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Gwen Higgins of Bangor is a visual-performing artist.
There’s a mythic, violent trans woman invading girls’ bathrooms and attacking whomever they find, but this urban legend gives itself up from the jump.
“You want men in the women’s restroom? You want men to be able to spy on girls in the bathroom?”
No, I don’t. But men spying on little girls in a bathroom isn’t a trans trait; that’s a pervy man trait. That’s not stopped by barring trans women from bathrooms. You stop that by excising pervy men. You stop that by addressing misogyny.
At a recent gaming convention, a woman presenter was accosted by a man in a public space. All the safety measures – video surveillance, body guards, security checks – could not prevent this woman from being harassed. Copious money spent to keep people safe at this convention, yet she was attacked. Why? A security camera couldn’t stop that man from insisting he was owed access to her.
This is known as “security theater.” A big show is made of safety precautions, but it’s ineffective against the tangible threat.
Banning trans kids from using bathrooms, from sports’ teams or harassing them back into the closet doesn’t protect girls from predators. It’s conservative “security theater” scapegoating a convenient “other.”
Painting trans people as perpetrators of violence is a fantasy allowing people to ignore truths and sanitize bigotry.
According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, in 2024, of those sentenced for sexual abuse, 55% were white, 94% were men, and 95% were U.S. citizens. According to RAINN, 93% of victims of sexual abuse under 18 knew the perpetrator, and 85% of perpetrators are 18 or older.
Hysteria screams that the villain is a trans girl on the soccer team. Hard data knows it’s likely the adult, white man a victim already knows.
None of this data should come as a surprise. Think back on the creeps in your life – the names that pop up in whisper networks as everyone tries to keep each other safe without ruffling feathers.
A coach texting his young players late at night. A 20-something man hovering around the parking lot after school visiting with oddly young friends. A youth group leader dating girls fresh out from under his tutelage.
A mugshot of the man caught threatening to kill the family of a teen who rejected his advances. An ex-boyfriend sharing intimate photos of a woman on 4Chan.
The man who killed his wife when she tried to leave. A student shooting 20 people and posting his manifesto bemoaning how terrible it is women won’t have sex with him.
These are the predators that come to mind for me when I think about who is a threat to women and young girls. And they will still be a threat no matter how much time, money, and effort are put toward harassment campaigns against trans people.
Seeing movements like Protect Girls Sports, I find myself wondering if Maine Girl Dads address the predators in their lives? Teach their sons about consent? Unlearned misogyny? Ensure wives and mothers of their children feel empowered? Intervene when a friend is making a woman uncomfortable? View girls as equally capable of leading? Support boys who go against gender norms in the way they behave or dress? Decry laws targeting women in ways no law would ever dare go after men?
Do they even view misogyny as a problem worth addressing?
Are these men fighting for the safety of their daughters from a place of seeing them as people they respect who deserve equity? Or is the fight coming from the instinct to defend the sanctity of someone they view as property?
I believe the desire to “protect” girls from trans people is just another layer of the same dark mindset that endangers them. The people really out here protecting girls know safety for any of us requires safety for all of us, cis and trans women alike.