Jake Miller
Transgender community is too small for such a big change
How are bathrooms not functional today? This is a question we must ask before changing a room that every human must use at least once or twice a day. In my opinion creating one large gender-neutral bathroom will cause more problems than it will solve. Proponents for the idea state that it will help transgender peoples feel more comfortable when using the restroom, and although this might be true, it won’t help the rest of the population. According to the Williams Institute, an estimate of 0.3% of US adults are transgender, leaving more than 99% of the population to struggle through longer lines and paying tax dollars to renovate public buildings that are now considered outdated for having two separate restrooms. For example, if this idea were to be accepted or even put into law, millions upon millions of restrooms in the US would be in need of eventual renovation to solve a problem that isn’t known to most Americans.
But this doesn’t mean I support the laws implemented in North Carolina and South Dakota. These laws, which make transgender peoples use the bathroom of their birth, to me are useless and create more of a problem than the gender-neutral idea. Imagine as a man, washing your hands and seeing a (trans)woman walk into the bathroom. As it is now in other states, you probably wouldn’t notice a transgender person enter and use the toilet just as you do.
In my opinion, a restroom shouldn’t be a topic of heated debate. It’s a place where we go to do what we need to do, and leave. If you go into a restroom looking to start a fight (with a transgender person or other denomination) as the article suggests, that’s another problem entirely and won’t be solved by creating one large bathroom. In fact, creating one bathroom where there are longer lines and with the inclusion of an opposite gender would exacerbate this proposed problem rather than solving it.
All things considered, as long as I can still use the bathroom, whether it be with transgender people or in one large room with women, I could care less.