This picture/meme came over my Facebook feed today. I’ve seen several like it recently. I don’t know if I’ve just had the right amount of beer tonight or what, but I saw that and couldn’t not say something. And before I do, I’d like to point out that I am and have always been a registered Republican. Full-on gun owner. The whole nine yards. I am also a husband and father. Less than six months ago, I was at a McDonalds with my 23-year-old daughter and saw a man—dressed as a man—follow her into the bathroom. On nothing but reflex, I was up and into the women’s restroom after him. He was in a stall peeing, door open, fully exposed. I made him incredibly uncomfortable glaring at him—I’m rather large at 6’4, 340 lbs, and yes, I do work out in addition to all the beer fat, and no, there was nothing but hate in me—definitely no interest as to why he was in there. I just wanted to break him.

In the end it turned out that the dude was just a drugged-out homeless guy who was mostly lost, I think, and he went into the wrong bathroom. He even apologized on his way out. (Not that that changes anything. I’ll do the exact same thing if something like that happens again. She’s my baby girl. I don’t care about your opinion.)

That experience, however, and the furious debate raging in our country today as evidenced by the meme I pulled off Facebook and posted here, prompted me to write this blog. I’m writing it to all my conservative AND liberal friends. I really hope you’ll all give it a chance, that you’ll trust me all the way to the end. You all know me. Have faith. Some of my language choices are going to piss some of you off.  Try to see the bigger picture. Anyway, this is my two cents:

A Conservative Take on Why Transgender Men (aka “women”) Don’t Want Your Actual Woman

I really don’t think transgender people are after our wives and daughters. Honestly, if I’m going to worry about the women I love, I’m going to be way more worried about some totally heterosexual, asshole rapist. He is way more dangerous than some dude who, for his whole life, has felt like he should have been born a chick.

That’s the real threat suggested by that graphic, that meme, I posted at the top of this. The fear is, ultimately, one worried about rapists and super-pervy secret cell-phone video dickheads.

And here’s an even bigger problem: those assholes have been going into girls’ bathrooms all along. I mean, think about it. Being a rapist or a pervert is not a new thing. We’ve seen perv-cam cases on the news for decades. Rape cases are tired old news dating back centuries. And if one of those fuckers dressed up as a chick last year, or last decade, or in the 90s, or the 70s, or the 30s, or whenever, and went into a bathroom, who even noticed, right? I mean, before this whole stupid bathroom thing came up, did any of us ever actually pay that much attention to who was going into what bathroom?

Don’t pretend you did. Nobody was monitoring that shit.

“Excuse me, Madam, I’m afraid I’m going to have to see your vagina before you can go in and urinate. It’s company policy, after all. Anti-rape protocol, and all that rot.”

Really?

The only reason I went in after my daughter that day was because it was clearly and obviously a dude that followed her in. Scraggly beard, balding … total, obvious dude.

So, given that we haven’t ever really paid attention to or worried about who was going in what bathroom, then what we are really talking about now is a sudden hyper awareness of the possibility of rapists and perverts targeting the ladies we love. Which means that, in reality, we aren’t really afraid of feminine dudes who feel they should have been born as women. By definition, they don’t lust after our girls at all. Quite the opposite, actually. They think they are one of them. So they are not the danger. It’s the deviant, rapey heterosexual men pretending to be women that, ultimately, we are actually worried about.

So here’s the epiphany I had—and while I admit I have never really thought about or cared who goes where to piss or birth a steamer before, I totally understand where a lot of people are coming from when it comes to this bathroom issue now. It’s obviously rooted in large part in the fear for our women’s safety, as I’ve just discussed at length. But beyond that, and if we are being honest, it’s also rooted in the fact that, for many people, the whole transgender thing is … well, uncomfortable.

Nobody used to talk about this stuff. I mean, you kind of knew it was out there, but it was never really something you ran across. Not that long ago, there was no internet, and most people lived in communities that were rather geographically and culturally “local” and, in that, pretty homogenous. Everyone we knew for the most part went to the same office, church, six restaurants and three vacation destinations over and over again. Before the internet and 700 cable channels, there was no reason to even think about this kind of stuff. A few wacky characters on TV, but that was all.

But it’s out there now. The reality revealed. And if you are over forty, it can feel really different today than how things used to be. If you are sixty plus, it’s like being on another planet entirely. You don’t want to be mean or unkind, but on stuff like this issue, you can’t help but wonder: why do we have to undo the whole bathroom policy thing? It was never an issue before? Can’t we just leave it be?

Well, clearly, no. We can’t. And, to be honest, I didn’t think it was something that needed fixing either until recently. I, as a conservative, do blame liberals for forcing conflict where there didn’t need to be any. And if I’m being totally frank, to my logical mind, it seems like the simplest and most obvious fix would be to just put a picture of a dick on one bathroom door and a vagina on the other and have everyone just pick a room based on how they are actually plumbed. Who gives a shit how you gender identify? If you can piss standing up, use a urinal, free up a ladies room stall for someone who doesn’t have that as an option.

But that’s not the world we live in. And kind, thoughtful, well-meaning people have to listen to one another and find ways to live together. And keep in mind, I am a lifetime Republican, a conservative, a person who loves and thinks America is a great nation even if saying so out loud means that I am labeled as an “exceptionalist” for loving the place that gave birth to me (just like I love my mom for doing the same thing—except that you can still say your mom is the best mom ever without being accused of “maternal exceptionalism” … but I digress).

My point is to help my conservative friends get past any issues they have with this whole transgender bathroom thing. It’s not even a stretch. And the epiphany I had is actually just the exact same argument, or logic, that every single conservative has had to make, over and over, for years when it comes to gun control and the 2^nd Amendment.

How many times has every conservative had to point out that new gun laws are not going to stop murdering assholes from killing people? They already break the existing anti-murder laws. Even freaking Plato pointed that out like three thousand years ago. Every thinking conservative recognizes this as an absolute fact, and every last one of us loses our goddamn mind every time some peace-loving liberal sprinkles themselves in unicorn tears and tries to explain how a new law will somehow finally stop criminals from, uh, being criminals. It’s, like, so painful to keep going through.

But that’s where my epiphany comes in. The anti-logic of that liberal thinking is miserable right? It’s just, well, not logical. Laws don’t stop law-breakers.

So here’s the thing: the same logic applies for douche-hole rapist fucks and pervert assholes bent on sneaking cell-phone bathroom shots.

Murderers kill regardless of gun laws. Rapists rape regardless of rape laws. Perverts are going to do their thing regardless of bathroom laws. Any perv or rapist that wants to dress up like a chick and go into a restroom is going to do it, regardless of whether there is a law or not. They already do it. They have been since the beginning of civilized society. Dickheads are dickheads. A bathroom law is not going to change anything.

So let it go. Transgender people are real human beings. Yes, they make you uncomfortable. I get it. But it’s okay. They get it too. They aren’t trying to mess with you. They just are who they are. But they aren’t rapists. So, just, you know, take a breath, and recognize that, logically, it makes no sense to fight this fight. There is literally nothing to be gained. All you can do is make someone you don’t really understand feel like shit. And how does that make America great?