Well. It’s official. America does not want trans people to exist.

Under the guise of wanting to protect children, Americans have all restarted conversations about bathrooms and trans people. With the passage of North Carolina and Kansas’s “bathroom bills” requiring trans people to use the bathroom of their assigned gender (aka: not their real gender), trans people are now even more at risk of harassment, battery, assault and murder.

This violence will likely not be addressed except by people within the trans community sharing obituaries and news reports that will use the wrong name, the wrong pronouns, the wrong everything.

Before I go into depth on why these arguments against trans people using public bathrooms are inherently wrong, and barely hiding their hatred of trans people, I’m going to explain, in excruciating detail, what is happening across the United States.

In North Carolina, trans people are being forced to use the wrong bathroom--in that the introduced legislation would bar trans people from using the bathroom that correctly matches their gender. For some reason, this state is getting more news coverage and generalized attention than Kansas, whose legislature introduced essentially the same bill, but also introduced a trans bathroom bounty--offering $2,500 to students who find and report trans people using “the wrong bathrooms.”

Why isn’t anyone talking about this? Is it because it’s Kansas, and we ignore things that happen in the “less-developed” West of the United States? (Speaking of which, we also have been ignoring the increase in Dust Bowl weather along with how savage the tornados there have gotten. Why is that?)

There have also been mass rallies of so-called “trans supporters” canceling or refraining from attending performances or even the opportunity to perform various events in North Carolina (again, way to have coverage or lend “support” to the trans victims of Kansas). These “supporters” claim to be protesting the bills of North Carolina, but if they support the LGBT community, that means they undoubtedly have LGBT fans.

Can you imagine the disappointment of not going to that concert or show you were really hyped up for because of the laws that target you specifically? Yes, there is power in refusing to do a performance in an area that attacks certain people, but for the people it attacks, performances and events they love are an escape from reality. In turn, it just takes even more away from LGBT people.

Rather than taking these events from all people, the marginalized people included, why don’t these artists show their support by donating some of their profit to trans-friendly organizations? Or to other LGBT-friendly organizations?

There are plenty: Trevor Project, supporting local PFLAG organizations, the organizations on this helpful little link (http://www.lgbtcenters.org/localstatenational-groups.aspx) or any other organization a simple Google search would yield.

In addition to the transphobia rampant in North Carolina and Kansas, Ohio congressman John Becker is looking into legislation against unisex bathrooms. So, even if there were specific trans-inclusive bathrooms, they have the potential to be removed entirely in the state of Ohio. Where, coincidentally, a number of trans people live.

17-year-old transgirl Leelah Alcorn killed herself December 28 of 2014, and not two years later her home state is posing even more restrictions on trans people. Incredible.

And even in addition to that, Alabama has completely barred trans people from even using the bathroom. I’ll repeat: Trans people are not allowed to use public bathrooms in Alabama.

I’m not even going to explain the situation with an analogy. But I want that to register for every transphobic person who encounters and reads this article. And no, that doesn’t mean there will become trans-inclusive bathrooms as a second option.

Trans people are not allowed to excrete waste in public restrooms at all. Which basically amounts to “stay at home and pee. Hide yourself from the public eye. We don’t want to be reminded you exist.” It’s either that or go back in the closet, pretend to be cisgender and completely deny who you are to everyone around you, including yourself.

Somehow, that seems much easier than facing a literal bounty, being arrested and the threat of death. And if your immediate thought after reading that sentences is “Yes! Trans people should just go back in the closet!” then you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to be trans.

When you are born and given a gender (This phrase is correct. Doctors assign genders to people. It is based on a chart to identify genitalia. If your sex characteristics are too ambiguous, they perform surgeries without parental consent to “correct” them, or make them resemble cis people’s genitals. Look up intersex, and learn how there’s not a sex binary either), you are given a future.

Your choices, decisions, and career path are prechosen for you. Your clothes, toys and activities are all planned out ahead of you. If you try and break out of that, even as a cisgender person, you are branded as strange or blasted against.

It’s tough enough as is. But if you are cis, you are lucky in that you do not have to completely reject societal expectations and norms. You are lucky in that you are not required to explore gender, how it relates to you, why it is you feel so uncomfortable all the time, why it is you feel euphoria upon being mistaken as a gender different than the one assigned to you at birth.

And, by the way, no you do not need to “assign a gender” to your child. By that, what I mean is you do not need to impose the societal expectations on what girls and boys are “supposed to be” onto your child. You do not need to know their sex in order to properly care for them.

And, just because I’ve heard this argument before, you don’t need sex and gender at birth listed on your ID in case of a medical emergency when you don’t even have your blood type listed for incidents of the same caliber.

Anyway, trans people should not and often times cannot hide who they are. They cannot deny it to themselves. There have been recent studies that have staggering results of increased happiness and self-confidence when trans people are able to be themselves. These studies were conducted to specifically combat the transphobic arguments flying around that these people are just “confused.”

Look again back at Leelah Alcorn: she is only one example out of probably a thousand trans children who could not keep living in a transphobic and unsafe environment, and who took matters into their own hands because there was no one able to help them.

There is virtually no legislation to protect such children from their parents, families, classmates, authority figures or strangers. Slowly, these types of bills impose even more restrictions on them than they are already confined to. It’s appalling and horrifying to see support for these state-sanctioned transgressions that will inevitably lead to suicide if aggressors do not murder them before it.

No, to address the terribly formulated arguments I have seen repeatedly on people’s reactions to trans acceptance.

“Pedophiles will use this to attack my daughter!”

Your concern for your daughter implies no concern for your son, who will eventually use if he is not doing so already, public male restrooms.

On the off chance you are referring to trans people as pedophiles, you’re assuming that every single trans person is interested in sexual intercourse with children. You are equating pedophilia with the existence of transgender people. That is beyond atrocious and disgusting.

I didn’t think I would need to define it, but trans people are people whose assigned genders at birth do not match their actual gender identity. Does the definition touch upon sexual attraction? Does it imply any pedophilic tendencies? If you can look at these questions and answer “no” then we can move on and recognize that this argument is transphobic and irrelevant.

The group of pedophiles in the world is not gender specific. Usually, when you hear the word, you think of intimidating male adults, but to assume so erases the impact women pedophiles have on their victims.

Victims who are denied therapy and support because “women are incapable of committing such atrocities” and are instead told to, if said victims are boys or men, “grow up,” “man up” or some variation of “forget about your psychologically damaging sexual abuse.” You don’t care about male sexual victims by using this argument, for both male predators and female predators. You don’t care about female sexual victims by using this argument.

Pedophiles, statistically speaking, are less likely to be strangers attacking children in public spaces. It is far more likely to be a father, an uncle, an older cousin or brother, than someone taking advantage of a trans-inclusive protection to assault someone. But sure, by all means, continue ignoring actual facts and information to express how much you hate trans people.

“Assault is more likely to occur now that men are allowed in the women’s restrooms!”

Well, actually, no. Men aren’t allowed in the women’s restrooms. Women and girls are allowed in those bathrooms. Even if the woman or girl has a penis, she’s allowed in that bathroom. Same goes with men’s restrooms--men with vaginas, men with penises, men with no sex characteristics at all are allowed to pee in the men’s room. That’s the point of bathroom protection.

Moving beyond that, again, an individual is much more likely to be assaulted by someone they know rather than by a stranger in public. In fact, unless no one else is around or everyone is suffering from an extreme case of bystander apathy, it is going to be really unlikely for someone to attempt an attack or assault on another person in whatever bathroom.

But if it’s a transperson using whatever bathroom, it’ll be more likely to happen, in part because of bystander apathy but also because it is more socially acceptable to target transpeople, particularly transwomen.

Legislation to ensure bathroom protection is to prevent transpeople from being attacked for excreting their waste products. That’s why it’s called bathroom protection: it’s to protect this vulnerable marginalized group of people from people who are looking to attack or kill them for being “abnormal” or “different.”

Besides, it’s not like society cares when a woman is sexually harassed, assaulted or raped. Using violence against women as a scapegoat for spreading transphobic statements and then turning your back on women needing support and help is deplorable and inhumane.

“If you look like a woman, you’re not going to be attacked for using the women’s bathroom! I don’t understand why we need a bill enforcing this.”

So, basically, transpeople need to look cis enough to use their correct bathrooms. Transgirls and transwomen need to dress femininely, wear makeup, grow their hair out, shave their everything, undergo reassignment surgery, start taking estrogen supplements and embrace every element of societal expectation of femininity in order to be perceived as women.

Transboys and transmen need to dress masculinity, stop wearing makeup, chop off all of their hair, stop shaving their everything, undergo reassignment surgery, start getting testosterone and embrace every element of societal expectation of masculinity in order to be perceived as men.

Give me a break.

Why is it, when it comes to cis people, it is more socially acceptable for men and women to have different styles and variation in appearance than it is for transpeople, who have to dress to the stereotypes of their genders? Butch transwomen exist. Feminine transmen exist. Their genders are still valid, and they’re allowed to pee wherever they feel most comfortable.

Also, it’s disgusting to impose your own requirements for what makes someone trans when you yourself are not trans. Stop policing their lives when it’s already being restricted and policed enough. They exist for themselves, not to make you comfortable and secure. The same goes for people who are trans: No one has any power or authority in determining the “trans-ness” of another person.

Also, if you’re looking at someone and assuming their gender, you are part of the problem. Gender is ambiguous, fluid and a social construct. It doesn’t follow a set of rules and it does not exist as a binary (and by that, I mean there are more genders than just men and women).

It is impossible to look at someone and know for sure they are trans unless you are going off of appearance and assuming things rather than straight up asking them. But you really shouldn’t ask someone that if you’re in a bathroom anyways, especially if it’s based on appearances. You wouldn’t ask someone you don’t consider to possibly be trans that, so why would you ask someone you think is trans if they are when they and you are peeing?

“I don’t understand why we need unisex bathrooms…”

Fun fact! You have unisex bathrooms in your own home! Congressman Becker has unisex bathrooms in his home! Some unisex bathrooms are there as “family bathrooms” so that mothers or fathers can take infants or children who are too young to pee on their own there.

Some unisex bathrooms are for disabled people. Some bathrooms are gender-specific, but sport only one toilet, and are virtually unisex bathrooms but aren’t labeled as such (and they really should be, because it would save a lot more time and mean less waiting lines). You are used to the idea of unisex bathrooms--you are just not used to having a name for them.

Aside from that, again, there are more genders than just male and female. There are people who are androgynous, people who are non-binary, people who are genderqueer, people who are genderfluid, people who don’t have a gender, people who have multiple genders, people who feel as though they’re both man and woman who all deserve to use bathrooms they feel safe and comfortable in.

Trans protections should not solely apply to transpeople who exist on a binary, they should apply to every transperson, which includes every type of trans identity.

“Why should we worry about #% of the world’s population?”

I don’t know where people are getting their percentages from because it changes every time. Findings of a study that was completed in California and Massachusetts estimate that .3% of the global population is trans people, which, besides its U.S. centrality, the outdatedness and the inherent problem with trans studies of not being open about gender identity or even aware of the possibility of being trans, is a small percentage.

Unless you are given specific numbers. If the total population is over 7 billion, then .3%, the number of trans people globally, is 21 million people. Legislation affecting a hypothetical 21 million people is pretty important, I think.

But even if this unreliable assessment is ignored, which it will be once people are done reading this and go to type an angry comment, the fact of the matter is that people are being denied their basic rights due to who they are as a person. That’s not the sort of thing that can be said in the same breath as “land of the free.”