"I want to walk through what this looks like for me. Say, one of the men here walks into the men's bathroom, and you see me walk into a stall, and you know I'm trans. And since you're all law-abiding citizens, you're going to call 911. You're going to say, 'Hello, 911? There's a trans person in the bathroom. They're peeing right now, I'm scared. Please come and arrest them.'"
"Say I happen to walk behind a woman, and her husband sees someone who looks like me following his wife into the bathroom. What do you think happens next? Maybe the cops get called. But more likely, that man is going to follow me into the bathroom, confront me, and even assault me."
"So every single day, when I'm out in public, I have to decide: do I feel like going to jail today, or do I feel like being attacked?"
Nixon Matthews, a trans man from Boise, testified before the Idaho legislature against House Bill 752, a proposed bathroom restriction law. He illustrated the bill's impracticality by describing scenarios he would face if the law passed. Using the men's restroom could result in police arrest, while using the women's restroom could provoke physical assault from other patrons. Matthews highlighted the law's severe penalties: first offenses carry misdemeanor charges with up to one year imprisonment, while second offenses escalate to felonies with up to five years in prison. He emphasized the fundamental injustice that perpetrators of violence against him would face lighter sentences than he would for simply using a bathroom.
Read at LGBTQ Nation
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