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Bathroom protests miss the facts

Current issues about transgenders’ use of public toilets point toward larger questions of bathroom ethics, says colulmnist Andrew Fiala; equality, access, justice and basic hygiene are important issues.
Current issues about transgenders’ use of public toilets point toward larger questions of bathroom ethics, says colulmnist Andrew Fiala; equality, access, justice and basic hygiene are important issues. Rick Nease Detroit Free Press file illustration

My southern Facebook friends and relatives are very emotional about transgender people and public bathrooms. They post pictures of a man dressed like no woman I’ve ever seen, implying that he is just waiting to go into the public ladies bathroom to molest our children.

But anyone who actually looked like what is portrayed in these posts would be arrested for indecent exposure long before he made it to the bathroom.

Facts are pedophiles look just like everyone else. Statistics show over 85 percent of abusers are family members or someone who has been welcomed into the child’s home. My daughter is an assistant district attorney who has prosecuted child sexual abuse cases for over five years. She has never had a case involving a transgender person.

I know someone who is transgender. She has a job, a boyfriend and loves her family. The only things she is concerned with in public bathrooms is her own privacy.

Get real y’all.

Jeanie Ohde, Fresno

This story was originally published May 3, 2016 at 1:59 PM with the headline "Bathroom protests miss the facts."

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