It’s only the first day of February, and already we’re up to six anti-trans bathroom bills circulating in the state legislature. The most recent anti-trans bill hearing, on SB 6548, took place this afternoon.
SB 6548 would amend state civil rights law so that any “public or private entity” could block transgender people from using sex-segregated bathrooms consistent with their identities. It would also strip away protections from trans people who seek to use a sex-segregated bathroom. And like the hearing on SB 6443 that came before it, the bullshit discourse around SB 6548 dealt with sexual assault and the rights of transgender people.
Danni Askini, the executive director of the Gender Justice League, already did a thorough and heartbreaking job of explaining why the discourse around anti-trans bathroom bills bolsters anti-trans violence and discrimination. Transgender people face astronomically high rates of assault, sexual assault included. According to the US Department of Justice, more than 50 percent of transgender people experience sexual violence in their lifetimes. That’s at least six percentage points higher than the population of cisgender women who experience sexual violence in their lifetimes.
Those fears for protection of trans people were reflected in today’s hearing, often from parents of trans kids. One parent of a transgender son told the Senate Law and Justice Committee that her son has a full beard and a booming voice. If forced to use the women’s bathroom, she said she’d be afraid to receive the call that many parents of trans kids fear—the call that “he’ll never be coming back.” Of all LGBTQ hate crimes, 17 percent of those hate crimes are directed at transgender people.
“This bill opens up my child to being inspected by strangers who feel uncomfortable with her.” #SafetyForAll
— Danni Askini (@danniaskini) February 1, 2016
But that didn’t stop supporters of the bill from suggesting that people might attack cisgender women or children under the guise of being transgender. One teenage girl testified that she would fear for her safety, having to use sex-segregated locker rooms.
“Transgender people need to be protected, but so do I,” she said. “What will you do to protect me?” Another teen said that while she’s not afraid of “sincerely transgender people”—eliciting the image of a predator sneaking into a locker room while pretending to be trans—she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of sharing a changing room with transgender people.
Children should not be used to fear monger or appeal to removing civil rights. This is so odious. #SafetyForAll
— Danni Askini (@danniaskini) February 1, 2016
Jim Ritter, a 36-year veteran with the Seattle Police Department, testified that he had never “heard about, read about, or responded to any calls about a trans person assaulting someone in a sex-segregated restroom.” Ritter also testified that trans people are instead commonly victims of sexual assault, and that fear of harassment and assault is rife within the trans community. On behalf of Mayor Ed Murray and the city of Seattle, Ritter said he wouldn’t support the bill.
Still, it’s unlikely that anyone will go out of their way to inform the teens who testified in support of the bill that the people who commit sexual assault are overwhelmingly known to their victims. The Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that six out of 10 rape or sexual assault victims called their attackers an intimate partner, family member, friend, or acquaintance. For cisgender women in college, one study showed that nine out of 10 sexual assault victims knew their perpetrators. It’s sad that the teenage girls who testified today are being taught to fear a community that suffers from some of the highest rates of sexual victimization in the country, while implicitly being taught to ignore the much larger threat of people they may already know.
More in NEWS
Local (and not-so-local) news from your favorite writers.
