Tuesday, April 26, 2016

There is No Evidence that Trans Men are Sexually Assualting Women in Bathrooms...


As stated above and in the comic, there is no evidence that Transgendered individuals are taking advantage of being able to use the same bathroom as women to sexually assault them. I find this entire movement by the religious right to be infuriating for that specific reason.

I've watched on the sidelines as this debate has been waged on Facebook. As I have noted before, I live in a conservative part of the country. I find it vexing that even faced with the fact that virtually no bathroom sexual assaults occur this way, the religious right continues to go on.

I watched from the sidelines of a debate where a woman argued that she does not believe in statistics. That the statistics don't matter and it is naive to trust people. I'd rather be naive than so arrogant as to believe my own judgement trumps empirical evidence. It isn't naive if there is no evidence to suggest this is a problem whatsoever.

People also throw out that it might not happen, but do we really want grown men peeing next to little girls? What about grown men peeing next to little boys? Little boys can also be victimized by sexual predators and I don't see anyone suggesting we should prohibit them from using the same bathroom as any adult merely because there is a possibility as sexual assault could occur.

The lack of reliance on evidence only furthers my view that this is simple prejudice. People don't want transgendered people in the restroom with them because it makes them feel uncomfortable, which for me is not a good enough excuse. I also find it interesting that back in Jim Crow days, the same arguments that African Americans could rape white women were used to justify segregation.

I read an article while conducting research for this comic which posited that this was the only way for the Christian Right to rollback the gains made by the LGBT community. They pointed out that the Christian Right was on the ropes before they made this about trans men possibly raping their women. To me this is a moral panic, a red scare, a witch hunt, and nothing more.

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