These aren't the droids you're looking for!

There's a lot of turmoil right now about who pees where.  If ya wanna use a public ladies' room, ya gotta have the correct genitalia.  The same ones that you were born with.  No changes allowed.  If ya wanna pee in a public men's room, the same rules apply.  But 'cept if ya got the boy kind of thingies and you are transitioning to be the gender--the person--that you know you are, there is no place to pee.  Go to the ladies room and get arrested.  Go to the men's room and risk assault, battery, and death.  I can imagine that the same risks apply to a female transitioning to male.  Go to a women's restroom dressed as a male* and someone will get flapped and call the cops.  Go to a men's room and, if discovered, risk assault, battery, and death.

Part of the problem could just be men's rooms.  Perhaps we should ban those. Nasty places.  Some men are so afraid of being labeled deviant that they can't even touch their whatsis long enough to aim.  Just ewwww!

The issue has gotten way out of hand.  There has been silly legislation.  Now there's a mass lawsuit in which, of course, Texas is participating.  Is this part of the election silliness that always seems to grip our nation because [internet] [TV] [talkies] [radio] [vaudeville] is making us less responsible adults?  One has to wonder, who will enforce this legislation?  Will public restrooms now require body scanners?  Will there be body searches to make sure that everyone who enters has the right stuff?  Good luck with that.  Any fool who gets between my diuretics and the bathroom door is just asking for trouble.

I speak lightly, but the issue is quite serious.  

• It's hate filled.  The amount of anger and pure venom shown for a human being who is already struggling with deep personal issues is sickening in its zeal.  Making a transsexual man or woman the object of such a conflict, such unnecessary humiliation**, is both perverted and, frankly, wrong.  Bad.  Double-plus not good.  Evil!
• It's dangerous.  Just by making this an issue, transsexuals are being singled out, made more visible than before.  This makes them a bigger target for abuse and assault.  It also lends legitimacy to the discrimination and abuse against trans men and women and even now makes it dangerous for an opposite sexed parent to take a child to the restroom.  In very real terms, it increases the risk of suicide in an already vulnerable population.  
• It's dumb.  While the aforementioned men's rooms are disgusting cesspools (yes, I know what a cesspool is, and, yes, I've been in a men's room--see "diuretics" above), women's rooms are devoted to privacy.  I ask you (women), have any of you ever seen another woman's Little Flower in a public restroom?  I suppose it's possible, but I can testify that I have never caught a glimpse of The Precious.  We have bathroom doors, and we close them.  We maintain private space by averting our eyes.  If a transsexual male has ever been in the same bathroom at the same time I have been, how would I know?  Some men's rooms don't have doors out of fear of Teh Gay, so I imagine men do see a lot of junk in their space.  With so much male hysteria on this whole subject, I have to wonder if we're not seeing some personal issues worked out in public media--with the potential for horrifying consequences.
• It has nothing to do with religious freedom.  Not even close.

The thing is, there didn't really seem to be such a big issue before North Carolina introduced its "bathroom bill."  Then other states started doing the same, and Congress got into the act with the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 (HR 4909), and the media*** still flaps about it non-stop.  However, not all of these bills were all about bathrooms.  They include other things, like eliminating requirements to pay the minimum wage or "prevailing wage."  Like protection of wildlife on federal lands.  Like assaults on clean energy.  As gapaul commented on a Religion Dispatches article:  "Do the Arguments Against Bathroom Equality Hold Water?":

Where did it come from? Read the entirety of the North Carolina bill, passed hurriedly before recess. It also says that private companies can't be required to pay minimum wage, and limits lawsuits against the government for all sorts of discrimination -- race, religion, disability, as well as sexuality.  Its almost like they want us arguing about bathrooms, and completely oblivious to the trail of corporate interest. And now that the whole country is facing a major election, isn't it interesting that a few states have decided its a good time to restart the Culture War? [emphasis added]

I do not at all want to minimize the importance of "the bathroom issue." It is very important for the men and women who are transsexual or transitioning as well as to those of us who care about human rights.  But I have to wonder, with gapaul, if we are not being deliberately distracted from other things that are also important.  

* Note that I have not found it unusual to encounter a male-dressed woman in public restrooms.  I have, rightly or wrongly, assumed that they were lesbians. Still, they might have been men transitioning to female.  No one seemed to get flapped before all of this brouhaha.
**Just to be clear, The Honorable Zoe Lofgren is a hero!
***Read the whole thing, but especially the Media Matters clip.  Hat tip to Trish Taylor for this reference.