This Fu@#ing Guy

[Content Note: Trans* hatred; gender policing; bathroom panic; rape culture.]

Another Republican lawmaker has introduced yet another shitty transphobic bill, based on bullshit narratives about trans* predators:

Florida state Rep. Frank Artiles is not worried a bill he introduced last week will create problems for transgender people, he told BuzzFeed News, because using the restroom is a choice.

The Miami Republican's bill would restrict single-sex public facilities — including restrooms in restaurants, theaters, workplaces, and schools — to people of the corresponding "biological sex, either male or female, at birth." Violators would be guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail.

Asked if such a rule would create problems for transgender women required to use the men's room, Artiles told BuzzFeed News, "People are not forced to go the restroom. They choose to go to the restroom."

For someone who purports to be an expert on biology, he sure is confused about the human waste disposal system.

Naturally, Artiles has given this a lot of thought, and thus has super-smart (super-terrible) things to say about people's "plumbing" how "anatomy is going to dictate where they go to the bathroom." Because genitals define gender, and intersex people don't exist. And he gets an A+ for being able to regurgitate nasty stereotypes about trans* women being sexual predators:

Artiles countered his wish is "not to attack transgender people or make their lives difficult." However, he said several times, the bill was a direct response to local laws in Florida that ban discrimination against transgender people. Specifically, he said, a law passed in December in Miami-Dade County, which encompasses Artiles' district, "gives the cover of law for people who use this as a loophole for voyeurism and other criminal activity. While I understand the good intention, it is overly broad."

"You have sexual predators — you have people who are going to use these local ordinances as cover," said Artiles. "I want uniformity across the board, and not laws subjective to the way people feel."

The bathroom panic meme is comprehensive garbage. I cannot state that more emphatically. It is hateful, mendacious trash.

And, like every other conservative legislator peddling this reprehensible codswallop, Artiles does not have a legislative record that indicates he has any meaningful interest in sexual assault prevention, but suddenly cares deeply about it when it comes to justifying discrimination against trans* people. He can't provide a single example of a sexual predator exploiting inclusive bathroom ordinances, but he's sure this is a much bigger problem than, say, cis men raping women. Including trans* women.

Like, for example, trans* women who are forced to use men's bathrooms. Artiles purports to be concerned about preventing violence, but he is eminently willing to send trans* people into situations where they are at greater risk for violence.

Every single one of Artiles' attempts to rationalize this bill is pathetic. He claims to "want uniformity" in who is using which bathroom, but naturally "people who identify as women use the women's restroom and people who identity as men use the men's restroom" isn't sufficient "uniformity" to satisfy him.

"While I understand there are transgender people who want to use bathrooms however they want to feel, that is irrelevant to me," Artiles explained.

While I understand that there are cis people who want to legislate which bathrooms trans* people can safely and legally use because of how they feel about trans* people, that is irrelevant to me.

"I have read the blogs that say I am against transgender people, but I am not at all," Artiles said. Asked if he believes a transgender woman is a woman, Artiles said, "I am not going to get into that. I have not spent much time thinking about that."

If there is a more perfect quote illustrating the arrogance of privilege, I haven't seen it.

This cis man has written legislation banning women from women's bathrooms, but hasn't spent much time thinking about that fact.

Which is to say nothing of the fact that it doesn't fucking matter if Artiles "believes a transgender woman is a woman." Cis people auditing trans* people's gender, and believing they have the right to deny trans* people authority on their own selves, is what underwrites this sort of bigoted legislation in the first place.

Rage. Seethe. Boil.

I am a cis woman, and a survivor of sexual violence. I am exactly the type of person that Artiles and all his contemptible colleagues invoke as needing protection from trans* predators. AND I WANT THEM TO STOP. I don't need their protection. They do not have my permission to pretend that they're "saving" me by endangering trans* people.

Do not use me as your justification for transphobic hatred.

I am not in danger from sharing a bathroom with trans* women. But trans* women could very well be in danger from not being allowed to share a bathroom with me.