BATHROOM AS BOGEYMAN

Deja vu and all that. In the early 1970's I spent a lot of time and used a lot of mental energy to promote passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in Illinois. A newly college graduated sixties era progressive, long hours of organizing women (and men) often ran headlong into Phyllis Schlafly and, gasp, bathrooms.

The argument was that if we allowed women to have equal rights it would lead to public unisex bathrooms. Too bad we didn't have OMG and ROTFL back then.

Except no one is laughing now as we fight the bathroom wars all over again. Really.

And since many public bathrooms are actually now unisex (Schlafly apparently never thought about doors), it seems nearly as ridiculous and obtuse now as it did then. But now the ante has been upped from mere presence of two sexes, in the same space albeit at different times, to the threat of attack - and on children. No better way to foment opposition than to claim a child is at risk. Without a single shred of evidence that this has ever been so on the part of a transgender person. And with evidence that it has been so on the part of a cisgender person. Why let facts get in the way of a good dose of prejudice and discrimination. Not to mention just plain hatred.

I live in Idaho now. We don't have a lot of big cities and developed area. We do have a lot of forests, mountains, high desert and other "back country". In fact, sixty-three percent of our land is federally owned and the state owns a great deal more. We like our wild lands. We hunt, fish, backpack, trail ride, hike, camp and generally spend as much of our free time as possible outdoors. Not many trees or bushes have peeing sex designated. That lack of gendered bathrooms hasn't stopped an overwhelming majority of Idahoans from spending time in the back country and - wait for it - peeing and pooping when needed and without thought of gender.

People, cisgender or transgender, do not go to a bathroom to show off their parts or to take advantage of young children. They go to perform a perfectly natural bodily function. In the US as privately as possible, although this penchant for privacy is not shared worldwide. No drama. Get in and get out.

So I am left to ask, in a time unlike the 70s where there is nothing unseen even by children, why is it exactly, that there is such fear about a toilet where you close the door and do your own thing privately?

It is an epidemic of fear. Fear of the "other". Fear of the unknown and unmet. That is what we teach our children in the name of protection...fear, intolerance, injustice and bigotry. When did it become OK to hurt others and deny them humanity based on gender preference? Never.