Men Don't Have To Put On Women’s Clothes To Assault Women
No, I'm not worried about men pretending to be trans women to get access to our bathrooms
I’m sick of arguing with transphobes who pretend to protect women.
How did the restroom become the site of conservatives’ favorite cultural proxy war?
Sorry, shut up about toilets and men sneaking in in women’s clothes already.
No, I don’t care if a trans woman is in the bathroom with me. And I also don’t care about the supposed risk of a man putting on women’s clothes to enter a women’s toilet and assault me.
Why? I don’t understand how this isn’t obvious to every one.
No man has to put on women’s clothes to enter a women’s restroom.
There’s no clothing check at the door. The doors don’t check if you have a penis, they’re not locked. You don’t have to unlock them by wearing women’s clothes.
Any man who wants to attack me can walk right in wearing whatever he wants: pants, shirt, suit, or nothing at all.
Do you know who rapes women in women’s restrooms? Cis men. It’s happened several times here in Vienna.
Men in men’s clothes assault women in bathrooms
In 2016, three teenage boys raped a 21-year-old girl in a public train station in Vienna. None of them bothered to put on a dress beforehand.
It also happened in 2022. in the same public toilet. A 22-year-old man raped a girl while a 12-year-old boy stood watch. Again, neither of the assailants was wearing a dress.
But it is not only in Vienna that women have to fear being attacked by men in toilets. In East Sussex, a woman was raped in a McDonald’s toilet by a man wearing a ski mask but no dress.
I feel there’s a pattern emerging here.
It seems men who assault women are the problem. Not the clothes they wear.
As a matter of fact, I think wearing women’s clothes would make assaulting women on the loo so much more difficult. Try running after your unwilling victim in high heels or trying to yoink up that pencil skirt to attempt penetration.
Sorry for the sarcasm. I’m convinced that conservatives are barking up the wrong tree. Men who assault women aren’t the kind of men who feel the need to feminize themselves for the attack.
In the US, someone is sexually assaulted every 68 seconds. On average, there are 463,634 victims of rape and sexual assault every year.
These crimes are not committed by men who snuck into toilets in women’s clothes.
Men who rape women want to exercise power over women. They don’t see them as equals. There’s no incentive for them to disguise themselves as women.
I’m not sure where this idea even comes from.
The paranoia about people using the “wrong” toilet is putting people’s lives at risk
There are a lot of conservative pundits talking about possible violence arising from trans people being allowed to use women’s toilets.
But I couldn’t find a single confirmed incident of a man needing to put on women’s clothes to enter a woman’s bathroom.
The only reports I find are of cis-women who were thrown out of women’s bathrooms because they looked too “masculine” for someone’s liking. Like 24-year-old Jay, who made the “mistake” of cutting her hair short.
I can’t imagine how hurtful that must have been. for her. On the other hand, it tells us why gender identity based on appearance is a construct.
If people can no longer tell that you’re a woman because you cut your hair, why do they even care?
Then there’s Noah Ruiz, a trans man who was assaulted for trying to pee in a campground toilet. By 40 people. Even though Noah had asked the owner which toilet they should use.
It seems the ones on the receiving end of violence are mostly women mistaken for trans people — or trans people.
The bathroom discussion is putting people at risk for no reason
Research showing that the fear of increased safety risks in bathrooms and locker rooms is not real has been around since 2018.
But on the other hand, the discussion about imaginary assaults in restrooms makes the lives of transgender people more unsafe.
Both for trans women and trans men.
According to the FBI’s National Crime Statistics published in October 2023, there was a 32.9% increase in reported hate crimes based on gender identity from 2022.
Trans people are rightfully feeling unsafe. Like this trans man on Reddit:
Sometimes I worry if I go to the bathroom, they may notice if something is odd or see my vagina. They may gang up on me and try to rape me. It’s worse if I’m forced to go to a woman’s bathroom and a lady pepper sprays me because they see a man in the ladies room.
But this doesn’t just affect adults; children are put at risk too.
The risk of being attacked as a transgender teenager because you’re not allowed to use the toilet corresponding to your gender is real. So much more real than imaginary men in drag sneaking into women’s restrooms.
Remember Nex Benedict, the 16-year-old Oklahoma nonbinary teenager who recently became a victim of bullying and othering? He was attacked in his school’s toilet because of his gender identity. Now he is dead.
Campaigners have criticised laws in Oklahoma that ban students from using school toilets and changing rooms that do not align with their sex at birth and have raised concerns about LGBT people being targeted.
All these transphobic people who pretend to be worried about the safety of women and children, these people who make bigoted laws and regulations, are complicit in Nex’s death.
Laws are supposed to keep people safe, but instead, they’re now used to put people at risk.
According to a study published in the Journal of Pediatrics in 2019, 36% of transgender and gender non-conforming youth who were subject to restroom or locker room restrictions were sexually assaulted in the past year. That’s 11% more than their schoolmates.
This discussion isn’t about women’s and children’s safety
Interestingly, the whole gender bathroom discussion doesn’t focus on trans people.
The bogeyman that conservatives have created is the cis man. A violent cis man who dresses in women’s clothes and sneaks into women’s spaces to assault them.
This is the conservatives’ admission that they expect men to assault women. And that they think men can’t be trusted.
Yes, some violent men rape women. That is the sad reality. But they won’t vanish because trans people are banned from using the correct restroom for them.
If conservatives cared about women’s safety, they would focus on the sexual assaults that women are subjected to by violent men. Inside and outside of bathrooms.
They would be trying to find a solution to the risk of violence that women face daily.
Trans people have absolutely nothing to do with this issue.
If you want to protect us, then let’s discuss the men who hurt women. Deal with the root cause instead of whining on social media about gendered restrooms.
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I’ve long maintained that the solution to the panic over people with a penis in the women’s restroom is a federal “bathroom enhancement” law. Just like how using a firearm can extend a sentence for various crimes, just make sure it includes all public, gender segregated spaces, where one does have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Great piece!