Guest Post: No Real Proof to Back Up Anti-Transgender Washroom Fear, U.S. reader writes
November 29, 2012. 6:20 pm • Section: Turning the Page
Posted by: Jillian Page
http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/2012/11/29/guest-post-no-real-proof-to-back-up-anti-transgender-washroom-fears-u-s-reader-writes/Reader Dianne from Boise, Idaho, writes:
Jillian,
I have been following Ottawa's progress on Bill C-279 with keen interest. I'm frustrated but not surprised to see it bogging down on the washroom issue. I understand the underlying feelings about allowing trans people into the ladies room. What I don't understand is the rationale applied that there is a very specific threat of child molesters invading these spaces for predatory purposes. This meme keeps surfacing in North America and I just can't help but wonder what tiny kernel of fact can back it up?
Not long ago I spent a weekend of free Internet time doggedly trying to find evidence that any trans person, or anyone pretending to be a trans person, had ever lurked in a restroom with criminal intent. All I could find were dozens and dozens of hits where people raised the dire warning of the impending threat of predators just waiting to be descend once they were given free rein. The closest I came was one young trans woman who used the men's room for a semi-consensual encounter with an underage teenage boy. There are many jurisdictions where trans women are allowed to use the ladies room. Why haven't those areas seen cases of trans or faux-trans people lurking in the washroom?
Well, what else did I find in my google frenzy? A frightening number of trans women who had been harassed or assaulted for using the women's bathroom.
