Thank you also for your well reasoned response. I really appreciate the fact we are having a quality discourse here and not just calling each other names and arguing unproductively. I see your point, we don’t want cis men using self identification to take advantage of women. Personally, where I live, trans women use women’s bathrooms all the time and I’ve never had this problem of cis men sneaking into the bathroom under the guise of being trans. All the trans women I share bathrooms with are clearly women. Not to spread plug myself, but I recently wrote and article about what it’s like sharing public bathrooms, locker rooms, and other changing areas with trans women.
So I’ve never had a problem with it. In fact, historically trans women have been using the same bathrooms as cis women, it’s just now that they’re getting attention for it. However, this leads to exactly to your argument, that we are ignoring that cis men can take advantage of this. I mean it hasn’t been a problem in what I’ve seen, but that doesn’t mean the potential doesn’t lurk. So maybe this is something that should be studied and examined and solutions brainstormed. I hear what you say, maybe it’s not to be ignored.