Richard L. Joens

The Des Moines Register

DES MOINES — I have worked with hundreds of adults who have been traumatized by sexual abuse as children.

I spent several years working at Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines as part of a team treating sexual perpetrators of children.

I also have also spent more than 20 years working with gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender clients. I have helped many transgender clients through the process of transitioning to the gender expression that feels like home to them, even though their outward biological expression was of the other gender.

Driving through western Iowa recently, I turned on my radio to a call-in show. In a portion of the program a caller was talking about transgender people using public bathrooms.

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My therapist part became disturbed. The caller was saying something about this not being a civil-rights issue because we are dealing with sexual criminals and want to protect our children from them.

I turned to another station but couldn’t help thinking about what the caller said.

Some people in our country are saying that transgender people must use the public bathroom of their biological birth gender. They also are implying that men who dress like women, transgender fellows, who use women’s bathrooms are often sexual predators.

In all the years of working with adults who were sexually abused as children, I know not one of them having been abused by a transgender person or by a man dressed as a woman.

They were molested by Catholic priests, Protestant clergy, school teachers, coaches, fathers, mothers, siblings, cousins, uncles, grandparents, family friends, neighbors and babysitters. Most notable, most of the nonclergy abusers belonged to Christian churches.

I believe your child is in much less danger of being molested by a transgender stranger in a public bathroom than by someone your child knows or lives with.

I am amazed by the courage and determination of my transgender clients for striving to live their lives as the gender they believe they are. They have so many strikes against them.

They have become my heroes.

One of their biggest issues is finding a public bathroom they feel comfortable using.

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They are not seeking victims to abuse. They are afraid of being ridiculed, harassed or beaten if their transgender status is recognized.

Some of them have completed transitioning and look like the gender to which they have transitioned, so they “pass.” But what happens if they are supposed to use a public bathroom of their biological birth gender?

When I was in France, I was surprised by the public bathrooms in restaurants. As you enter the communal area, you find private stalls for men or women along with men’s urinals that women walk past to the stalls.

I was not used to using a urinal in the presence of women in public bathrooms. This felt weird at first, but I learned to adjust .

I believe many people feel uncomfortable around transgender persons. They don’t seem “normal.”

Most people have not been around transgender persons on a daily basis because there aren’t that many of them in any given population, especially in rural areas. Just like openly gay and lesbian persons in the past, they move to diverse neighborhoods and cities with more acceptance.

If I can learn to use a urinal in front of women in another country, maybe we can all learn to accept those who are different from us and who mean us no harm.

They just want to use the bathroom.

Richard L. Joens of Des Moines is a licensed social worker with Counseling Associates of Central Iowa. He is an expert on trauma and formerly worked at Polk County Victim Services.

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