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Putting an End to the Endless Bathroom Debate

A piece on the need to properly defend women and trans people.

Introduction

Debates surrounding transgender people using the restroom have erupted in controversy and have further divided our country that is already suffering from division and political tension. While Americans struggle in the face of an array of issues (finances, rise of addiction, foreign conflicts, tariffs, etc.), our government pays utterly too much attention to which restroom trans individuals use. Arguments in opposition to trans people using their preferred bathroom are disguised as an act to protect women, but are rooted in transphobia and disregard the dangers anti-trans bathroom laws put people in. This article will go into depth about what those dangers are and the need for our nation to move on from hatred and transphobic rhetoric.

While an abundance of research supports the argument that trans people should be allowed to use the bathroom they feel comfortable in, one of the most compelling contentions is simply common sense. If a cisgender male, the most likely to be a sex offender, wanted to enter a women’s bathroom to sexually assault someone, he wouldn’t need to go through the years of transition trans women go through in order to do so. He simply would walk in, and do it. No law will stop those men from doing so; there are already laws in place against sexual violations in private spaces, or any space for that matter, and yet sexual violence is still an issue. It is true there have been some cases of cis men dressing as women to violate women in restrooms, but those cases are extremely rare, and not a basis for these strict laws that restrict bathroom access. Banning trans women from using women’s bathrooms does not solve the issue; it only opens up a new array of issues where people are even more at risk when using the bathroom. Such bans are not a protection of women, but instead are an attempt to demonize trans individuals and allows the justice system to escape accountability for failing to protect Americans from sexual violence. Undeniably, sexual assault is a relevant issue in America that is threatening to women and young girls, but the solution is not anti-trans legislature. The solution is a reconstruction of how punishment of the real sexual predators is handled.

What are these bans, and what makes them so dangerous?

Laws restricting bathroom access for trans individuals vary by state, but are harmful. To give an example that outlines the nature of these laws, the strictest among them is Idaho’s transgender bathroom bill, passed in 2026, that not only restricts access to bathrooms that don’t align with assigned sex at birth, it criminalizes it. A first offense is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in prison, while a second offense is a felony, punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment, with the only exceptions being for custodial work, law enforcement, or emergencies (Boone & Mulvihill, 2026). Even if an act of sexual violation didn’t take place, an individual is still criminalized for simply using the bathroom. Other states that ban trans people from using facilities that are consistent with their gender identity in government buildings, K-12 schools, and/or colleges include: Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and South Carolina (Movement Advancement Project, 2026).

There are many issues with this. For one, this puts law enforcement in an uncomfortable position. As an example, the Idaho Fraternal Order of Police and the Idaho Chiefs of Police Association who opposed the bill, “saying it would task officers with the difficult and inappropriate job of visually determining someone’s biological sex or their level of ‘dire need.’” (Boone & Mulvihill, 2026). All because of a few rare cases of perverted cisgender men, the grounds for a law that justifies violation of privacy has been laid. This puts everyone, cisgender and transgender alike, at risk of having their privacy violated.

Cisgender women and girls are subjected to harassment

These laws don’t just impact transgender people, they create an environment where anyone who doesn’t fit into society’s expectations of masculinity and femininity is vulnerable. There have been multiple cases of cis women and girls being harassed because of short hair cuts or masculine leaning appearances.

One instance is an incident involving a nine year old girl competing at a shot put event in Canada. As she was waiting her turn, 67-year old Josef Tesar interrupted, accusing her of being transgender, and demanding to see proof that she was born female. The girl had a short hair cut, which apparently didn’t fit Tesar’s criteria for femininity. A day meant to illuminate the children’s athletic talents ended with a young girl in tears (Mahdawi, 2023).

In another instance in a Utah high school, parents complained about a cis student athlete, claiming that she “doesn’t look feminine enough.” Consequently, an invasive investigation was launched, looking at her school records all the way back to kindergarten to prove she wasn’t trans (Mahdawi, 2023).

In yet another instance in Las Vegas, a 24 year old cis woman, Jay, was berated by another woman in a public restroom for being transgender, even though she in fact was not trans. Jay describes the incident; “As soon as I got in, I went straight to a stall…About a minute or so in, I start to hear a woman being extremely aggressive” and claiming there was a boy in the stall. Jay had recently cut her hair short, and realized the woman was referring to her. When Jay exited the stall to wash her hands, the woman continued berating her, making statements like: “A boy, it’s a boy!…It’s a child!…Are you a man or a woman?” After the fact, Jay remarked, “When she asks me if I’m a man or woman, I know I could have told her I was a woman, and it might have solved the issue in that moment, but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t let her think that questioning and interrogating people to find out their identity was okay” (Wiggins, 2022).

The list goes on and on and will continue to grow. These events demonstrate that anti-trans bathroom laws are not intended to protect women, but instead are rooted in transphobia and weaponize patriarchal gender norms against cis and trans women alike. Anti-trans laws will create an environment where harassing and berating someone over their gender identity, whether or not they’re trans, is justifiable.

Trans people are harshly punished…

It is no secret that trans inmates, especially trans women, are significantly mistreated in prisons and jails. The Transgender Law Center found that “Prisons and jails routinely subject transgender people in their care to abusive conditions, including denial of medical care, extended periods of solitary confinement, harassment, sexual assault, and violence at the hands of guards and other people with whom they are incarcerated” (Transgender Law Center, 2026). American prisons are already an unforgiving, corrupt system that puts any person, regardless of identity, in unnecessary inhumane circumstances that are often ineffective for rehabilitating criminals.

For trans inmates, those circumstances are especially treacherous. Many trans women are denied hormone treatments necessary to combat gender dysphoria and reduce suicidal ideation. Dozens of trans women are housed in men’s prisons, where they are extremely vulnerable to sexual assault and violence. One federal study found 37% of incarcerated trans people reported experiencing sexual violence in prison, compared to just 3% of cisgender inmates (Yossifor & Schwartzapfel, 2025). This not only puts trans inmates at risk, but also can cause issues among the rest of the inmate population, making them more likely to be aggressive against one another and putting everyone involved at risk. Instead of providing protection for trans inmates, their pleas for help are either ignored or they are put into solitary confinement.

Criminalizing and dehumanizing trans people for simply using the restroom does nothing to reduce sexual violence, it only creates an environment more prone to unsafe situations. This criminalization is not out of a desire to protect women; it is an attempt to incite fear and further eradicate the trans community from public life.

…While the real predators walk with impunity.

Debates over the rights of trans people distracts from the real reason sexual violence threatens the public: according to leading authority on sexual violence in the US, the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network (RAINN), 98% of sex crime perpetrators are not held accountable. Not only that, 37% of sexual perpetrators are found to have had previous criminal convictions. These statistics demonstrate the real sexual threat to Americans is not trans people in bathrooms; it’s the Department of Justice that fails to properly protect the public from sexual predators. Instead of holding predators accountable, blaming trans people for just using the bathroom disguises the real issue and allows trans people to be eradicated from public spaces. Understand this: eradication of trans people is not an attempt to protect women, it is an attempt to dehumanize a marginalized group of people who are just as worthy as anyone else to be treated as human. We’ve seen time and time again in history marginalized groups being targeted to allow corruption to thrive; to ignore that fact is to relinquish all our morality. Genocides have been executed because people turned a blind eye to it. It may seem like a small bathroom issue, but the inhumane motives behind those attempting to demonize trans people cannot be ignored.

What’s the solution?

Simply, stop pointing the finger at trans people and start putting blame on those who are really responsible. Don’t allow anti-trans rhetoric to demonize and dehumanize trans people while the real sexual predators walk free. Above all else, remember trans people are the same as you; human. They are just as deserving to use the restroom that correlates with their identity as anyone else.

References

Boone, R., & Mulvihill, G. (2026, March 27). Trans bathroom bill with jail penalties passes Idaho Legislature. AP News. Retrieved May 8, 2026, from https://apnews.com/article/idaho-legislature-transgender-bathroom-ban-jail-ee10cda1df43979e0cf92cb73352187e

Mahdawi, A. (2023, June 17). Whether you’re trans or not, the gender police are coming for you too | Arwa Mahdawi. The Guardian. Retrieved May 8, 2026, from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/17/gender-police-trans-war-women

Movement Advancement Project. (2026, May 7). Bans on Transgender People Using Public Bathrooms and Facilities According to their Gender Identity. Movement Advancement Project. Retrieved May 8, 2026, from https://mapresearch.org/equality-map/bans-on-transgender-people-using-public-bathrooms-and-facilities-according-to-their-gender-identity/

Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network (RAINN). (2025, August 28). Statistics: The Criminal Justice System. RAINN. Retrieved May 9, 2026, from https://rainn.org/facts-statistics-the-scope-of-the-problem/statistics-the-criminal-justice-system/

Transgender Law Center. (2026). Prisons and Policing. Transgender Law Center. Retrieved May 8, 2026, from https://transgenderlawcenter.org/resources/prisons/

Wiggins, C. (2022, November 1). Cis Woman Mistaken as Transgender Records Being Berated in Bathroom. Advocate.com. Retrieved May 8, 2026, from https://www.advocate.com/news/2022/11/01/cis-woman-mistaken-transgender-records-being-berated-bathroom#toggle-gdpr

Yossifor, Y., & Schwartzapfel, B. (2025, February 21). Trans Women Federal Prisoners Told They Will Be Housed With Men. The Marshall Project. Retrieved May 9, 2026, from https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/02/21/transgender-federal-prisoner-transfers