Last week, Target released their new bathroom policy allowing transgender team members or guests to use whichever bathroom or fitting room that they identify with. Round of applause, Target. However, many Americans do not agree with the retail superstar's new policy and have decided to boycott the store by signing a petition ran by the American Family Association.
In the petition the American Family Association states that the new policy "would allow men to use the women's restrooms and dressing rooms in their stores," and that "this means a man can simply say he 'feels like a woman today' and enter the women's restroom...even if young girls or women are already in there." Let us all recall that the policy was created for members of the LBTQA+ community to use the bathroom/fitting room they identify with- the policy was not created to allow men to use women's facilities. The petition then goes on to explain that this policy is "exactly how sexual predators get to their victims." Sexual predators are a threat almost everywhere and bathroom signs are not going to deter them. The sign on the bathroom door doesn't check a person's gender before they walk in.
Growing up most of us lived in a family containing both males and females and you probably all shared the same bathroom, am I right? What's the difference here, strangers? Well good news for you, you don't have to have casual conversation with the people in the bathroom. Are you afraid that you're going to see some guy's peen or some girl's cheeks? Well good news for you, they make bathroom stalls for that!
My younger brother and I were 5 and 3 when our parents got divorced, leaving us too young to go to the bathroom in public by ourselves. When we were with my mom it was normal for her to take both my brother and I in the women's restroom, but when we were with my dad it was different. My little brother could go in the men's restroom with my dad but I had to go in the women's restroom by myself. Even if parents aren't divorced and the kids just happen to be with just mom or dad that day it can become difficult during bathroom breaks.
Transgender people have been around as long as you've been around, which means they've probably been in the restroom the same time you were and you didn't even notice! *gasp* The last time I checked, people in the transgender community look like like you and I do. They don't wear signs across their chests reading "I AM TRANSGENDER, HEAR ME ROAR!" First of all, they're human so stop treating them like they are a foreign being. Secondly, if you're really looking that hard to see if someone is transgender then you're the creep here, not them.
It baffles me that it's 2016 and we're still trying to decide if human beings can have rights. So boycott Target and any other place that decides to be inclusive if you choose to, that's your right. That just leaves more room for the rest of us to shop and use the restroom in peace.
