Dear Future President,

The Bathroom Bill, or The Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, in North Carolina has sparked a lot of debate in 2016. This act prohibits transgender men and women from using the restroom aligned with their gender identity. The act also eliminates anti-discrimination protection of the LGBTQ+ community. The Bathroom Bill displays hate towards the transgender community but covers it up by claiming it is to prevent sexual predators. During your presidency I would like to see a change in this bill so the transgender community can feel more safe when using the restroom.

In an interview with Los Angeles Times a transgender teen, Payton McGarry who identifies as a male, claims going into the public bathroom makes him nervous now and that he is worried he will be confronted or even attacked. “‘I really try not to go to the bathroom at all,’ McGarry said. ‘When I was still in school for the semester, I literally had to walk two buildings down to legally use the restroom, and that’s the kind of situation transgender people are being put in all over the place now.’” In this article, the journalist Matt Pearce interviews many members of the transgender community and writes about their feeling towards how unsafe they feel using public bathrooms since the Bathroom Bill.

Although many may argue that this bill helps protects women from sexual predators in public bathrooms, that still does not excuse the hate towards transgenders that was created by this bill. There is also no evidence shown that this bill has made any sort of difference in protecting privacy and preventing assaults on women in public restrooms.

A Huffington Post article talks about a video, made by architect in New York created a simple floor plan where restrooms were not labeled by gender but by bathrooms size. The size would vary depending on what the bathroom consists of. Although many people would not be comfortable at first sharing a bathroom with the same sex, this is something that could be useful in a society so diverse as ours. Will you take this suggestion into consideration? It all up to you.

-Emily