it's so frustrating whenever the topic of trans people being forced to use bathrooms according to their agab comes up and people point at cis-passing, masc trans men and go "oh you want THIS GUY in the women's bathroom?????" actually i don't fucking care, and neither should you. that's the point. not only is it doing absolutely nothing to change conservative people's minds or "point out the flaws in their reasoning", it's actually affirming you also think people who "look like men" shouldn't be in women's bathrooms. we've gone from advocating for unisex bathrooms to saying that actually, you DO agree that there's a kind of trans person that doesn't belong in women's bathrooms because they look "scary" (aka masculine), you just disagree with transphobes on which trans person it is.
and like, it's ironic because trans men & mascs regularly get assaulted in women's bathrooms, both pre- and post-transition. in 2022, a trans guy that was instructed to use the woman's bathroom in a state with transphobic legislation had a cisgender woman freak out about it, was beaten up after explaining he was a trans man, and was arrested when the cops got there. less than a year ago 16yo Nex was beaten to death by three cis girls for trying to use his high school's girls bathroom like he had been told to do. drag king dreams was written in 2006 and it has a) a transmasculine character that gets arrested for using a public bathroom and b) the explicit acknowledgement that transphobes don't care when cis men use the women's bathroom, only when trans people do it. it's been happening. we've been talking about it. and still you have people going like "oh but it would be easier for a cis man to pretend to be a trans man to get into a woman's bathroom. how are you going to check?" they're not! they're just going to assault you, like they have been doing all along. but now, for some fucking reason, you are encouraging them to treat every trans guy who is forced to use the women's bathroom as a potential deceiving predator, sexually harass trans men into "proving" they're not cisgender men, or justify a hate crime because cis women "feared for their safety" - which is the perfect excuse, bc if they argue they believed they were assaulting a cis man, it's not a hate crime against trans people. y'all are creating a new bathroom panic in real time and acting like this time you're getting it "right" and it's so smart to create fear around trans men and endanger all mascs in the process. no strategic thinking about the actual situation whatsoever, just making it your priority to "gotcha" conservatives. smart.
i get that for some fucking reason it gives some trans men euphoria to be like "oh, i CLEARLY shouldn't be allowed in the same space as women" but the assimilationist and transnormative vibes of the whole conversation are off the charts. not all trans guys have or want male cis-passing. i have plenty of transmasc & butch friends who use the women's bathroom regularly bc how they look makes it less likely to prompt a violent reaction. most trans men i know used the women's bathroom until they were young adults. there has been a total of zero cis women harmed for pissing next to trans men. there has been plenty of trans men harmed for trying to take a fucking piss in either bathroom. and yet the conversation NEVER spins around OUR safety. it gets hard to believe the bathroom debate it's ever about anything but trying to sort trans people into the "right" box again. it feels like the trans-friendly side still cares more about trans people using the "correct" bathroom rather than advocating for everyone to mind their own goddamn business no matter what the person pissing next to you looks like. and it gets trans men hate-crimed, by the fucking way. if any of you actually cares about trans people's safety.
