about trans people using bathrooms and locker rooms.

“Over and over again, women are told your abuse is not important, it’s not important to fund, it’s not important to protect. This is just one more way for us to know that our abuse doesn’t matter, that we’re not protected,” Simon said, adding:

And now I’m a fearmonger because I’m speaking out about it. I don’t accept it. I’m not. I’m not crying that the sky is falling. This is actually happening. It’s not a pretend thing, I wish it was.

Their fears are real, their concerns are real, but they are misdirected. The first non-discrimination law was passed in 1975, Minneapolis passed a non-discrimination ordinance covering gender identity (they called it “affectional preference,”) and since then there has never been a trans person who sexually assaulted nor has there been a person who used the law as an excuse to sexually assault a woman in a bathroom or locker room.