The very idea made me uncomfortable. I just didn't like it, because on one hand I wanted transgender people to be free to use the washroom, but on the other hand I was concerned about sexual assaults. The two ideas conflicted enough to make me really uncomfortable when I thought about it.
I wasn't being transphobic. I was remembering a serial rapist, that affected my life, but not as much as the lives of other young women.
During one year, that I was in university, there was almost one rape a month. The university sent us emails, put up posters, and left cardboard triangle posters on every table in the cafeteria each time there was a rape. The instructions were very clear: Travel in groups, use Safewalk at night, and don't use the bathroom if there wasn't anybody else in it. Sometimes I delayed peeing for 30 minutes while I looked for another washroom.
Each lady's bathroom (I don't know about the men's bathrooms because I never used one) had a little resting stall. It was big enough to hold a couch and a garbage basket. The stall locked, and many women (myself included) used these stalls (without toilets or sinks), to lay down between classes and rest.
If you've never gone to a large university let me explain - there were 50,000 students in my university at the time I went, and the campus was huge. Sometimes my back to back classes, were held so far away from each other that I had to run between classes, or be perpetually late for my second class. The last class ended at 4:30, and by 5:00 the campus was almost empty. Many professors held office hours after 5:00, and many campus clubs held activities after 5:00. In the evening, the campus was darker, quieter, and a very good place to study. Empty classrooms were easy to find, and my friends and I used them often to study in. I also studied in empty rooms by myself.
It's in this environment, that after 5:00, I found something to eat, and often rested in one of bathrooms, on the couch. Sometimes I would fall asleep before the evening activities began. And I wasn't the only student to do this. Sometimes those resting stalls were full, and I had to find another bathroom to rest in. Because the resting stall was lockable, it was a safe place to nap, and not get my things stolen.
That was until the serial rapist entered the scene. The university was trying hard to protect female students, and each time there was a rape, we were told about it. Names were never given, but places and dates were given and the rape was always described. Although details changed, the pattern was always the same. It always happened in a bathroom, the rapist always hid in the resting stall, the women always thought she was the only one in the bathroom, after she used one of the toilet stalls, and while she was washing her hands, the rapist attacked her from the back, dragged her into the resting stall, raped her and ran away. Because he always stayed behind her, she was never able to describe him. The theory was, he waited in the resting stall for a woman to enter.
There was about one rape a month. Suggestions (not rules) were made for female students, to keep us safer. Self Defence classes were offered for free. Safewalk was installed (campus police walked female students between buildings and to parking lots). The campus was on high alert, and so was I.
I wasn't raped, but being in a place where rapes were happening every month, was anxiety ridden. There were times I entered empty washrooms and turned around and went back out. There were times I found other female students walking past the washroom, and asked them to come into the bathroom with me. And there were times I didn't find anybody, and just didn't go until I found another washroom. But washrooms were spaced so far apart that I had to wait 30 minutes or so just to find another one, and sometimes that one was empty too.
I was in this mindset when I heard that men wanted to be allowed to use women's washrooms. Thinking to myself it would be so much easier for a rapist to rape me, if he didn't even have to hide the fact that he was male, and in a women's washroom.
When Jazz Jennings said "I just want to pee in peace", I empathized with her. I didn't think she'd be a rapist. I didn't even think of her as male.
And that's the thing. That's where the difference lies. I have no idea what Jazz Jennings genitals are like, nor am I particularly interested in knowing such a thing. But I do know that she is transgendered and she is a "Girl", not a "Boy".
But I didn't really put that together. I was uncomfortable being one the side that thought transgender friendly washrooms just shouldn't be. I didn't want to be there, on the transphobic side. But an entire year of being reminded women were getting raped in our bathrooms, could not be undone that easily.
And then last night I discovered "Last Week Tonight", with John Oliver. I know, you americans might be thinking "What - she never heard of John Oliver before", but I'm Canadian and you probably never heard to Rick Mercer before. Different country, different culture.
I got so involved with John Oliver, that I watched 4 "Last Week Tonight" episodes in one night. And one of those episodes was called Transgender Rights.
Very succinctly John Oliver helped me to realize that these transgender people, will not be men. They will be women, who look like women, who dress like women, and who want to use women's bathrooms. They will not men inline for the women's bathroom, dressed like men, and looking extremely out of place. They will look like they are in the right place, because they will be women.
There will still be men, who want to rape women. They may even use the same MO the serial rapist at my university used, but transgender women using the same washroom as me, will not make it easier for these men, because it will still be a line up of women waiting to use the stalls. It won't be a line of up women, with a few men. Whatever their genitals, they will look like women, and they will be women.
A man in the women's bathroom, will still be extremely out of place. A man in the women's bathroom, will still be told to get out.
The difference is: transgender women are women, and male rapists are men. (Not that transgender women can't be rapists too, but then non-transgender women can also sexually assault others - but that is a whole different subject and I'm not going to cover it here. If fact I don't think I'll cover it anywhere.)
My fear was, that if the female washrooms had been transgender accessible at the time I was going to university, that there would have been more rape victims. But after watching John Oliver make jokes about it, I realize I was wrong. There might have, at that time, even been transgender women using the women's washrooms, and I might not have known at all.
A man, wearing a dress, will still look like a man wearing a dress. It will be very obvious that somebody is trying to use these accessible washrooms in the wrong way. These men will still look like men, because they will be men. Transgender women are not men, and it will be obvious they just want to pee. What won't be obvious is what genitals they have or don't have.
In fact I'm not even sure how to tell a transgender person from a non-transgender person. Rules that ban transgender people from bathrooms of their own gender, would be extremely hard to enforce. Are the authorities going to hire bathroom police that inspect each person's genitals before they can enter the appropriate bathroom? That would make everybody uncomfortable.
In fact I'm not even sure how to tell a transgender person from a non-transgender person. Rules that ban transgender people from bathrooms of their own gender, would be extremely hard to enforce. Are the authorities going to hire bathroom police that inspect each person's genitals before they can enter the appropriate bathroom? That would make everybody uncomfortable.
....
And the rapist - after a year all the rapes abruptly stopped for no apparent reason. He wasn't caught. Some of his victims never came back to school.
Years after I was finished university, I looked up the rapist in the internet. I found out that very similar rapes with very similar MOs started the next year at another Canadian university. That man was caught after kidnapping a woman and keeping her captive, while repeatedly raping her, for many hours. He was caught, and his DNA was matched to the rapes at the university I went to. He was never charged with those crimes, but he was charged with the kidnapping and rape of his last victim.
