I've spent too much time thinking about this subject today. I guess I cannot understand their perspective. I respect that it's not okay in their opinion. I just cannot imagine what that thought process looks/feels like.
You know that there was a time when "colored" people had to use separate facilities of all sorts. It was believed that they were dangerous. Unhealthy. Diseased. Rapist.
Then this thing called the civil rights movement came along. And guess what?
All of the black people weren't raping the white people.
And the white people didn't contract diseases from the black people. It turns out that the color of their skin, in fact, did not make them diseased criminals.
Neither do our genitals.
You know what else? It's none of anyone's damned business if my boobs are real or not, and if I have a penis or a vagina. None.
Since when does sharing a bathroom with someone who lives their life identifying as female who also happens to have a penis cause us harm? Do we think that transgender is something that can be contracted from a toilet seat?
Do we really think that transgender persons will rape us if they use the bathroom that is intended for the sex which they identify with?
What happens when a male who identifies as female and is wearing a dress goes into the men's restroom? What if that person is beaten to death because some man didn't want a man in a dress using the same facilities that he uses?
What are we to do? Is creating separate gender neutral bathrooms a solution?
Maybe it is. It didn't seem to go over so well for the colored folks before the civil rights movement but hey-we are more evolved now. Perhaps we can make that whole segregation think work for this.
What I do know is this. People deserve to be treated with love and respect. I don't give a damn if it's a woman with a penis, or a man with black skin, a boy with disabilities, or a girl who dates girls. We are all people. We are all beautiful spirits stuck in this awful human world where we spend way too much time focusing on the things that don't matter, and focusing on ourselves, how WE feel, and about OUR life experience. And that's a damn shame because that is not the way it is supposed to be.
"Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here." -Marianne Williamson
I try to consider others life experiences, and remember that my life experience is never more important/valuable/valid than someone else's.
