Here is a belief that is not a fact: All people are born “biological male” or “biological female”.
Here is a fact: In the US and most other countries, when an infant’s birth is registered with the appropriate authorities, they are assigned “male” or “female” based on their genitals. In some cases, where the genitals are more complicated than “just a penis” or “just a vulva”, a gender is chosen based on whatever the doctor decides.
Here is another fact: People can have a mismatch between their genitals and their chromosomes, and most people don’t even know their chromosomes. Even if someone with a penis successfully impregnates someone with a vagina, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have XY and XX chromosomes, respectively.
That said, though, here are competing beliefs:
- Even acknowledging errors in assignment, people who were raised as girls deserve spaces away from people who were raised as boys.
- Gender is more complicated than anatomy, and people who genuinely wish to live their lives as women deserve to be in women’s spaces, and to be treated and referred to as women.
These cannot be easily resolved. There are cis women who feel that trans women are, in fact, psychologically deluded men and hence do not feel comfortable around them: It is reasonable for them to want such people barred from spaces like bathrooms and locker rooms.
At the same time, there are women (cis and trans) who feel that anyone who in good faith identifies as a woman is a woman: It is reasonable for them to be appalled at bathroom bans based on gender.
So who wins?
For decades, there’s been a silent compromise.
The silent compromise is that trans people go into the public restroom that most closely matches their apparent gender. Trans women who visually “pass” as women go into the women’s room; trans women who are easily “clocked” as trans go into the men’s room.
This is hardly a perfect situation. While attacks on cis women by trans women are very rare, attacks on trans women by cis men are sadly common. And the majority of the United States still allows for gay or trans panic defenses; Michigan only banned that defense last year, despite having a lesbian Attorney General and a reliable queer ally in the Governor’s mansion. And it’s inherently unfair to those trans people who can’t successfully hide their trans status.
Regardless, if you’ve been in a public bathroom, there’s a really good chance you’ve been in the bathroom with a trans person without your knowledge.
But the days of that silent compromise are gone around the country. Instead, there are laws that require trans people to use the bathroom that matches whatever the doctor decided to put on the birth certificate. Which raises several questions, not the least of which is: Who enforces it, and how does it get enforced?
Those questions have been explored at length, so I’m going to ask a different one: How do we balance competing beliefs in a reasonable way?
I feel strongly that people should be safe to use public restrooms that they feel most aligned with. And I, personally, do not do so. I am read as a man even before I open my mouth, and speaking removes any doubt. I use either unisex restrooms or men’s rooms, because I don’t want to make women who don’t know me uncomfortable.
I can only remember one event where I functioned as a woman and felt truly comfortable and not judged in doing so, and I have failed to return to that event because reality crashed down on me fairly soon after it.
This is the empathy that I have. But why is it so one-sided?
Those on the side of trans rights can understand the nuance of the issue, but ultimately decide that true predators don’t live as women just to get their jollies in the restroom: True predators just stroll right into wherever they want to be.
On the other side, the message is hardly nuanced: Men are men, women are women, nobody can change their gender, and anyone who claims they can is dangerously mentally ill.
Zero nuance.
When only one side is willing to compromise, there’s no actual compromising happening. It’s just one side being a bully and the other side deciding whether to concede or defend.
It ought to be little surprise that a growing portion of the trans community is tired of conceding and has stepped up into defend and revolt stages.