Not a Clue: Stacey Dash on Trans-Inclusive Bathroom Laws

Stacey Dash continued her transformation from 90’s teen nostalgia star to truly horrible person – I mean, “conservative political commentator” - with some predictably transphobic comments on trans-inclusive bathroom laws.  During an interview with Entertainment Tonight’s Nischelle Turner, she said that trans people should just “go in the bushes,” even though that can also get you arrested.

She went on to say, “I don’t know what to tell you.”

This is a pretty cogent summary of the reactionary response to inclusive bathroom laws and policies.  The point of the backlash isn’t to stop violence, given the threats from transphobic activists to hunt down and attack trans people trying to quietly relieve themselves and the escalating harassment of people who might seem to be trans.  Given the consistent conflation of “biological” and “legal” and “physical” definitions of sex and gender, transphobes like Dash don’t want to get rid of legal ambiguity, either.  The refusal to acknowledge transition as a process and a demographic reality indicates that they aren’t interested in providing trans people with any explicit protection under the law.

The point isn’t to get trans people to use one bathroom or another.  The point is to get them to “go in the bushes.”  The point is to get trans people to disappear.  That’s the underlying message here: Just go away.  I don’t know what to tell you.  Don’t bother me. 

Dash also asked why she should “suffer” just because trans people “can’t decide,” but this is in reference to Caitlyn Jenner, a woman who has very publicly “decided” to live the rest of her life as a woman, because she identifies as a woman, because she is a woman.  There’s no ambiguity in Caitlyn Jenner’s coming-out story.  Jenner describes her transition as permanent and necessary and frames her gender in binary terms.  There’s no ambiguity in her choice of bathroom, either.  The only confusion in that story belongs to Stacey Dash and the other transphobic people who insist that Caitlyn Jenner can’t exist.

The reason this fight has focused on public bathrooms is not because of any genuine threat posed by trans people – as several commentators have pointed out, trans and gender-ambiguous people have been using public facilities for quite some time.  If anyone has reason to worry about peeing safely, trans people do.  The obsession with bathrooms is a refusal to admit trans people into one of the most explicitly gendered public spaces we maintain.  This is a debate over whether we should acknowledge trans identities as valid, and treat trans people like they’re real.  “Just go in the bushes” isn’t plain meanness.  It’s a statement of intent.  I don’t know what to tell you.  I’m not going to help you.  Just get out of here. 

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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