Bathroom bills target a non-issue: Our view

ISIL is plotting, Syria is burning, North Korea is testing nukes, the globe is warming, and U.S. wages are stagnating. Yet on the campaign trail and in state legislatures, people are talking about ... bathrooms. More specifically, laws that would require transgender individuals to use the bathroom that corresponds to the gender they were born with.

To hear the supporters of such laws tell it, the nation’s restrooms are under siege. They paint dark pictures of perverts and predators out to molest children by posing as the opposite sex to gain access. As he stumps in Indiana before Tuesday's pivotal primary, Ted Cruz mongers fear about the prospect of adult male strangers alone in bathrooms with little girls.

North Carolina has already enacted a controversial bathroom law, and in Oxford, Ala., transgender people can go to jail for six months for using the restroom that matches the gender they identify with. More than 1 million people — more than some estimates of all the transgender people in America — have signed pledges to boycott Target stores since the chain announced that its transgender employees and customers were free to use whatever restroom they felt most comfortable in.

Let's take a deep breath here. Yes, the transgender-rights movement does raise some complex issues. And, yes, some of the conservative bills came after liberal city councils, such as the one in Charlotte, began writing unnecessary bathroom non-discrimination codes. But this whole debate is a solution in search of a problem.

If there’s actual evidence of a bathroom crisis out there, it’s awfully hard to find. The American Family Association’s online Target boycott page has a list of news accounts of bathroom and locker room incidents that “Target’s policy can lead to,” but none seems to involve actual transgender people.

Why you should boycott Target: Opposing view

Real sex criminals have always been a menace, bathroom laws or no. The cruelest thing the Target boycott and transgender laws do is perpetuate the myth that transgender people are predators. Evidence and experience argue the opposite.

When South Carolina was considering an anti-transgender bathroom bill in April, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott wrote to the legislature: “In the 41 years I have been in law enforcement in South Carolina, I have never heard of a transgender person attacking or otherwise bothering someone in a restroom. This is a non-issue.” In fact, there is plenty of evidence that transgender people are the ones most at risk to be mocked, assaulted and even murdered.

Critics of the bathroom laws have pointed out how hard they’d be to enforce. Would potty police check birth certificates at the door? People have taken to social media at places such as Twitter’s #wejustneedtopee to show pictures of themselves looking very much like the gender they now identify with and wondering whether lawmakers would really want them to use their former restrooms.

Besides, virtually every restroom in America (except for the often disgusting ones at service stations) is unlocked, so there's nothing to keep creeps out now. Existing laws cover whatever inappropriate behavior or crimes might occur inside.

Wisdom on this issue sometimes comes from unexpected places. Donald Trump said people should use “use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate,” and transgender icon Caitlyn Jenner took him up on it, recording herself entering the women’s restroom at the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

South Dakota seemed to be on its way to adopting a bathroom law earlier this year until Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard met with transgender activists to hear firsthand what the measure meant to them. Then he vetoed the bill, saying it “didn’t address any pressing issue,” which gets this absurd controversy exactly right.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

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