South Dakota is one signature away from becoming the first US state to restrict transgender students’ bathroom access. But it’s just one disheartening part of a nationwide battle over where trans people can and cannot pee. Some 100 anti-LGBT bills have been introduced or proposed in 26 states, many of which target trans bathroom use. What should be easy votes are instead revealing the deep discomfort and prejudice many people still hold about trans bodies.

The South Dakota bill, which would mandate school restroom facilities and locker rooms “be designated for and used only by students of the same biological sex”, passed the state senate and awaits a decision from the state’s Republican governor, Dennis Daugaard, who is said to be favorable to the bill.

Over the past year, a number of other US states have mulled their own restrictions on accommodations for trans students. In 2015, similar pieces of legislation died in Kentucky, Florida, Nevada and Texas, but LGBT activists may nonetheless have their work cut out for them.

This includes a bloody battle in Washington state to a repeal a December 2015 decision by the state’s Human Rights Commission to allow trans residents to use the public facilities that most closely match their gender identity.



Earlier this week, a Seattle man decided to test the city’s new restroom regulations by walking into the women’s bathroom at Evans pool. When female guests asked him to leave, he said: “The law has changed and I have a right to be here.” Conservative trolls have been urging other men to do the same. In January, the Facebook group “Keep Locker Rooms Safe” posted a “call to action” for its members: occupy women’s bathrooms.

While these acts are meant to illustrate the danger of “men in women’s restrooms”, they prove the exact opposite: it’s the will of the privileged and the powerful that remains a grave threat to trans Americans. Many cisgender people are so uncomfortable with the idea of trans bodies that they would rather spread widely debunked myths about pernicious “bathroom predators” than accept the basic human rights of transgender people. The problem isn’t trans folks; it’s everyone else.

Last year, the opposition to Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance (Hero), which would have prohibited discrimination in the city’s public accommodations, successfully leveraged the false notion that if allowed to use women’s bathrooms, trans people would prey on young girls. A local advertisement showed a small child helpless as she’s trapped in a stall with no one to call for help. The ad was extraordinarily effective at stirring up anti-trans sentiment: Houstoners voted down Hero by a 62 to 37 margin.

But whether it’s in a rest stop bathroom or a high school locker room, trans folks pose no harm. To date, there’s never been a single reported case of a transgender person ever attacking someone else in a public restroom. In addition, a June 2015 study from Media Matters found that – in the 17 US school districts that offer protections to trans students – not a single one has had an issue with safety.

In contrast, it’s transgender people who are most likely to be the victims of violence and harassment when trying to use the bathroom face. According to UCLA’s Williams Institute, 70% of trans folks reported negative experiences when using public facilities.

Despite this fact, outlets such as Fox News have a history of reporting fabricated accounts of trans bathroom incidents. In 2015, Fox claimed that a concerned mother was booted from a department store simply for complaining about a “man” harassing her daughter in the restroom. Two years prior, the conservative network warned that students’ “privacy rights [were being] threatened” by trans accommodations. Fox News reported that a transgender classmate was “harassing female students in the girls room” at Colorado’s Florence High School. The story turned out to be false.

It’s the safety of trans students, as well as transgender people everywhere, that we should be gravely concerned about, not the reverse. Last year, a record number of trans Americans were murdered. That reality will not change as long as we continue to believe that the unfounded feelings and fears of cisgender people are more important than everyone’s humanity.