Unsafe Spaces

Over the past weekend, I had my first experience using a public restroom since Target announced that men who believe they’re women are welcome to use the “ladies’ room” in their stores.

While I’ve always been wary in public restrooms, now (I was surprised to realize) public restrooms have a particularly “unsafe” feeling about them.

Who is in the next stall, if that person was there before I came in? Used to be, I could at least assume that person is, like me, female. Now I cannot safely make that assumption. Does it matter? Yes, it does.

I’m reasonably sure that I can hold my own in any encounter with another female. With a male, it’s far from a safe bet.

I’m vulnerable. Is it fair to deliberately threaten my sense of security, in order to indulge a deluded minority, or people who are trying to score political points, all in the name of political correctness?

It’s common sense to take care whenever you’re in an enclosed public area where you may or may not be alone and from which it would not be easy to escape. Now, post-Target announcement, that feeling of unease is magnified exponentially.

I can no longer feel anywhere near “comfortable” or “safe” in public restrooms.  Now I must be even more extraordinarily aware of my surroundings. To tell the truth, now I feel like “holding it,” and waiting until I get home. Is that fair? Is that welcoming? Is that just?

I feel like avoiding public restrooms at all costs because I’d rather not take the chance of encountering someone who doesn’t belong. Is that wrong? No, it’s not. It’s common sense.

Women are no longer as safe as they once were in public restrooms. What was an LGBT “equality” campaign has become a new war on women. Our right to a safe space has been violated. Has been destroyed. Has been sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. Do women not “deserve” a “safe space”, too?

One social taboo is being removed (people must use the restroom that conforms with their biological sex), and a new social inhibition has been introduced:

One MUST look the other way, out of fear of being called homophobic or a bigot, whenever one sees a man going into the ladies’ room. One MUST assume that the person’s subjective reality, even though it may differ from objective reality, may be such that the person “deserves to feel like they belong” in the ladies’ room (or men’s room, for that matter). How is one to know? How does anyone propose to be able to determine actual dysphoric beliefs from an act, especially if the actor is motivated by nefarious aims? It’s ridiculous.

In the past, if anyone spied a man going into or lurking in the ladies’ room, that person would probably report it to security. Now, out of fear of being called homophobic, a bigot, or (worse) a violator of someone’s “civil rights”, people will look the other way, even when there’s something very, very wrong. As a result, innocent women and children may be harmed.

How will anyone determine who is truly “transgender” and who is simply lying, for whatever reason, in order to invade the once-safe-for-women space known as the ladies’ room?

It’s all about feelings, isn’t it? It’s all about letting people feel “safe” in their “safe spaces.”

Yet some people’s feelings appear to be more important than others’. Why is that?

Why must the majority of women be made to feel unsafe in order to indulge the delusions or the political aims of an infinitesimally small number of beings who claim to believe, or truly do falsely believe, something about themselves that is contrary to objective reality?

Being “transgender” is a disorder, a dysphoria, not unlike body dysmorphic disorder, where, for example, an extremely thin person falsely believes that he is obese and experiences excessively compulsive anxiety as a result.

While any human being will empathize with someone who (truly) has a dysphoric anxiety disorder, where is it written that everyone else, in order to accommodate such delusions, must give up their own “deserved” right to feel safe in what used to be a relatively safe environment?

Do the feelings and comfort of a tiny minority (0.002% to 0.014%) matter more than the feelings and comfort of the majority? (Remember: females are the majority.)

Consider this story, where someone posted a sign on a Target restroom door reading:

Attention Ladies:

Target Corp. has publically [sic] announced that Men may now use the Women’s restroom (and vise versa), no questions asked.

Please be cautious.
*Report suspected hidden cameras
*Report loitering or peeping individuals

and especially
Use your good judgement about sending children or teens to the restroom alone

Sounds like common sense to me. One woman who read the sign was disturbed, saying:

I went out to my boyfriend and said, did you see this in your bathroom? And he said no. And I was upset.

I was, like, I’m not going to shop here right now because this is strange and it’s really weird.

Turns out, the sign was unofficial. Some anonymous someone had posted it. When the young woman who at first was upset realized that Target’s new policy is targeted only at men who believe they’re women, she changed her tune and became angry at the person who posted the sign because that person must be “transphobic” or must believe that “transgender women are men,” which, of course, they are. The question remains: How does Target propose to limit the benefit of their new policy only to “transgender” persons?

Who decides and how will it be decided?

What’s to keep non-transgender men from going into the ladies’ room and claiming to be transgender? NOTHING.

How will it be determined to whom the new policy applies? At what point on the continuum of transgenderism does one change from a man into a “transgender woman”? Will there be penis checks? How will one distinguish a heterosexual transvestite from a “transgender woman” (who actually is a man, with or without a penis)?

Let’s face the new reality.

There’s no solution to this restroom conundrum other than to make every restroom open to anyone.

There will no longer be men’s rooms or ladies’ rooms. If businesses want to ensure that everyone is safe and keep themselves from being sued, then the only solution will be expensive retrofitting of every restroom. Multiple single-person stalls seems to be the only way to go. How costly will that be?

One good thing that might come out of this situation is that from now on, restroom inequality no longer exists.

Ladies, if you’re at a sports stadium at halftime and the line for the ladies’ room stretches into infinity–NOT TO WORRY. Just use the men’s room. If anyone DARES TO ASK, state that you’re “gender fluid” and today you “feel” like a man.

The long line of men standing exposed at the urinals may feel unsafe when you waltz by, but that’s the price we must pay to value diversity.

Welcome to the post-binary world.

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