As I read the accounts of bathroom bills that try to force people to use bathrooms based on what genitals they were born with, I wonder something. I wonder if the scope of those bills won't, at some point, try to take on cisgender people who are gay or bisexual. Except I suppose such a bill would be more about prohibiting gay/bisexual people from using public restrooms. If I, as a gay male, use the men's room, they might think I'm really invading the privacy of all the straight men, even if I say I'm draining a bladder that is ready to burst. And, of course, they have long since made it clear that they expect anyone born with a penis to stay out of the women's room.
I don't think that will ever happen. Cis gay/bisexual people who visited the bathrooms have never caused problems that are related to their sexuality before (or they rarely have, I've never heard of an example), and you can't tell what someone's sexuality is from the way they look anyway so such a bill would be ridiculous. Furthermore, I think that such a bill would never be approved or even proposed because I don't think America is THAT homophobic anymore. Transphobia, though, is a problem which is more extreme worldwide than homophobia is I guess.
Excellent post, Ms. Livelove! The only thing I'd add is that it's not just America; the whole west isn't really homophobic anymore.
It wouldn't happen for the mere fact that it's completely unfeasible. How exactly would you test one's sexuality before they enter a bathroom? And would people who only consider themselves 40% gay or less count? The whole concept of "bathroom bills" is insane in the first place, but targeting cisgender homosexuals is completely impractical. Eventually we're going to have 5 different bathrooms in each public place. Either that or we could, you know, stick to the two we do have (or maybe even one) and get over it.
I think that it would be impossible to implement, since you there is no way to check another person's sexual orientation to see if they are lying about it or not (even the best lie detectors are not 100% accurate). That being said, the whole "genitalia check" idea for checking a person's biological sex is extremely disturbing. I imagine that most people would rather use the same bathroom as someone of a different biological sex than have some stranger inspecting their genitalia. Honestly, I don't think that public bathrooms should be separated at all; it just causes these kinds of issues with no practical benefits.
As much as that sounds logical- for certain sexes and sexuality- it would be impossible to implement. Like what Awesome said, having a genitalia check before you enter the bathroom would be ridiculous. Imagine you're having a busting bladder, and they need to check your gender- and pay- before entering the bath?! That's not very logical, really...
