You very likely have shared a public bathroom with a person who identifies as transgender. It probably went like this. You did your business. The other person did theirs. You left. They left. We already share public facilities and nothing happens.

I admit that I know little of the transgender world, but I do know that being transgender is a biological reality, not a choice. People do not switch genders because they feel like it. Arguing that a man could go into the women's bathroom because 'I feel like a woman today' is merely intended to scare people. If someone does that, call the police. He's a heterosexual predator.

People who are transgender have been with us forever. Only recently have we begun to take their situation seriously. Rather, only recently have lawmakers singled them out as targets for their agenda.

The 'religious freedom' acts, allowing people to withhold services based on the customer's sexual orientation, and the 'bathroom wars' requiring a person to use the bathroom that matches the gender on their birth certificate, are the most recent attempts by legislators to make a point, not to make a difference. The point is their disagreement with the legalization of same-sex marriage and other civil rights granted to LGBT citizens. These are efforts to circumvent the laws and maintain state-sanctioned discrimination in the name of Christian values.

Some in the Texas Legislature want to enlist in the bathroom wars. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said, 'This isn't about equal rights. This isn't about being against anyone or anti-any person. This is about common sense.'

'Common sense' is a code word for simple, and this issue is anything but simple. Being transgender is certainly not simple, and finding a respectful response is not simple.

In some situations, common sense would be to use the bathroom that matches the birth certificate gender. In other situations, this would grossly inappropriate. A person identifying as transgender could be a fourth-grader just discovering that the body she was born with does not match who she is. Being transgender might also be a young adult undergoing hormone treatments who now finds their body somewhere between their birth gender and their new gender. The plumbing may be original, but it does not match the rest of the body.

A transgender person might also be the guy who sits on the same aisle at church, whose kid plays on the same baseball team as your kid, who you would never guess was born female. There is no simple, single response.

Of course, everyone wants to avoid the obvious problems. I don't want my daughter sharing a bathroom with someone who was born female but now, because of hormone treatments and surgery, is an adult male. I don't want a woman who was born a boy but has been female for the past two decades to come into my bathroom. And I certainly do not want children and teenagers singled out, harassed or beaten up because they can no longer keep a personal situation private.

The real danger in public bathrooms is not from the person who is transgender but from heterosexual predators, straight men who have problems with their perception, judgment and impulse control.

We need to make accommodations. Some will involve money and effort. Mostly, though, we need to make an emotional and spiritual shift.

As a culture we still have trouble taking in the stranger we do not understand. Our strategy is to avoid. If we can't avoid, we ostracize. When that no longer works, we use intimidation and hostility. Legislation is our most sophisticated strategy. Ironically, the legislators most likely to push these kinds of measures are the very ones who generally seek to limit government's intrusion in our lives.

Our lack of understanding breeds fear, and fear leads to hostility. Whether physical or legislative, it is the same frightened response toward those who are far more vulnerable than the ones making the rules. We could save ourselves a lot of time, trouble and hypocrisy, and we could save lives, if we first sought to understand.

People who are transgender need our support, not our hostility. Undergoing the steps needed to make the change from their physiology at birth to a physiology that matches their identity requires courage, patience and significant expense.

The vast majority of individuals who identify as transgender have no interest in making trouble or even being noticed as transgender. They mostly want to live their lives, do their jobs, have families and friends, and enjoy what the rest of us take for granted.

John Powell is a resident of Abilene, a psychologist, handyman and writer. He is a member of the Reporter-News Community Advisory Board.