Trans bathroom bans are morally dangerous
Banning trans people from bathrooms is both politically dangerous and philosophically foolish. In regions where bathroom bans have been introduced far more cisgender people have been impacted and the rules have been practically unenforceable because unless you have genital inspectors you are relying on prejudice and fear to enforce. Cisgender gender non-conforming people have been hauled out of women’s restrooms because someone took offence at their presence, causing immense harm to that person’s well-being, all in the name of catching those pesky transes out. Bathroom bans are not about trans folk, they are about policing women’s gender expression and conformity to a narrow understanding of what a woman ought to be. If this were not the case then you would see just as strict policing of men’s toilets.
Philosophically it is dangerous for the following reasons. Firstly, unless you want to police identity similar to the Taliban or Iran you are relying on citizens reporting Stasi-like trans people to a hotline. This opens the toilet policing to malicious calls, mistaken identity, and bad faith actors hunting trans folk for whatever bounty is offered. You run into the snake problem, whereby you offer a bounty on snakes and suddenly every person and their dog is hunting snakes till they become extinct, at which point they start importing snakes from overseas just to get the…
