On Restrooms

I want to apologize to my readers for this post.

I want to apologize because I try to make this place an escape from the every day. I want to apologize because I do try to veer away from overt political posts or statements. I want to apologize because I don’t want to be that person who uses his blog space – otherwise used for not serious content – to get on a soap box and pontificate on how I see the world or what I want the world to be. But mostly, I want to apologize to my readers because I’m writing this post in the year 2016.

I want to apologize because we live in a world where hate and fear trumps love and understanding. I want to apologize because we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. I want to apologize because we still live in a world where, if you are not white and heterosexual, you have to fight harder for opportunities and acceptance. Because we live in a society where some people still have to provide evidence that their experience is valid and should be accepted. Because we live in a world where the republican frontrunner for President of the United States dehumanizes people of every race, gender identity, and sexual orientation, and gets applause for it. (Please note: I am not here to discuss this candidate. He doesn’t deserve the airtime he has gotten so far and I have no desire to waste any more words on him except for this: he is everything we should be standing against.)

I want to apologize because, as much as I may want to, I can't stay silent when it comes to the right of other people whose voices are not yet being heard. I want to apologize for feeling the need to apologize for expressing my own views and opinions.

And I want apologize because I know that what I write after this will only be a sermon to the choir rather than be a change in the minds of those who have already chosen fear over logic. 

As an American public, many of us are far too interested in the goings on of those around us. We are so preoccupied with what we fear and don’t understand, but we don't bother putting that preoccupation to work towards trying to understand what we fear and don't understand. We are all guilty of it in one way or another, so do not mistake this post as me speaking as someone without fear or misunderstanding. Rather than taking measures to learn more and truly embrace the diversity around us, much of us go so far as to rally for and help our “leaders” to enact laws that do little else but restrict the freedoms of those who do not conform to white heteronormative standards, even when their behavior is really none of our business.

We hide behind religious dogma to validate a belief that our neighbor is lesser than we are because of their race, sexual orientation, gender identification, perceived intelligence level, and political affiliation, to name only a few. We hide behind stringent political ideologies for the same reasons. What we fail to do is to look behind or ahead when these “morals” and ideologies were used against people in the past. If we did, we might realize some of the worst mistakes of the past happened because of intolerance from the morals and ideologies of their time that forced people into the shadows, or somewhere worse. Events like the Crusades, the Inquisition, the massacre of native peoples by European invaders, the Holocaust, and modern-day Islamaphobia barely scratch the surface of such atrocities. And yet here we are, seemingly no more the wiser. Sure, there are certain things we would deem “inconceivable” now, but at the time, that was not the case.

Is the topic of gender neutral restrooms just a moment in time where the future-inconceivable is conceivable?

We Americans also tend to think of ourselves as progressive thinkers who would never commit an atrocity against someone based on who they are. But yes, sadly, even we Americans have been here before.

• We were there when a law had to be written to abolish the purchase and enslavement of our fellow humans.
• We were there when our country split into two because, among other less sinister reasons such as sectionalism and state’s rights, some parts of our country were angry that we would abolish the practice of owning another human being.
• We were there when people had to fight for their race or gender to have a vote in who governed them.
• We were there when our country went through a time of “separate but equal” as the law of the land in the 1960s.
• We were there when the government told us we could be imprisoned if two consenting adults had sex a certain way the government found to be disagreeable, even if those acts took place behind closed doors.
• We were there when love could not conquer all and the Church was used as a weapon against the State, resulting in a fight for the right to marry another consenting adult.

And so we stand here again, some of us forgetting the past and some of us baffled that anyone could forget the past again, leaving many of us with at least one resounding question:

Why are we - the Land of the Free - obsessed with putting into law restrictions on others freedoms?

So here we are, fighting about where people should or should not be allowed to release their bowels. Seriously. Think about this. People are boycotting businesses and getting angry because they want to control where someone is using the restroom. Do we really not have anything better to do? We don’t have bigger battles to fight? Have we become so self-centered that we think the decisions of others are made solely to impede on our rights or conveniences?

Is this how far we have come?

Let me be clear here: The binary signs on restroom doors have not in the past nor do they currently nor will they ever in the future truly barricade(d) any of us from anyone with a different gender identification from entering. Anyone identifying as male can enter a female restroom if they would like to just as anyone identifying as female can enter a male restroom – and so on and so on. Listen, even I've been there. Yep. One time I was at a wedding (Lauren and Andrew - if you're reading, sorry) just minding my own business in a stall, looked down, and saw heels. Strangely though, I managed to get out of there without thinking about or touching anyone else suggestively - it was like I was in the Men's bathroom! 

Jokes aside, my point is that the binary gender identifiers on a restroom door have never prevented those who want to cause harm from entering.

Of course, it’s easier to believe that these binary signs do just that: separate us from harm. It’s easier to believe that our children are safe because people always obey social norms like gendered signs and people never disobey the law. We don’t have a prison system because everyone is an upstanding citizen, right? Wrong. Providing people the right to use a restroom that corresponds to their gender identification is not providing people with the right to victimize others under a bathroom stall. That’s a fallacy – the definition of a slippery slope. People who want to hurt others are not going to wait for permission to enter a restroom before they do so: if someone wants to hurt you or your child, they are going to do it. To think otherwise is – and I hate to use such an inflammatory term – ignorance.

• People don’t steal because it’s legal to steal.
• People don’t murder because it’s legal to murder.
• People don’t rape because it’s legal to rape.
• People don’t commit fraud because it’s legal to commit fraud.

People break the law because it in some way benefits them, not the person they are committing their crime against.

And let’s make no mistake: if your child does fall victim to a predator in a public restroom, it is not because of that predator’s gender identification. Rather, it is because that person is a pedophile. And, as far as I know, no one is up for legalizing that.  It is a lazy and irresponsible conclusion to make when we justify our prejudices by hastily generalizing one group of people with the attributes of another just so we can keep them from gaining such a simple freedom as that of using a restroom.

From what I know about gender reassignment, it is no easy process. Surgery, hormones, therapy, financial cost, and most importantly societal stigma surround such a decision. No one is going to go through such an extreme transformation just so they can enter a restroom and commit a crime. If they’re going to enter a restroom to commit a crime, they’re just going to do it without the elaborate life change.

What do you think is stopping it from happening now?

Before I get off my soap box, I want you all to know that I didn't write this to be political. I don't know why I wrote it. I just couldn't stay silent about this anymore, because if you stay silent then you are part of whatever problem you want to speak against.

I promised you all that I'd be honest with you, my readers. I know some of you will disagree with my thoughts. I accept that many of you will disagree with me - although I may not agree with you, I can respect that you have and express your opinions. 

I hope that respect is where we can meet in the middle.


Respectfully yours,

Ryan