Have you ever sat and listened to the ludicrous waffle spouted by the right wing in the US when it comes to transgender people using the toilets for their actual gender rather than their birth assigned sex? Have you sat and read the articles on how it puts our children at risk of assault, etc. etc. etc.? There’s nothing more ridiculous in my eyes than this debate.
As a disabled person who uses a wheelchair or walking sticks to get around, I use the accessible toilet. I can’t get myself up off the toilet without the bar to pull myself up on or on some days, help from my carer. That’s just the way it is. It doesn’t mean that I’m a pervert, and I don’t think anyone would call me one for needing someone with me in the toilet to help me in and out of my chair on bad days. So why is it that a person using a toilet cubicle or a urinal is a pervert? They are just going about their business.
Also, if you’re from the UK there’s another thing to add to this debate, something that all people who require the use of an accessible toilet will acknowledge, our toilets are unisex. Every single accessible toilet you come across in public spaces is unisex. Admittedly there’s usually only one, unless you’re in a large shopping centre, and it’s usually a single room, but that’s not the point. Ladies get one toilet, gents another, and the accessible toilet is unisex. We’re not expected to want or need a single sex toilet. For us it’s a case of ‘this is what you get’ and this has been the way of it since accessible toilets became a thing in the UK.
At home our toilets are unisex. We don’t have separate bathrooms for the men and women who live with us. We’d think the idea absurd. So why in the hell is it an issue when a transgender person who was born with different genitals from you wants to use the same toilets as you use because it’s the gender they are?
nalebrun.com 