Questions About Restrooms and Locker Rooms Leftists Must Answer
 
Questions About Restrooms and Locker Rooms Leftists Must Answer
Written By Laurie Higgins   |   04.12.17
Reading Time: 7 minutes
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While “progressives” continue to push for the eradication of public recognition of and respect for sexual differentiation in restrooms and locker rooms, they also studiously avoid answering essential and relevant questions. Here are the questions conservatives should ask and ask and ask. And they should demand answers from foolish school board members who sexually integrate private spaces.

Does biological sex/anatomy have any meaning related to intimate activities?

  • Does objective, immutable biological sex have any intrinsic meaning relative to modesty and privacy? If not, why do we have any sex-segregated restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, or semi-private hospital rooms? Why not make all of them co-ed for everyone?
  • Those who suffer from gender dysphoria claim that their biological sex as revealed in anatomy is unrelated and irrelevant to their “gender” and “gender identity” (which are internal experiences), and that anatomy doesn’t matter when it comes to restrooms, changing areas, and showers. They further claim they want to use restrooms with only those whose “gender identity” they share. So, why do gender-dysphoric men demand to use women’s restrooms? How do they know the males using the men’s restrooms do not “identify” as women, and how can they be sure that the females using the women’s restrooms do “identify” as women? Is it possible that gender-dysphoric men are basing their restroom choices on anatomy? If so, why are they permitted to do so, but actual women are not?
  • Do “progressives” believe it is unnatural or pathological for girls or boys to object to engaging in excretory functions in a stall next to an unrelated person of the opposite sex doing likewise? If not, should schools respect and honor those feelings through policy that prohibits co-ed restrooms?
  • Why should girls be expected to be comfortable with a boy in their locker room simply because he dislikes his sex? Why should a boy’s subjective feelings about his objective sex affect girls’ feelings or beliefs about undressing near him or vice versa?

What constitutes unjust discrimination?

  • Leftists argue that the word “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 actually includes “gender identity,” thereby prohibiting discrimination based on “gender identity” in restrooms and locker rooms. If gender-dysphoric boys or men are permitted in girls’ or women’s restrooms and locker rooms based on this reinterpretation, on what basis could other boys or men be prohibited from using women’s restrooms? “Cisgender” boys or men couldn’t be prohibited from using girls’ or women’s restrooms based on their male sex because other objectively male persons (i.e., those who are male but “identify” as women) would already have been allowed in. And wouldn’t prohibiting “cisgender” boys or men from using women’s restrooms based on their “identification” as males constitute discrimination based on “gender identity”?
  • Leftists argue that separate restrooms and locker rooms for boys and girls are equivalent to separate drinking fountains for blacks and whites. Others would counter that while there are no substantive ontological differences between whites and blacks and that there are no differences that bear on drinking water at fountains, there are substantive differences between men and women. In fact, even homosexuals acknowledge that men and women are fundamentally and significantly different when they say they are romantically and erotically attracted to only persons of their same sex.Further, conservatives argue that the differences between men and women bear directly on the use of spaces in which private activities related to physical embodiment are engaged in. It is these important differences related to physical embodiment as male or female that account for the very existence of separate restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, and semi-private hospital rooms for men and women everywhere.  If, however, separate restrooms and locker rooms for men and women are akin to separate drinking fountains for blacks and white as Leftists claim they are, are Leftists in favor of banning them everywhere?
  • If separate restrooms and locker rooms for gender-dysphoric boys and girls are equivalent to separate restrooms and locker rooms for blacks and whites—as former Attorney General Loretta Lynch asserted—then why aren’t separate restrooms and locker rooms for “cisgender” boys and girls equivalent to racism? Why aren’t separate restrooms and locker rooms for gender-dysphoric boys and “cisboys” equivalent to racism? And why is it unjustly discriminatory to have restroom and locker room usage correspond to objective biological sex but not discriminatory to have it correspond to subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex?
  • If it’s unjustly discriminatory to prohibit gender-dysphoric boys from using girls’ locker rooms, then why isn’t it unjustly discriminatory to prohibit gender-dysphoric boys from changing out in the open in girls’ locker rooms?

Are special privileges for those who masquerade as the opposite sex fair?

  • If gender-dysphoric students should not be required to use restrooms and locker rooms with those whose “gender identity” they don’t share, why should other students be required to use facilities with those whose sex they don’t share? Why should gender-dysphoric boys (or men) be able to use restrooms with only women, but actual girls (or women) are prohibited from being able to use restrooms with only women? Why should gender-dysphoric men and gender-dysphoric women be allowed to dictate that restrooms, showers, locker rooms, shelters, and hospital rooms no longer correspond to objective, immutable sex?
  • If it’s hateful for girls to say they want to share restrooms and locker rooms with only girls, why isn’t it hateful for gender-dysphoric boys to say they want to share those facilities with only girls?
  • Why is it hateful to believe that locker rooms and restrooms should correspond to one’s objective sex but loving to believe they should correspond to subjective feelings about one’s sex?
  • If restroom stalls and separate changing areas provide sufficient privacy to allow students to use facilities with those whose sex they don’t share, then why don’t restroom stalls and separate changing areas provide sufficient privacy for a gender-dysphoric student to share facilities with those whose “gender identity” they don’t share but whose sex they do share?
  • If restroom stalls and changing areas provide sufficient privacy to allow a gender-dysphoric male student in the girls’ facilities, then why don’t stalls and changing areas provide sufficient privacy to allow all male students in the girls’ facilities?
  • If restroom stalls provide sufficient privacy to allow an objectively male student in girls’ restrooms, should schools allow all male staff and faculty in the women’s staff restrooms that are equipped with multiple stalls?
  • If sex and “gender” are two wholly different and unrelated things, with sex being an immutable objective phenomenon and “gender” being a subjective, internal, and sometimes fluid phenomenon, why should restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, nursing home rooms, and semi-private hospital rooms correspond to “gender identity” as opposed to biological sex which is both objective and stable?
  • Do children and adults have an inalienable and intrinsic right not to share restrooms and locker rooms with persons of the opposite sex?

Are schools maligning students who object to sex-integrated private spaces?

  • When Leftists accuse parents who oppose co-ed restrooms and locker rooms of being hateful, intolerant, bigoted, ignorant, heartless bullies, do they also smear children who object to sharing restrooms and locker rooms with peers of the opposite sex? If so, is that problematic?
  • Do Leftist school administrators, teachers, and community members think that Muslims and Orthodox Jews who don’t want their daughters sharing restrooms and locker rooms with objectively male students or vice versa are ignorant, bigoted, hateful, and unjustly discriminatory? (Ask this one at school board meetings when board members or community members falsely hurl these epithets in the direction of conservatives.)

Pragmatic issues with co-ed restrooms and locker rooms that schools must address.

  • Pronouns denote and correspond to objective biological sex—not subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex. So, if staff members, teachers, or administrators view the use of opposite-sex pronouns to refer to gender-dysphoric students as lying and for ethical and/or religious reasons object to lying, should schools accommodate their objections? Or, should schools—which are arms of the government—compel employees to lie?
  • Many “trans-activists” argue that “gender identity” is not fixed. It’s fluid. What will schools do when faced with students who “identify” as “bi-gender” or “genderfluid” and demand to use whichever facilities correspond to their fluctuating identities?
  • Female teachers are allowed in girls’ restrooms and locker rooms. Should male teachers who “identify” as female be allowed in girls’ restrooms and locker rooms as well? If not, why not?
  • Liberal sex and gender researchers J. Michael Bailey at Northwestern University and Dr. Eric Vilain at UCLA write that 80% of gender-dysphoric boys—and most gender-dysphoric persons are male—will accept their real sex by adulthood. They claim that “it looks like parental acquiescence leads to persistence.” In other words, if parents accommodate their children’s efforts to pretend to be the opposite sex, their children are more likely to persist in their rejection of their sex. Are schools that allow gender-dysphoric minors to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms complicit in helping students persist in their rejection of their sex?
  • Should gender-dysphoric students be permitted to change clothes in open areas or shower in group showers in locker rooms designated for persons of the opposite sex? If not, why not?
  • If gender-dysphoric students are permitted to use locker rooms designated for persons of the opposite sex, may they walk through areas where opposite-sex students may be changing or showering? If not, why not?

Miscellaneous other important questions for Leftists about gender dysphoria

  • If there is a mismatch between a person’s sex and his feelings about his sex, how can “progressives” be certain that the error resides in the healthy body rather than the mind? If a person has normal, unambiguous, healthy, fully functioning male anatomy but desires to be—or believes he is—female, might this not be an error or disorder of his mind?
  • If a man “identifies” as “bi-gender” and has appended faux-breasts to his chest while retaining his penis and testes, should he be permitted to decide which locker room he uses? Should he be permitted to walk about unclothed in women’s locker rooms?
  • Progressives routinely mock opponents of co-ed restrooms and locker rooms, asking whether single-sex restrooms and locker rooms will require “genitalia police” to determine whether those seeking ingress are in reality the sex that corresponds to the spaces they seek to use. Well, will co-ed restrooms and locker rooms require “gender-identity” police to determine whether those seeking ingress are either the sex that corresponds to the spaces they seek to use or have proof that they have been diagnosed as gender-dysphoric? If not, how will women know if the persons seeking access to women’s restrooms are objectively female, or are gender-dysphoric men masquerading as women, or are male predators masquerading as gender-dysphoric men?
  • Some argue that men masquerading as women have been successfully using women’s private spaces for years without women knowing and hence no harm, no foul. This suggests that if women’s privacy is invaded by men but they—the women—are unaware of the invasion, no harm has been done. By that logic, if voyeurs (not to be confused with men who “identify” as women) are able to secretly view women without women’s knowledge, no harm, no foul.

Before we all jump whole hog into the pigpen of subjectivism where Leftists have been wallowing for half a century, let’s use our noggins and try to force our mucked up friends to use theirs.


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Laurie Higgins
Laurie Higgins was the Illinois Family Institute’s Cultural Affairs Writer in the fall of 2008 through early 2023. Prior to working for the IFI, Laurie worked full-time for eight years in Deerfield High School’s writing center in Deerfield, Illinois. Her cultural commentaries have been carried on a number of pro-family websites nationally and internationally, and Laurie has appeared on numerous radio programs across the country. In addition, Laurie has spoken at the Council for National Policy and educational conferences sponsored by the Constitutional Coalition. She has been married to her husband for forty-four years, and they have four grown children...
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