This Isn’t a Joke: Why Transgender Bathroom Politics Aren’t Just Culture War Bait

By Killian Yates

Published: March 29, 2025, 5:00 PM PST

There’s a dangerous habit in American politics of turning real human struggles into wedge issues—into tribal cues used to win elections or distract from actual governance. Transgender bathroom access has become one of those issues. But while both sides scream past each other on TV and social media, the people caught in the middle—especially children, survivors of abuse, and the gender-diverse themselves—are the ones paying the price.

So let me be absolutely clear, without satire or sarcasm: I am not interested in performative outrage, virtue signaling, or clickbait fearmongering. I’m interested in safety, human dignity, and functional public systems.

Privacy and Safety Aren’t Partisan

The first principle is simple: every person, regardless of gender identity, deserves access to a clean, safe, and private restroom. But “private” means private. I don’t want my niece feeling uncomfortable in a locker room, and I don’t want a trans kid feeling like a criminal for having to pee. We can protect privacy and dignity for everyone without treating people like threats just because we don’t understand them.

Too many of the people arguing against transgender bathroom access have never stopped to consider the consequences of their rhetoric. When you reduce trans people to a punchline or a predator trope, you’re not just taking a position—you’re creating an environment where harassment, exclusion, and suicide are more likely. That’s not conservatism. That’s cruelty pretending to be concern.

The Solution Is Infrastructure, Not Ideology

Here’s where I depart from both extremes. I don’t believe the solution is to pretend sex doesn’t exist or that all fears are just bigotry. But I also don’t believe that a birth certificate should be a bathroom pass or that we should post security guards outside of stalls. That’s absurd, ineffective, and fundamentally un-American.

We need a systems-based solution, not a culture war sideshow. That means investing in more individual stalls and family restrooms—not trying to legislate people out of existence. Give people options that don’t put them in impossible situations. Let parents and survivors and gender-diverse folks have the space they need. Period.

This isn’t hard. We already have the blueprint: privacy-forward bathroom designs that don’t force confrontation or politicize nature’s call. What we lack isn’t a policy—it’s the will to prioritize sanity over sensationalism.

Children Are Watching Us—And So Is History

I’m not here to coddle bad faith actors who twist this issue into something it’s not. But I’m also not here to weaponize shame against people who have legitimate questions or fears. I’ve spent thousands of hours with vulnerable people in disaster zones, and I’ve seen what dignity and privacy mean when everything else is falling apart.

We can create spaces that reflect our shared humanity instead of our divided politics. And if we can’t even get bathrooms right, what makes us think we’re ready to fix housing, mental health, or the justice system?

This isn’t a joke. And if we keep treating it like one, we’re going to lose more than a culture war—we’ll lose our soul as a nation.