In recent months there has been a lot of debate about transgender individuals using the bathroom opposite their birth sex. Both sides have legitimate arguments and in an effort to support their own position at all costs, neither side seems to be listening to the other side. Let’s examine both sides, how they’re misunderstood and how we might make a better law than either side proposes.

Those opposing the possibility of transgender individuals switching bathrooms often mention the idea that creeps could take advantage of this law to get into the opposite bathroom and spy on people for their own sexual gratification. The other side hears this and complains that all trans people are being called creeps… but that isn’t the point at all! The point is that without some clear regulation on who’s trans, such laws leave it open for non-trans people to fake being trans for reasons that we all realize are improper.

Those arguing for the ability of transgender individuals to access the opposite restroom, point out the most convincing trans individuals, usually those who have undergone hormone therapy and/or surgery. If you look at these individuals, I doubt many of us would class them in their birth sex, and honestly most of us would be creeped out if they showed up in a bathroom for that sex. The other side kind of ignores these significant physiological changes that have been artificially done and insists on natural biological sex.

Even though I realize it is impossible to change one’s ontological sex, I see a certain truth about making bathrooms based on a kind of physiological sex as kind be seen because bathrooms are based on function of waste-excreting organs not the reality of ontological sex.

Currently the options in public discourse seem to be either anyone in any bathroom because they say so, or basing in on birth certificates. I think there are 2 better options. We could leave it was the status quo until recently where the facility manager was left the freedom to exercise prudence in who let into each bathroom – this involves not just trans individuals but caregivers with children or disabled adults. We could also have some possibility of changing the sex on your driver’s license, but only after hormones and/or therapy, and base it on that. I prefer the former as I assume 99.99% of people will be rational to distinguish between a legitimate trans individual and a creep trying to get into the other bathroom. I refer here to adult bathrooms: since gender dysphoria (or gender identity disorder) in kids has over an 80% remission rate, we should try to help young people overcome this rather than encourage them on this path; adults who’ve had GD (or GID) for a period of time, on the other hand have a very low remission rate so we assume this is their permanent status.