As a native Mississippian, I don’t spend a whole lot of time in Florida. Sure, a vacation or two here and there, but for the most part, I stay away from the Sunshine State. According to recent acts taken by the state legislature of Florida, it appears that this is a wise decision, as I am obviously not welcome among the sun, sand and palm trees.
Presumably due to the overtly phallic shape of the state, these lawmakers are obsessed with genitals and who puts theirs where. Not even in a sexual sense, but simply where you take them to perform basic bodily functions.
According to a “Miami Herald” article by Steve Rothaus, a bill that has now passed two House committees, HB 538, attempts to make it a second-degree misdemeanor for transgender people to enter a public bathroom “of the other biological sex” (If I rolled my eyes any harder, I’d sever my optic nerve). If passed, this bill would penalize a trans person who goes into the restroom that aligns with their gender a maximum of 60 days in jail and a fine of $500. Talk about an expensive pit stop.
While I have many question about this proposed law (like how the state plans on enforcing such a restriction, why the lawmakers are wasting tax dollars on persecuting an already marginalized group, and how many of them must simply be spiteful that Laverne Cox is more gorgeous than they or their significant other will ever be?), there is one question that stands out to me above all the others: Why?
Unless public bathrooms are very different in Florida than any others I’ve come across, visiting them is not a team sport. You go in, do your business and leave. There’s not a lot of socializing, except for those weirdoes that think it’s all right to start a conversation through the walls of a toilet stall. But that’s not a transgender or cisgender problem, that’s just people who don’t know boundaries.
So, why does it matter what kind of genitals someone has when they enter the public bathroom?
They aren’t flashing them at you, you don’t have to touch them or look at them, and frankly, trans and cis people alike would be angry if you did so. What someone else has in their pants or skirt does not affect your ability to use the restroom, and it isn’t even any of your business.
Republican Rep. Frank Artiles said he’s pushing this bill to combat an ordinance in Miami-Dade county that protects the rights of trans people, calling it “overbroad and subjective.” Unless that bill gives attractive trans people the right to steal things they want, I don’t see how protection of rights can be considered overbroad or subjective.
Is he angry about all the rights trans people do have?
Like how, according to Trans Student Equality Resources statistics, trans women have a one in 12 chance of being murdered and how that number jumps up to one in eight for trans women of color? Or how the Gender, Violence, and Resource Access survey report found that 50 percent of trans people have been raped or assaulted by a romantic partner?
Really, you’ve got to take us down a peg; we’re getting far too uppity.
Simply put, the operative word in the phrase “trans people” is “people.” No matter what gender we are, and no matter what genitals our bladders are attached to, we still need access to public bathrooms. And trust me, we don’t get excited about going into them. We generally avoid public bathrooms like the plague because of the overreaction of people, like Frank Artiles, who think that we aren’t there to relieve ourselves but to molest them.
If Florida wants to pass a bill that increases penalties for sexual assault, regardless of gender, then I’m all for that. If someone behaves inappropriately in a public bathroom and threatens you, then they deserve to face repercussions.
But the idea that trans people want access to bathrooms that align with their gender because we want to attack cis people? That’s not only a grossly misrepresentative idea but reinforces the damaging cultural stigma that trans people are dangerous perverts or freaks.
We want in and out of a public bathroom just as fast as the rest of you, and sticking around to terrorize the cis people we find there would seriously cut into our schedule of indoctrinating children and promoting our deviant lifestyle. Or at least that’s the bulk of our schedule if you ask the transphobic Florida legislature, I guess.
The $500 that Artiles and his colleagues want to fine us for using the “wrong” bathroom could buy a trans man 17 chest binders from Underworks or a trans woman 10 pairs of the cheapest breast forms you can get on thebreastformstore.com (and it wouldn’t even cover all of the cost for a quality set). It could go towards our hormone replacement therapy (expensive stuff, trust me) or act as a down-payment on a gender confirmation surgery. We could use that money for basic living expenses or for any number of the incredibly expensive things being trans necessitates, and $500 would just be a drop in the bucket, I assure you.
The bottom line is I recently celebrated my one year anniversary of biweekly intramuscular injections of testosterone. I’ve come out to my friends and family. I’ve written articles like these to educate people, and I’ve fought tooth and nail for years to be comfortable in my skin. So, I’ll be damned if I sit silent while a bunch of transphobic lunatics in power try to beat me and every other trans person into submission with their heteronormative witch hunt.
We’re here, we’re queer, and we just need to pee. Get used to it.
Morgan Philley is a junior English major from Clinton.
