Here are my thoughts regarding all the meme’s showing up with wording that states ” Porta-potties are gender-neutral” and  “what’s the problem with allowing biological men (who identify as women) into women’s restrooms?”  There are also comments about living in a home with a gender-neutral bathrooms all your life and it never hurt you.

Well that is very true and I have no problem with porta-potties or private gender neutral restrooms. We have 5 private gender neutral restrooms at our office and the department store in the next town over has only one restroom for both men and women. I have used it many times, after men and before men, no problem

However, there are deeper issues, and unintended and under-recognized victims of this issue — they are women of sexual abuse.

Opening up locker rooms, changing rooms and less than private multi-stalled restrooms to a transgender man or any man who claims that he relates as transgender person, causes an extreme emotional burden on these women.

It is only recently (within the past 10 or 15 years) women have started to come out and talk about the sexual abuse they experienced at the hands of men. Many experienced these acts when they were children. They felt helpless, without a voice and in an age where children were to be seen and not heard, they were silenced. For these women there are many triggers that set them into an emotional tailspin.

I know because I am a sexual abuse survivor. I was nearly 50 years old before I told anyone. It is an emotional burden I do not want to carry and I cannot control the things that trigger me into these emotional spirals. The anxiety it can bring is almost paralyzing.

In an effort to be compassionate to the transgender community, do not forget these women who have just recently found their voice.

There has to be medium ground somewhere and I think unfettered access to women’s locker rooms and public bathrooms that do not offer completely private stalls (all the way to the floor and ceiling) is not the answer.

Without these considerations we are again being told we should be unseen, unheard and unrecognized.