Archive: Opinions

I am a bit dumbfounded about North Carolina's controversial transgender bathroom law.  I thought New York's legislature was terrible, but if North Carolina's elected officials don't have anything to do but pass bathroom laws you have to wonder why they don't have anything better to do.  Maybe all the serious laws have already been passed in North Carolina, so they need things like bathroom laws to make it seem like they are busy.  Maybe they spend more time in public restrooms than the rest of us do.

I certainly understand concerns about privacy, but there isn't a lot of that in public bathrooms as it is.  They are PUBLIC restrooms.  You don't expect privacy in public.  Especially in men's rooms where at least half of the legitimate business that goes on there takes place standing more or less out in the open, and not sitting in stalls.


I don't know about you, but I don't like being in public bathrooms, and when I do my mind is not on looking at the other people in the room.  Most people just avoid looking at each other.  You're not going to find a lot of eye contact in a bathroom.  And I don't spend a lot of time thinking, 'Gee I wonder if that guy is really a woman who thinks she's a man?'  I usually think things like, 'I wish this weren't taking so long' or 'This is boring.  I wish there were an interesting poster on the wall above this toilet, perhaps something from the Washington Post or TV Guide' or 'I sure wish they had paper towels instead of those miserable, loud air blowers' or 'Why is there always a puddle in front of the urinal?'.  You know, highbrow thoughts.

Speaking of posters this is my favorite bathroom story: years ago my wife and I went to a show at the Hangar Theater, and I decided to use the facilities before being seated.  When I walked into the men's room I noticed a big poster above one of the urinals that said 'The Wiz'.  My thought was, 'What genius comedian decided to put THAT above a urinal?'  After some thought I realized they had a policy of putting the posters for their upcoming shows in the bathrooms.  I'm sure I got some strange looks as I couldn't stop laughing as I took care of business.

I have another story about 'The Wiz'.  I managed to see the original production on Broadway.  I didn't like it.  Call me old fashioned, but after Judy Garland and Burt Lahr, do we really need reimaginings, especially ones that are more interested in being hip than evoking the magic of Oz?  Anyway, this was the early days of wireless microphones, and as I sat there not enjoying this show, I couldn't help loving the periodic NYPD radio calls that blared over the theater's loudspeakers.  In this day and age they have solved the interferance problem, but I think North Carolina should pass a law requiring police calls blaring over a theater's sound system during shows I don't like.

Getting back to the bathroom law, for those who are afraid perverts are going to go into the wrong bathroom, here's a thought: what is preventing perverts from going into any bathroom they want now?  They're perverts!  They don't care about gender identity laws.  They just care about doing perverty things.

For non-perverted transgender bathroom-goers, it seems to me that their presence wouldn't be any more awkward than those fathers who bring their little girls into the men's room because they don't have a female adult to escort their child into the ladies' room.  I have experienced that and I did feel awkward, though not awkward enough to not do what I went in there to do.  Some transgender people I have met actually look and dress like the gender they identify with, so I think in many cases most people wouldn't even know.  I, for one, am certainly not going to look close enough to find out, especially in a public bathroom.

As a Facebook friend pointed out, we all have trans-gender bathrooms in our homes, or multi-gender ones -- any gender can use them.  Well, I assume we do, because I don't know anybody who has a men's room and a ladies' room in their home.  It is a staple of marital discord that the genders share a bathroom.  What would spouses argue about if they didn't have the proverbial 'toilet seat: up or down' issue to argue about?  The whole institution of marriage could go down (pardon the expression) the toilet if we had separate gender bathrooms in our homes.

One might argue that a bathroom law like this is for the purpose of making public bathrooms a more comfortable environment for bathroom-goers.  But I would argue that nobody has tried to make public bathrooms a comfortable experience so far.  Well, I can only speak for men's rooms, but ladies, let me assure you they are not hotbeds of comfortable.  You pretty much go in, do what you came to do and get out as fast as you can before you catch a dread disease or faint from the smell.

Estimates say there are 700,000 transgender people in the United States, or 0.3%.  So for every 100 people you see in a public bathroom the chances are that just under 1/3 of one of them is going to be transgender.  It is not likely to be an issue for most of us, in part because it would be a bit hard to pee if they were the top third of a person, and in part because if there are 100 people in a public bathroom there wouldn't be enough room for anyone to use the facilities.

North Carolina is a beautiful state with quite a lot to recommend it.  But I am not going to feel safer there because of a bathroom law.

I mildly suspect that the legislators who passed this law are lawyers, trying to drum up business for lawyers.  I could get behind that -- legislators should encourage business in their constituencies.

If you think that's absurd, it simply sinks to the level of an actual state having a bathroom law.

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