so on july 9th 2016 Massachusetts
passes a transgender rights bill that
has now become law and so this law
allows transgender people to use public
restrooms and locker rooms that are
consistent with their gender identity
versus their sex that's identified on
their birth certificate
now look there's a lot of pushback on
this some of it if not all of it is
happening on a conservative side but the
main argument is that against is that
this is a public safety issue that we
have these quote men that are going into
these women's bathrooms and that so
we're increasing the probability that
children will be molested on it were
increasing the probability of
the sexual assault of women now look I'm
not going to say anything about this
being right or wrong but what I can say
that as a sociologist are part of the
problem is that of our gender schema and
how in the United States we have a
gender schema that only gives us really
two options on our gender
and then also then rigidly connects
those genders to male and female bodies
now look one of the ways that we can add
and that this fight that we're having is
actually stopping us from seeing a
rather simple solution to this and that
is to have increase more single-user
bathrooms are not only would this help
with transgender issues but it would
also be an equity move for a lot of
women of who stand at times impossibly
long lines in order to use the bathrooms
especially like sporting events or
nightclubs while men a lot of times we
don't even have to stand in line at all
of these same spaces and so if our
society continues to move towards the
gender identity has more fluid we surely
can expect to see are more
accommodations and more exploration of
how this would work better in our
society
