By now, news of the transgender bathroom laws has circulated, along with all the controversy accompanying it. The main argument against letting transgender individuals use the bathroom is the sudden fear people have of sexual predators who aren’t transgender taking advantage of this.

The discriminatory laws and bills being passed in the United States are frightening enough, but what’s truly harrowing is the public’s reaction: It revealed exactly how we view rape in this country.

Rape culture is hugely prevalent and is an astonishing problem, and yet people don’t seem to be willing to do much to prevent it — until it becomes a reason for them to argue against something they are not comfortable with.

Public restrooms aren’t some safe haven where everyone feels comfortable and happy. They are simply places where people can respond to universal bodily functions, and are separated by gender for the sake of convenience. So why are people worried about sexual predators all of the sudden?

The presence of a gender label on a bathroom door won’t prevent a sexual predator from entering a public bathroom. If a male perpetrator wishes to enter a women’s restroom to prey on those within, a law banning him from entering the women’s restroom won’t stop him from doing so.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, between 2005-10, only 22 percent of reported sexual assaults were committed by a stranger. Of those assaults, 15 percent happened in public space that wasn’t a school and 8 percent occurred on school property.

Being a transgender individual is already incredibly difficult. Despite the wave of support for transgender equality in the past few decades, not identifying with the physical body you were born in is an extraordinarily difficult journey. Transgender individuals have unacceptably high rates of discrimination in the workplace and refusal of medical services, just for starters.

We are all human, regardless of what gender we identify as or what type of genitalia is between our legs. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect, and making someone use a bathroom opposite of the gender they identify as is not respectful.

To force a transgender person to use the opposite bathroom is demeaning, humiliating and traumatizing. More often than not, this results in people being harassed in public for something as innocent and necessary as relieving themselves.

Being transgendered covers a range of people, and not everyone’s transition is the same. Sometimes it includes hormone therapy and gender reassignment, and sometimes it doesn’t.

These transgender bans will create an environment in which a man with a beard and a penis has to use a women’s restroom because he didn’t have a penis when he was born. This only leads to an uncomfortable situation for everyone involved.

Everyone has a right to be protected and safe, and that doesn’t exclude transgender people. Sexual assault and transgender individuals are two entirely separate issues, and using one to prevent the safety of another demographic isn’t right or fair.

Our society today needs to learn to be comfortable with what we are not familiar with. Perhaps having a transgender individual in a restroom with you isn’t going to be comfortable the first few times it happens, but more often than not, it is hard to distinguish a transgender person from anyone else. Not to mention, the discomfort associated with sharing a bathroom with transgender people is nothing compared to the trauma experienced by a transgender person forced to use the wrong bathroom.

Sexual assault and rape culture is still rampant in today’s society, and it needs to be stopped. It needs to be addressed in contexts outside of transgender bathroom bans, because it shouldn’t only be used as a justification to stop something society isn’t comfortable with. Sexual assault victims deserve better than that, and so do transgender people.

Equality should be accessible for everyone. In a perfect world, no one would be born the wrong sex, and there wouldn’t be sexual predators and perverts. However, this isn’t a perfect world, but that should not stop us from giving everyone the chance to pursue happiness — and if it isn’t harming anyone else — we shouldn’t feel the need to interfere with it.

For the time being, we still live in a world where people boycott places like Target for accommodating everyone, including transgender people. At least it makes the shopping experience more pleasant and less crowded for those of us who don’t care who may be in the stall next to us while we pee.

Hannah Fricke ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in microbiology and life sciences communication.