When Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz came to Monroeville last month, Janie Dee wasn’t exactly surprised when the Texas senator compared transgender people in women’s restrooms to “adult grown men, strangers, [being] allowed in the bathroom with little girls.”
“We’re always thrown into the front lines of history, and we’ve always finished last,” said Ms. Dee, a transgender Brackenridge resident with a long history of political activism.
For transgender people, whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth, using public restrooms has never been easy.
“I’ve heard of transgender people who won’t eat or drink before leaving the house because they’re afraid” to do so, said Ted Martin, executive director of LGBT advocacy group Equality PA.
Such private decisions have become a national political issue thanks largely to a North Carolina law, House Bill 2, that bans people from using restrooms that don’t match their biological sex. Backing that law didn’t save Mr. Cruz’s campaign, but similar fears are being deployed in an attack on Pennsylvania Senate Bill 974 and House Bill 1510, which contain protections long sought by LGBT advocates.
Both measures would expand Pennsylvania’s anti-discrimination law, protecting gays and lesbians from being fired or denied housing, say, because of their orientation. They also ensure people can’t be denied access to public accommodations, including restrooms, based on the gender they identify as.
That has prompted Harrisburg’s Pennsylvania Family Institute to refer to the measures as “bathroom bills.” And with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a similarly conservative legal advocacy group, the institute has launched “Defend My Privacy,” a coalition that has made billboard and online campaign claims that the laws “make sex-specific bathrooms illegal.”
State Sen. Wayne Fontana, a Brookline Democrat who co-sponsored SB 974, said he has received “dozens” of e-mails because of that effort. “They talk about how it’s appalling that somebody would use a bathroom they would be using,” he said
“Since they lost the gay marriage debate, it’s like they are saying, ‘We can’t demonize gays anymore, so let’s go after these other people,’” said Jesse Rise, a transgender Swissvale resident.
A Defend My Privacy spokeswoman, however, said the group was not concerned with transgender people per se, but with “the child predators and sex offenders who will take advantage of this policy.”
“This is not about the definition of marriage; it’s about our safe space,” said the spokeswoman, who asked to be identified only as “Carla” because of threats she claimed to have received. She said that if the legislation passed, no one could challenge or remove a male in a women’s restroom, leaving women vulnerable to assault.
“We certainly don’t think [such assaults] are going to decrease because of this bill, and we don’t want to see sexual assaults on the rise,” she added. “If we can keep one child from being molested in a locker room, it’s worth the battle.”
“More than 90 percent of children are sexually assaulted by someone they know,” countered Kristen Houser, a spokeswoman from the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. Most such assaults go unreported, she said, which is one reason “you’re already peeing in a room with sex offenders.”
And as far as restrooms go, she added, “I haven’t seen any shift in assaults where [anti-discrimination] laws have happened.”
There’s no evidence of an increase in Pittsburgh, which in 2014 clarified protections including gender identity that were covered, but not clearly specified, in an earlier version of law.
“There’s been absolutely no pushback whatsoever,” said City Council President Bruce Kraus. The mayor’s office and the city’s public safety bureau said they had no knowledge of assaults or complaints associated with bathroom access.
Meanwhile, “I don’t think people on the other side realize the stakes for transgender people,” said Alec (pronounced “Alice”) Donaldson, who identifies herself as gender-fluid, meaning her identification is subject to change. “It’s not 90 seconds of discomfort for us.”
Studies suggest that transgender people face at least a 50-50 chance of being sexually assaulted. The risk is even higher for young people or minorities. And although it’s difficult to quantify the danger in restrooms, partly because of a reluctance to report assaults, they seem more dangerous for transgender people than anyone else. In a 2013 study by the UCLA School of Law’s Jody L. Herman, for example, 9 percent of transgender people reported at least one restroom altercation, ranging from a slap to a sexual assault.
Fights over bathroom access aren’t new: Former University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown student Seamus Johnston, a transgender male, began a widely reported battle with the school in 2011, when police cited him for using a men’s room. An ensuing lawsuit was settled in March, with Pitt pledging to develop policies regarding “transgender individuals’ access to gender-specific spaces.”
Mr. Johnston said he was “pleased,” with the outcome but added, “It does hurt to see groups opposing this. It’s such a normal thing to go to the bathroom, and it makes you feel like you aren’t a citizen — or even a human being — because you have to worry about it.”
Chris Potter: cpotter@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2533.
This story has been updated to reflect the fact that Pittsburgh has had anti-discrimination legislation for public accommodations since 1997, but that the law was clarified in 2014 to spell out gender identity in 2014.
First Published: May 12, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
Updated: May 12, 2016, 4:21 a.m.
