Whoa. That escalated quickly.
JMS I'm so sorry you were sexually threatened when you were young, and Danzig I'm so sorry you were molested by a relative. Abuse against kids is one of the things that makes me wish I believed in hell.
Allowing transgender men and women into the bathroom that most closely correlates with how they identify isn't going to lead to an increase in violence against children. Men (because let's be honest, most sexual predators are men) aren't going to pose as transgender to get into a bathroom to assault a child or woman; if they see a woman or child enter a bathroom alone they'll seize the opportunity because she's alone, and the fact that there's a drawing of a woman on the door isn't going to stop them. I mean, what, a man is going to walk into a woman's rest room with five or six women in there, start to assault a woman and the other women in there are just going to stand around and say, "Oh, well, this person said they were transgender so it's okay"? Come on.
Truth is, transgender men and women are far more likely to be the victims of violence that the perpetrators.
I have an acquaintance who is female-to-male transgender, and believe me, if he walked into a women's rest room the women would scream and shout at him to get out. Because he looks male. He has a full beard, for chrissakes. And people are going to say he should be using the women's room because of anatomy that no one is going to see because he's going to use a stall? Come on.
The fear-mongering that is going on about this, as this article points out, is woefully short of any images of actual transgender people.
http://www.attn.com/stories/4080/tra...bathroom-panic
Ultimately, unisex restrooms would probably be best, since there's no evidence that gendered restrooms protect women any better than unisex ones do (again, a sexual predator is not going to be deterred by a sign on the door if a woman is in there alone), but I think Bible thumpers would freak out about that, too.