> Do they use the bathroom that matches their gender identity and run risk of criminal punishment? Do they use the bathroom that matches their birth sex but the look completely out of place and make it likely that they will be harassed or have the cops called on them?
Thanks for writing up this answer. I suspect the commenter you are replying to has never even stopped to consider the experience of a real person and what it would be like.
The entire situation is just so asinine. In addition to the clear pain and suffering this causes trans people, it also hurts cis people and doesn't even achieve the stated goal of making cis women feel safe in the bathroom (not that it would justify the bigoted policies, even if it did).
There are plenty of butch cis women who now get harassed in the bathroom for "looking like a man" because these policies have opened up the floodgates for bigots to transvestigate everybody they come across. And if everybody follows the law as written then there will be people using the women's restroom who are indistinguishable from cis men unless you inspect documentation (which nobody is obliged to carry in public) or inspect genitals.
The true outcome (and I believe the true goal, though not typically stated out loud) is that trans people (and people who don't fit rigid and traditional gender presentations) are simply not able to be in public safely.
The regression we've seen in legal rights has been so swift. In 2016 North Carolina tried to pass one of these bills and major organizations like the NCAA and Paypal took serious economic action in order to get it reversed. It felt like a society-wide rejection where it wasn't just left leaning activists pushing back but major organizations without a typical political agenda too.
In the past four years we've seen 13 states pass bathroom bills and more than half the states pass gender affirming care bans for minors largely without a peep from corporations.
Thanks for writing up this answer. I suspect the commenter you are replying to has never even stopped to consider the experience of a real person and what it would be like.