The citizens of Houston are voting on an equal rights ordinance that, among other things, gives protections to transgender people. Opponents are worried about bathrooms. They've printed up signs that say, "NO Men in Women's Bathrooms." They're worried that predatory men will use the ordinance as a way to enter public bathrooms and assault girls and women.
This reminds me of the campaign against the ERA. I remember as a child in a conservative church being warned that if the ERA passed, women would have to use the same restrooms as men. And so we needed to oppose the ERA to protect the sanctity of women's bathrooms.
What is it about civil rights that gets some people so worked up about bathrooms?
Of course, we know bathrooms are important. In Beverly Cleary's children's book Ramona the Pest, on the first day of kindergarten the teacher reads the class the story of Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel that had to dig the basement for the town hall in a single day. At the end of the story, Ramona's hand goes up so she can ask her burning question: "How did Mike Mulligan go to the bathroom when he was digging the basement of the town hall?" Miss Binney tells the class she doesn't know and that it's not important. But the class is not convinced. They know the bathroom is important. After all, the first thing Miss Binney had shown them was the bathroom.
Bathrooms are important. We all need them, and perhaps that is part of the reason bathrooms become central in conservative Christian challenges to civil rights around issues of gender. Bathrooms level the playing field. As my mother used to say, "Everybody has to go."
That fact, however, does not ameliorate the deep discomfort many Christians feel about sex, bodies, and bodily functions. After all, in many Christian traditions the body is equated with sin and worldliness--and mostly women. The body therefore needs to be controlled, and clear gender roles need to be kept in place to maintain order (read patriarchy). The body is also a site of vulnerability, especially when it is not controlled. For girls and women in particular, the sense of vulnerability to sexualized violence is particularly heightened in a culture in which abuse, sexual assault and rape are commonplace.
Some conservative Christians of Houston are using this sense of vulnerability to mask the misogyny and homophobia that are the roots of their opposition to the equal rights ordinance. Men are not suddenly going to claim to be women so they can lurk in bathrooms and attack girls and women. The truth of the matter is that bathrooms are much more dangerous for transgender and gender non-conforming people right now than they ever will be for girls and women because of a civil rights ordinance. And, in fact, the most dangerous place for a woman in the United States is not a public bathroom but her own home. As we know, most violence against women and girls does not come from strangers but from family and friends.
By focusing arguments on some supposed danger to girls and women, opponents of the ordinance can claim a high moral ground on gender, but the truth is the opposite. This is the same misogyny that asserts that women need protection, and it's the same misogyny that targets transgender people for violating the gender norms that uphold patriarchy. Were this not about more than bathrooms, perhaps the citizens of Houston might be suggesting the very simple solution of building more single user bathrooms or gender inclusive bathrooms alongside the women's and men's bathrooms rather than policing who goes into which bathroom.
Especially distressing is the willingness of some conservative Christians intentionally to use fear, misinformation, bigotry, and misunderstanding of what transgender means to perpetuate stereotypes and to try to block equal protections for all citizens. This fear-mongering and misinforming seems a far cry from the truth-telling Christians claim for themselves.
While transgender and gender non-conforming people may bring up discomforts about bodies and vulnerabilities for some cis-gendered people, we should not allow discomforts to lead us to dehumanize and marginalize others. Bathrooms, while incredibly important to all of us, should not be battlegrounds for human rights. After all, everybody has to go.