Thanks for your reply.

As a preliminary comment, I’d say that understandings of sex and gender have changed a lot over the millennia, and they vary widely between cultures. Some cultures have more or less rigid gender segregation between men and women, or different expectations about marriage and children, and some have recognized more than two genders. Also, to the extent that prescriptions of sex hormones and genital surgeries are 20th-century developments, they are relatively new in human history, but on the other hand, it’s been at least a half-century in which the “honest discussion” of their meaning could have been occurring. Trans people have been articulating positions for a long time. Some cis people presume that they somehow are the default owners of the human history of gender; they pretend that a “problem” or a “debate” just appeared yesterday; they refuse to read or engage trans people’s books; and they give the impression that trans people are resisting talking about it, or are too ignorant to talk about gender, or are engaging in power plays (what power, I don’t know. The power of their unsold books?). Meanwhile, certain anti-transgender movements have been articulating their positions for a long time. Trans people are familiar with those arguments, as they affect our own wellbeing and so we are wise to be aware of them.

There is something confusing in the anti-transgender position that has surfaced in this discussion: First is the idea that gender itself oppresses women or is the oppression of women (someone else’s definition which you noted in your first comment); second is the idea that legal/social “protections” of women have been “built upon those notions” of gender (as you said in your last comment). Together, this seems to say that gender (as a system) is oppressive but also attempts to limit the amount of harm it does. Which is confusing. And here is how it ends up being anti-transgender: When the focus is only on cis women’s oppression and protections; when it is further alleged that trans people, just by existing, contribute to cis women’s oppression and interfere with their protections; when this is not turned around to ask how cis people contribute to trans people's oppression (e.g., cis men also sometimes assault trans women); when trans people's daily lived experiences are just not considered at all (e.g. the fact that a trans person might negotiate their bathroom choice in part based on their own safety, to attract as little notice as possible, which might have to do with whether they believe they appear more "like a woman" or "like a man" in that moment or it might have to do with whatever bathroom is currently empty); and this occurs to the extent that trans people are essentially told they aren't qualified to use a toilet and are better off going home. If it is implied that a certain class of person isn't qualified to use a toilet or to be around the majority of other people, that type of person may find it more difficult to (for example) be hired for a job, because their identity/body/presentation is being delegitimized. All that is how a discourse ends up being anti-transgender. The true agenda reveals itself especially when it is twirled around in the air as a conceptual exercise and isn't anchored to any real concerns or facts.

To make a more grounded comment, then: No, I don’t believe that formally permitting trans women to use women’s bathrooms creates an extra risk that cis men predators will enter the women’s bathroom. I really, really do not believe this.

First of all: Trans people do already use the bathrooms that correspond to their gender. They were probably going to the bathroom for their entire lives anyway, with or without a policy. In addition to which, in the last few years, some schools, cities, etc. have begun to introduce trans-inclusive bathroom policies, which is nice. Crimes in bathrooms have not increased. Apparently—in case we needed proof against the ridiculous allegation—such crime does not correlate with the existence of trans people nor with the introduction of inclusive bathroom policies. In many anti-trans political campaigns, people warn that sexual assaults will increase if a new bathroom policy is not overturned, and, though the bathroom policy stays in place, the “anticipated” crime never happens, and the anti-transgender people of course never admit that they were wrong, because their argument was only ever about scaremongering anyway.

First of all, it’s important to examine what actual crimes we are talking about. Do predators ever enter women’s bathrooms? Yes, occasionally. But are those predators cis men? Also yes. Do we have examples of trans women who commit sexual assaults against cis women? Are these numbers of statistical significance? Did their crimes occur in public bathrooms? Was their crime enabled by social affirmation of their gender? …no. There is no real-life crime pattern that supports a stereotype of “trans sexual predator,” much less “committing crime in a public bathroom,” and still less “crime would have been prevented if bathroom had a cis-people-only policy.” None of that makes any sense.

Yelling at people who look butch, femme, trans, etc. is a hostile fear-based response. Someone is also acting from fear if they speak to the manager and ask for a trans person to be removed from the premises. Scapegoating a trans person does not resolve whatever the (imaginary?) problem is. So no one needs a bathroom policy explicitly excluding trans people or allowing cis people to complain about the presence of trans people.

I’m not sure I entirely understand/agree with your framing of the question that, if we allow people to self-declare their gender, then “there’s no way to stop” cis men from entering women’s bathrooms. The thing is, by definition, cis men do not have personal gender reasons for entering women’s bathrooms. (I’m leaving aside silly, irrelevant scenarios, e.g. broken plumbing in the men’s room. I’m also leaving aside criminal motives. I’m talking about their gender.) We don’t need to “stop” cis men from identifying and classifying themselves as women because they are not doing so in the first place. It is trans women who identify and classify themselves as women. A person is the best judge of whether they themselves are a cis man or trans woman. And if the question is, How do other people tell the difference?, the follow-up question is, Why do you need to know? If the response is: Because the person just entered the women’s bathroom, then the original question answers itself. Women are in the women’s bathroom. Is the person committing a crime? This person is almost certainly a cis man and, in any case, should be removed from the bathroom on the basis of committing a crime. Is the person behaving appropriately in the women’s bathroom? Well, then, she must be a woman, because that’s the only sensible explanation for why she’s there. Since she’s not doing anything wrong, there’s no need to bother or remove her.

Some cis women indeed distrust cis men. Some cis women may also distrust any stranger who, to them, appears somehow “masculine”: a butch haircut, bald due to cancer treatment, big bone structure, a little bit of chin hair, probably assigned male at birth, etc. This is about gender perceptions. So it’s about assumptions and stereotypes projected on people who are assumed to be trans—not about who trans women actually are. Many trans women have had genital surgery, for example; others have not. No one looks at anyone else’s genitals to verify them when they enter a bathroom. Hypothetically, if such a genital-based rule existed, people would have to self-certify (since no one checks, of course)—and it would be subject to personal interpretation, since many people’s genitals (with or without surgery) don’t fit a binary classification—at which point, you may as well just let people decide which bathroom to enter without specifying how they ought to make that decision. Which is the way it is now.

I understand that some cis women’s fear of cis men is a response to previous personal trauma, which is understandable, sad (on multiple levels) and also hard to change. Nonetheless, just because some women feel fear does not mean that we can make rules saying that all human beings (cis women, cis men, trans people, etc.) need to present their gender a certain way. The objective seems to be to make the world less confusing and feel less threatening. That goal probably isn't achievable. The world is confusing, sometimes we do feel threatened, and imposing gender norms on society at large won't help us avoid confusion/fear and is the wrong approach. The cancer patient has no hair? OK. Other women need to leave her alone. Her lack of hair is not causing a risk to other women. Similarly, a person who is “read” as trans (accurately or inaccurately, and for whatever reason) and who is not causing any disturbance ought not to be harassed and excluded. Women (cis or trans) shouldn’t need to perform their gender any particular way, nor describe their genitals, show documents, etc. to give them a right to use the same facilities that other women are using. These sorts of logical discourses do not happen in bathrooms anyway, and no one genuinely wants to have them. What more plausibly happens is that a cis person is alarmed by someone else's hair, height, etc. and they throw their beer at that person or yell for security. The beer-throwing and the yelling, rather than the target's failure to justify their hairstyle or height, is the problem.

Trans people are not causing specific, measurable, actual problems in bathrooms. Cis people are not asking trans people for any comprehensible, actionable remedy (since trans people didn't cause them any problem that needs to be remedied or could be remedied). Do they want trans people never to have to pee or change clothes or be in the same room with them? And how is that different from not wanting us to exist? Do they think we should "look like" whatever we're "supposed" to look like before using either the men's or women's room? And how is that not gender oppression?

Outside of anti-trans legislation (which is often incoherent), there is usually not a specific demand, except the demand for an honest discussion: as if we have something to account for, as if we have up to this point been dishonest and inarticulate, and as if we have brought problems on ourselves by not knowing how to use toilets. There is a particular trope that blames us for everything bad every cis man ever did in a bathroom.