When I heard Ted Cruz was evoking the image of solitary five year old in a public restroom I was flabbergasted. Does he really let a five year daughter old go into a public rest room alone? Fathers, both single fathers and fathers on father-daughter excursions, have to take their young children with them to the rest room just like moms do, don’t they?
The image was concocted to counter objections to a law in North Carolinaspecifying how to choose your bathroom.
Maybe it’s just my “New York Values” causing alarm. Before I first moved east I was warned as a college age woman NEVER to use a public rest room in New York City. I believed my expatriate NYC friends. Even New York administrators reflect those ex-New-Yorkers-moved-west values becausemany public restrooms are closed. If they are replaced it will be with individual units that don’t have to be labeled by sex.
Sadly, the most dangerous rooms east or west turn out to be the ones in your home, your friends’ homes and places you gather with what you believe are your friends. That is because most sexual abuse occurs from men that the victims — and often the victim’s families — know. These are mostly men that misuse their authority and/or strength with the children, women, or lower status males in their lives.
If we are at all honest the idea of breaking down public restrooms and showers by gender was never safe. In public, there was always the potential for same sex attack and adult attack of minors, even as far back in the time as the Roman Empire. C. S Lewis discusses it frankly when describing the boys’ schools he was sent to. In Surprised by Joy, he claimed sexual attack was common and unavoidable. That was in the early 1900’s, before you could legitimately blame secularism or individualism.
Science studies indicate our brains just don’t think rationally sometimes inassessing risk. Christians describe the cause of this as the noetic effects of the fall.
Perhaps there is a useful way to think about the issue of bathroom access, using Roger Williams’s thought process. If we use the Roger Williams’s analogy we are all on a ship. We have a right to our different consciences, values, morals, religions but there are certain activities — like not molesting each other — prohibited or required in order to keep the civil peace. When considering legislation we should ask, where has civil peace been at risk? We should gather some facts, about when and how has it most been at risk. Then we can work to reduce the risk.
If we accept the real issue is fear of molestation, and look at the actual crime statistics on that molestation, I contend we will end up closer to whereFrank Bruni and Donald Trump come out on the issue as compared to Ted Cruz and the current North Carolina position. Possibly we want to create new spaces with better privacy and protection. For sure we want to accompany our children in higher risk settings.
Another approach for Christians to look at is what Jesus did when a woman was accused of sexual sin. He pointed out we’re all guilty given his high standards, and asked if anyone cared to throw the first stone. None dared. Transgender people are our neighbors. Some have mocked them, however unfortunately, as if they were somehow someone’s enemy. Jesus said our job is to love our neighbors, even if they are our enemies, to love them as we love ourselves. I don’t know about you, but when I have to go, I don’t want to be hassled to show my birth certificate, I don’t want to discuss which door to choose. If people are choosing to go about their business peacefully, let them be.
Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
