Shawn Vestal: Let’s flush panic out of restroom discussion

Maybe you didn’t know, but there is a group of people allowed in public restrooms who are putting women and children at risk.

These people, for the most part, are law-abiding, decent, respectful folks. We should not demonize or taint all of them with the misdeeds of a few. But a few members of this group pose such a threat to children that prudence and common sense dictate we should not allow them into public restrooms.

I’m talking about priests.

Nothing against priests! Priests are generally pretty great! But we need to protect children, and while most priests do not abuse children, some priests have – you can Google it – and so an abundance of caution and common sense would lead us to conclude that neither priests nor people pretending to be priests should be allowed into public restrooms.

Does that make sense to you? If so, I have more troubling news. There is another group of potentially dangerous people being allowed into public restrooms: friends and family.

Nothing against friends and family! Friends and family are generally pretty great! But some friends and family are abusers and rapists – it is a fact that the most abusers and rapists are known to their victims – and so it follows that they should be prevented from entering public restrooms. What if someone pretends to be a friend – what if they groom kids and families, the way some abusers do – just so they can get into the restroom with kids?

We have to be realistic. To use common sense. Because there’s another group that is being allowed, dangerously, into public restrooms: Parents.

Nothing against parents! I am one! Most of us are decent, law-abiding folk. Most of us are not molesters, but some parents have done despicable things to children. Out of an abundance of caution and common sense, parents should not be allowed around kids. Or women.

If you are wondering about the common sense of this common sense, listen to the example that a police detective offered to Washington lawmakers last week, while testifying in favor of a proposal intended to keep the state’s public restrooms safe from molesters.

“I once investigated a case where a father molested and raped his 8-year-old stepdaughter for four years before his wife discovered them in the act. She did nothing and the abuse continued for four more years,” the officer, Michael Gordon, testified. “It’s our responsibility to protect our women and children.”

Gordon was testifying against a state rule that allows transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice. The fact that his truly horrifying example did not involve a transgender person or a public restroom seemed not to occur to him. But when the protection instinct kicks in, and we think we have identified the threat, we don’t always think straight.

The restroom policy was recently drafted by the state Human Rights Commission as part of rule-making under the state’s anti-discrimination law; this rule is one specific way that the commission outlined to carry out the law’s intent. It allows transgender people to use the restroom that matches their chosen gender identity. Many opponents say this opens the door to predators to pretend to be transgender, and they have criticized this process as anti-democratic and called for a fuller debate.

A fuller debate might be warranted. But there is something less like a debate and more like a panic going on around the restroom issue – a shocked sense of demanding to know just what this world is coming to. At a Senate committee meeting earlier this month, opponents repeatedly expressed concern that the rule allows predators to use public restrooms and locker rooms as a “feeding ground,” and force the “co-mingling of the sexual genitalia” in school locker rooms. A gym owner predicted he’d have to close his doors and lay off 55 workers. Another opponent testified of a concern about “girls all over being stripped of their innocence.”

Among those opposing this rule were victims of sexual assault who spoke movingly about their fear and anxiety. Among those supporting the rule were trans people who spoke movingly about their own fear and anxiety of being victimized and abused. It is worth noting that trans people are among the most abused and misunderstood people anywhere, and their safety in public places is not always secure.

Many states and cities have laws that allow similar restroom access for trans people, and officials in those places say it has not produced an increase in sexual assaults. Critics of the policy cite a handful of cases around the country when abusers dressed as women and assaulted women – the same three cases repeatedly. You can also find reports of trans people being raped and assaulted in restrooms, as well as reports of children assaulting other children in restrooms, as well as reports of professional hockey players assaulting women in restrooms …

The issue is not easy, though critics want it to be. Asked by a lawmaker how he would handle it, Gordon said, “In my opinion, it’s as simple as which equipment you have.”

It isn’t that simple for trans people, not even close, and no amount of wishing will make it so, just as no amount of “common sense” gives you the magical ability to draw the right lines around groups of people and separate the safe from the dangerous. If we want to keep people safe from abusers, we have to be alert to circumstances, to the moment at hand, and especially to the specific people around us, whether we’re in our homes or at church or going to the restroom.

In the vast majority of sexual assault cases, abusers know their victims. Our associations and affiliations and stereotypes do not allow us to predict who is safe and who is dangerous; they often blind us to it.

We cannot simply point at those people over there – those other people, those weirdos, that group – and pretend we have protected children.

Otherwise, we’d have to start pointing at everyone.

Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@spokesman.com.