Transgender people will be safer

The argument

This argument treats the bathroom question as one about safety, and holds that the safety at stake belongs to the people the restriction would apply to. The starting observation is that public restrooms are not safe places for the trans community. Trans individuals are routinely subject to verbal abuse and, in some cases, physical violence when they are forced to use the restroom of their sex at birth. The mechanism is visibility: a person whose appearance does not match the sign on the door is conspicuous in a confined space, and conspicuousness in that setting invites confrontation. A rule assigning restrooms by sex at birth therefore produces the mismatch that draws the abuse. Giving trans people the opportunity to use the restroom they feel safer in removes that mismatch, and is presented as an important step in reducing the harassment of the transgender population — the person who would have been visibly out of place is no longer so. The argument then addresses the alternative directly. Introducing prohibitive restroom laws is likely to exacerbate the situation rather than improve it, because such laws cannot be enforced without someone judging who belongs. That would invite the public to play "gender police" and legitimise their confrontation of trans citizens in restrooms, converting private harassment into something the law appears to endorse. The effect is to make public restrooms a more uncertain place for the trans community than before. Because the existing arrangement exposes trans people to abuse, and the proposed restrictions would deputise strangers to enforce it, this argument holds that transgender people will be safer using the bathroom that matches their identity.

Context

Around 60% of transgender citizens in the US have avoided using a public restroom out of fear of harassment or abuse. 12% of the trans community reported a receiving verbal abuse in a public restroom within the last 12 months, and 1% were physically attacked.

Premises

Counter-arguments

It isn’t just transgendered citizens who experience harassment in restrooms. Ethnic minorities also experience an increased level of harassment and violence in public restrooms, but nobody is suggesting that they be allowed to choose which restroom they use as a matter of safety.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Transgender people have the right to feel safe providing they don't put others at risk. Allowing transgender individuals to use the restroom of their expressed gender would put others at risk.