Potty Talk

First off, if you want to argue that being transgender is the same as being a cross dresser or that transgender people are perverts out to try and molest children, just go away.  Seriously, you're entitled to your opinion, but I would encourage you to have a little compassion and do a little research before you start in to this.  If you're honestly trying to work through this whole bathroom issue, and maybe just trying to figure out what all the fuss is about, well keep reading, maybe we will muddle towards some sort of truth.
You may have already seen this video of Aimee Toms, a young lady who was treated rudely in a Wal Mart bathroom because a woman thought she was transgender, when she is not.  Her video response is pretty much what you would expect from a college girl who ran into one slightly rude person, but she runs through the gamut of the usual arguments surrounding transgender people using the toilet.  Yes, I just wrote that sentence, and it does not make me happy.  She loses some points for ranting all over the place and engaging in some "creative" vocabulary usage, but she makes the rather salient point that you really shouldn't make judgments about whether people are male or female based on appearance.  For a more humorous take on that see here. She also wins points for empathy and realizing that one unpleasant lady in a Wal Mart bathroom is a drop in the bucket compared to what transgender people face on a daily basis.
On the more side of slightly more disciplined journalism there is this. Which once again forces us to watch as privileged and entitled people feel like it is an assault on their rights to have to give others the same rights that they have always enjoyed.  Seriously, don't you realize that "Straight Pride," is sort of along the same lines as "White Power?" But I digress, and I'm starting down a bad road there.  The point I want to draw out of that article involves the following excerpt:

There were practical issues.  When he had his period he wondered if he should revert to the girls' bathroom because there was nowhere to throw away his used tampons. But he had started feeling like an intruder in the girls' bathroom, and the single bathrooms were so far out of the way it was hard to make it to class on time.

Seriously, the sheer mundane details of this are the thing that really rings my bell. When you have to put that much thought into something like using the potty that most of us take for granted, do you really think that someone would put themselves through that if there wasn't really some deep, deep issue of self understanding in the works?  When I was in school, I remember consciously thinking about whether or not I was wearing green on Thursday (which meant you were horny, which I was mostly, but I didn't want everyone to know it) or whether or not I had worn the same shirt too many times in the span of a week or so.  Can you imagine trying to transition from a boy to a girl or vice versa, in high school?
Put yourself in the shoes of someone, a kid, in that situation.  Don't you think we should do what we can to help them out?  Even if we don't entirely understand why they need our help or if we find their particular situation to be a little bit strange to our fortunately cis-gender way of thinking.
Rather than simply shrug it off and realize that bathroom choice is not and should not really be that big of a deal, we have gone the other way and actually passed state laws, and issued edicts.  The issue of bathroom usage has become a major story. People are protesting, boycotting and generally making a ruckus about this. I'm guessing that most of the transgender folk out there, would much rather not have a civics course centered around where they pass water.
I get it, the idea of sharing a bathroom with someone, anyone really, is a little uncomfortable.  I have sat on the pot in a public restroom, all clenched up, holding it, until the dude in the next stall left.  I needed to relax, you know?  If that was a woman, or a man who looked like a woman, or a woman who identified as a man, or a llama who thought he was a poodle, I would still have probably waited until he/she/it left, so that I could move my bowels in peace and solitude. There is an inherent awkwardness to public restrooms.  I don't know how it is for women, but for men, it is generally accepted that you don't make eye contact or engage in small talk whilst in the porcelain chambers, an unspoken code which I fully endorse.  I promise that I will equally ignore everyone in public restrooms, gay, straight, transgender or other (whatever that might be). I think that turning this minor awkwardness into a major public debate is probably not doing our society any favors.  Don't we have bigger problems to sort out?
I know I do, I shall not speak of this again. My considered opinion on this: defecate and evacuate in the stall of your choice America, just please wash your hands afterwards.