J K Rowling, predatory men and the nuance we're all missing out

Many of JK Rowling’s recent comments about transgender people don’t sit easy with me. The mere fact that an internationally celebrated author felt compelled to question the validity of a historically oppressed community, when not doing so was always an option, is baffling enough to begin with. But one element of the 3,000-plus-word open letter Rowling published on Wednesday has stood out for me as especially misguided: her decision to throw the bathroom debate as the cherry on top of a deeply objectionable sundae.

I always hold my breath for a few seconds when I hear bathrooms and transgender identity being discussed in the same conversation. The bathroom conversation has always seemed unforgivably callous to me (a cisgender person trying to live her life while alienating as few oppressed people as possible). It’s a topic that often forces people to discuss profoundly private matters in public. It’s petty, too – I mean, grown-ups telling other grown-ups which bathroom they may and may not use? Really?

Most of all, the bathroom conversation is one through which all the misconceptions, all the willful misgivings, and all the discriminatory beliefs about transgender people tend to percolate.

In her letter, Rowling mentions her “concerns” around “single-sex spaces”, which rapidly translates to “bathrooms”. She links those concerns to her own experiences as a survivor of violence and sexual assault, which I’m certainly not here to dispute. Rowling then insists that she “wants trans women to be safe”, then quickly adds: “At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe.”

And here comes the heart of her argument: “When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.”

Rowling’s phrasing matters, especially considering that her line of work suggests she knows a fair amount about word choice. In my opinion, it's hard to interpret the words “any man who believes or feels he’s a woman” as anything other than a pointed reference to transgender women who – going by the rest of Rowling’s sentence – hasn't been taking hormones and/or hasn't had gender confirmation surgeries.

In other words, to me what Rowling seems to be saying here is that “opening the door” to all transgender people looking to use the bathroom they want would transport us into a chaotic new world, where predatory men would take advantage of this newfound opportunity to gain access to women’s bathrooms. This, with all due respect, is myopic in a myriad of ways, some of which I have tried to unpack here.

This imaginary world in which trans people are magically “allowed” to use their preferred bathroom without any kind of regulation? We’re already living in it! And we’re fine! Well, we’re not fine, but that has nothing to do with trans people and everything to do with systemic inequalities, the coronavirus pandemic, and the economy.

People who use the same type of rhetoric as Rowling’s tend to talk about bathrooms as though they’re highly protected places which can only be accessed through a series of controls – those same controls some people presumably want to topple to lead us straight to anarchy. Last time I checked, public bathrooms were, well, public, and no one was asked to prove their gender identity or post-op status or who knows what else in order to be granted access.

Transgender people aren’t a monolith. They don’t all have the same experiences. They don’t want the same things. They don’t have access to the same things. They are, quite simply, people. Rowling’s letter fails to reflect this.

At one point, she worries that “gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones”. In doing so, she mentions “surgery”, singular, in what appears to be a reference to what is also known as “bottom surgery”, i.e. a surgery when someone’s genitals are modified to match their gender identity.

But for many people there is no one, be-all and end-all surgery that encapsulates their full transition. Some might place more importance on hormones. Others might focus on changes they want to see reflected in their faces. Some might seek out other surgeries on other parts of their bodies. And yes, some people might be particularly focused on one specific procedure. Some people want surgeries and some people don’t. Some people want surgeries and aren’t able to access them for a variety of reasons, from lack of medical resources to lack of funding.

The point here is that talking about “surgery” as if it’s a one-size-fits-all term – let alone as a prerequisite to be granted certain rights – crucially lacks nuance, and doesn’t reflect a thorough understanding of the issue.

Back in 2016, a survey shared by Reuters found that 60 percent of trans people had avoided using public bathrooms out of fear of confrontation, citing previous occurrences of assault or harassment. The topics of bathrooms, trans identity, and sexual violence constantly get mangled in our public discourse in a way that is simply not helpful.

That’s… kind of their thing, really. In the hypothetical world described by Rowling, predatory men are eagerly waiting to be granted access to bathrooms to finally assault as many women and girls as they want. But here’s the thing: if someone’s predatory tendencies are such that they have decided to attack women and/or girls in public bathrooms, what makes us think that they’re currently being held back by some kind of rule keeping them out of the premises? This makes no sense. It also has nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with trans people or their rights.

I’m sure there are more points to be made about this, and I can only encourage you to read and listen to what trans people have had to say on the matter. In the meantime, I will say this: trans rights are human rights. Someone’s struggle doesn’t come at the expense of your own. And for heaven’s sake, let people use the bathroom in peace.