My thoughts is that it’s a simple situation really. If they’re harassing or assaulting people, the women will call the cops or something, simple situation and get the guy arrested. If he’s not doing anything, it’s nothing harmful. Apparently that’s not a solid enough answer. What should I have said?
I don’t think that’s true. I think there’s a lot of women who don’t feel comfortable/safe in a vulnerable space with men around. And even though one mightn’t actually undress outside the individual toilet cubicles, it’s still - to many - that kind of space.
I think it’s important to respect women’s (and men’s) desire for privacy - even when not all women feel the same need for privacy - through this cultural change of who uses what bathroom.
And that goes doubly when you expand beyond a particular subset of America to different cultures and people with different experiences.
I have traveled to very conservative countries and have never found the sort of puritanical hand wringing that comes from a certain subset of Americans.
I say this as an American expat who has lived everywhere from Hawaii to the bible belt, to New York.
Can you imagine the pain and anxiety you would cause a biological woman who does not look feminine enough for your line of reasoning here?
You see her in the restroom and act like she doesn’t belong there - maybe you say something, maybe you keep your “discomfort in your vulnerable place” to yourself, but your stupid ideas about what a woman is and how one should look in order to be accepted into a bathroom are hurtful.
I was in an art class last month with a lovely young woman who has pcos. She is a Sikh woman, and therefore does not remove her facial hair.
She had a beard that would put a young man to shame, and now it occurs to me that had she been unfortunate enough to be born in America, she would have had to choose between honouring the basic tenets of her religion, or conforming so she is not shunned - or worse, assaulted for using the womens room.
https://www.learnreligions.com/some-sikh-women-have-facial-hair-2993341
Can you really expect privacy in the communal area of a bathroom? There’s other people walking around you.