Growing up, the idea of a peeping tom was often played for laughs in popular media. I think back on movies like Porky's, Revenge of the Nerds, and even Back to the Future where spying on women changing was depicted as funny rather than creepy. It even made its way into video games. The original Japanese release of Breath of Fire 4 had a scene in which the hero character stumbles upon two women bathing in a hot spring and, rather than leave them be, tries to get a look. The length of the examples lists on TV Tropes for The Peeping Tom and its sister trope, Outdoor Bath Peeping (There are enough to split the trope between two pages!) are alarming.
And it isn't even depicted as being particularly sexual. The men involved aren't having a wank to the nonconsensual peep show. They're just doing it because they can. It's almost played for a sport. Men are constantly trying to look at boobs while women are trying to stop them. Every time a man succeeds in looking at boobs, he scores a point for their side. The guy who looks at boobs the most is the MVP. And women's bodies aren't even the prize. Often it is the adulation of other men that is the prize. Women's bodies are just the goal post. A literal object against which to assert their manhood.
And if that's the message being sent to boys and young men, what must the message be for girls and young women? That you aren't safe. Even in ostensibly safe places like locker rooms, bathrooms, and even your bedroom; you are never really safe. The message is that you should be scared of men trying to look at your boobs because it's a gross invasion of your privacy but we don't think that matters. And, frankly, real life reinforces that fear.
And a simple penis/vagina gender binary feels like the only thing giving you even a modicum of safety. Women-only toilets, locker rooms, and gyms give you a space where you can be reasonably safe from men who have been taught that your body is a goal to be scored, that you are mere ambulatory breasts to be leered at, that you are a pussy to be grabbed. If we muddy the waters about who is and is not allowed in these places, what becomes of the only public places where you're not looking over your shoulder constantly?
So I get it. I hear you. That shit would probably scare the hell out of me, too. But the cost of that presumption of safety is throwing trans people under the bus. And that is not OK.
A big part of why that isn't ok is because banning trans people from those spaces isn't actually making you any safer. I won't fear monger about the lesbians who are already allowed in those spaces because we all know that lesbians are not, by and large, the people making you feel unsafe. Lesbians aren't the ones raised to believe that your bodily autonomy is less important that their fun. That falls entirely on men.
But there are already trans women in your bathrooms. Trans women who pass well enough that you never realize that they're there. But laws prohibiting trans bathroom access wouldn't stop them from coming in. Not unless you stop every woman going to the bathroom to scrutinize her womanhood; to demand her identification or have a peek under her skirt. Not unless you mean to subject every woman going to the bathroom to the same scrutiny of her body that you mean to protect her from.
There are trans men who would be legally required to use the women's bathroom. Men who look far more masculine than half the flabby dad-bods using the men's room. They would have to share your gendered spaces. That won't make you feel safe. It sure as shit won't make them feel safe.
Worse yet, if we don't subject women to humiliating scrutiny of their bodies, then I could walk into any women's bathroom, beard and balls and all, and claim to be a trans man who is obligated to use that bathroom. I could claim to be a cis woman with a hormone disorder that makes me hairy. Short of having a look under the belt, you wouldn't be able to enforce the laws keeping me out. The very idea of trans people's existence makes those laws unenforceable. The trans genie is out of the bottle. We can't put it back in.
I promise you, trans women are at least as afraid of the men's room as you are. Their penis (assuming they still have one) won't protect them from violence. Men aren't going to say "Oh! You're trans? Well I guess we'll just leave you alone, then." They just want to pee without being afraid that someone is going to hurt them. Just like you.
And it doesn't stop at bathroom access. Trans women may not be able to become pregnant, but the right to control their own bodies is very much central to trans rights. Trans men who can become pregnant aren't trying to take away your ability to organize as women, they just want a place at the table next to you.
I've taken care to not call you TERFs, not because I don't think the term is accurate or important or because I think it's a slur; it is important and it isn't a slur. It is a recognition of the fact that your feminism is excluding trans people and that exclusion is hurting them. Transphobia kills. Excluding people from the fight for equality leaves them vulnerable. And it is no fluke or accident that every one of the trans women in that list is black. Intersectionality has to include all axes of oppression. TERF and SWERF are words to highlight how your actions are leaving vulnerable people behind.
I've chosen not to call you TERFs here because I know that you do think it's a slur and I don't want you to stop reading because you think I hate you. I want you to listen. I choose to believe that there are at least some of you who don't hate trans people, who do accept trans people as the gender they tell you they are, but who have accepted transhopic rhetoric because you are afraid. And you do have reasons to be afraid. But excluding trans people isn't going to keep you safe. It's only going to get them killed.
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