...no rule about bathrooms is going to stop him. But trans women are WOMEN. My friend Teri just wants to go to the ****ing bathroom. She's not trying to hurt anyone. But she doesn't "pass" as well as Milo, so she mostly doesn't use public restrooms and has had multiple UTIs.
Milo has been attacked in a place where he did what he was "supposed" to do - use the bathroom of his birth sex - because people thought a man was trying to use the women's restroom. And, well, he was. Milo is stocky. He has facial hair. I didn't even realize for a minute that he was trans. So what is he supposed to do? Wear a sign? That goes down a bleak path, I think we can all agree. Trans men really fall through the cracks here.
I had a trans client scared to use the restroom in an NC public library after the laws were passed. Charlotte had a different code so it was a whole fight, but she was terrified to go to the bathroom. I ended up letting her use the staff bathroom so she felt safe. These are good people who don't deserve to be treated like this. They're not hurting anyone. They're BEING hurt. Constantly. Black trans women are victims of violence at a terrifyingly high rate. Anti-trans laws cause up to a 70% increase in suicide attempts/deaths by suicide in trans youth, because they feel like they will never belong anywhere and they will always be hated. They are still fired and removed from housing at much higher rates than the rest of the population. Including, now, the military. The trans community had 18% unemployment rate in 2022. If the country at large had 18% unemployment, there would be riots breaking out everywhere.
The trans community is not wielding any kind of outsized power. They are an incredibly vulnerable, ostracized, hated community, currently being systematically shoved out of...existing, basically. And of course it's a political winner. Punching down always is.
All I know is, I am not interested in any kind of feminism or fight for women's rights that ostracizes trans women. They are my sisters, same as cisgender women, and I will fight for them. I don't care how unpopular it is.
