Rest Room Regulation

Does this shirt make me look fat?  Regulating rest rooms when social norms are insufficient...

In Italian South Philadelphia, that area of the city made famous by Rocky Balboa, there’s one thing you notice right away, the parking.  It’s crazy… double parking all over the place, parking in the middle of the road.  It’s all against the law, or against regulations, but no one gets a ticket.  The police don’t enforce the regs?  

Why not?  Because, even as it appears disorderly, it is regulated, by the people themselves.  It’s an old neighborhood.  The people all know one another.  Many are related.  They’ve managed to work it out.  There is order of some sort and it works.  In other words, the police allow them to police themselves, because they can and they do.  There is a common culture.  There are social norms.  Formal regulation is unnecessary.   

It is when there aren’t social norms that problems emerge and regulation must be imposed and enforced.  Think about it.  Do you need noise restrictions or quiet hours in a college dorm?  Yes, because the collection of people doesn’t form a particularly coherent group from a cultural standpoint.  There are myriad views and preferences when it comes to playing loud music.  

When social norms are insufficient or break down, you need regulation. 

When it comes to using a rest room, it is governed primarily by social norms, always has been.  Men and boys use one rest room and females have their own rest rooms.  That was beyond question, so self-evident that it was hard to imagine it ever becoming an issue.

That’s changed apparently.  Some people want to use whatever rest room they prefer and some local governments are accommodating that desire.    

In response, some states have begun to address the issue.  Again, when social norms break down, or become unreliable, regulation becomes more necessary. 

Those who prefer changing the rest room regime, to enable people to use whichever rest room they prefer, respond to such talk with accusations of bigotry or at least insensitivity. 

That’s unfortunate.  Such accusations don’t further discussion.  They shut down discussion.  It impresses me too that the charge of bigotry doesn’t fit.  The proposal is not to remove gender entirely as a designation.  No one is suggesting the ‘mens’ and ‘womens’ signs be taken down.  Why not?  Because there is an implicit understanding that gender does matter in the case of rest room use. 

From my own perspective, it is not the transgendered person who poses the primary problem.  Suppose a guy is at the Nashville public library with his daughter and her friend.  They go into the bathroom and a perverted man exposes himself to them.  When accused and apprehended, can’t he just say that he was tucking in his shirt?  That’s not only acceptable behavior in a bathroom, it’s what we expect.  He didn’t mean any harm he says… and goes on his way.  That’s a public safety problem.  Absent regulation, you can’t do anything about that kind of a problem. 

What of the situation of high school locker rooms, where young guys or girls get fully undressed?  Wouldn’t mixing genders there present myriad problems?  Doesn’t a girl or guy have a reasonable expectation of privacy, based on gender, in a locker room?   

So, the argument in favor of regulation is simple…  social norms… the particular case of bathrooms being segregated by gender has broken down.  The state then comes in and says… no, you can’t use any rest room you want.

There is the small government argument that a state’s regulation should not supersede the local regulation.  That’s a question that will be addressed soon, particularly as it relates to Minimum Wage legislation. 

But, it’s worthwhile to consider some implications of the thinking that suggests that anyone has a right to use any rest room he or she prefers. 

1.     We don’t allow open carry in Tennessee.  Some would like to see that change, but I’m wondering how reasonable people would respond to an argument that sounds like this… ‘I identify as a cowboy, carrying a gun is simply part of who I am…’  My guess is that most legislators would think… ‘that has nothing to do with it.’  We ought to consider public safety and YES, social norms.   

2.     What about education.  The voucher bill failed again this session.  If we’re talking about enhancing choice and human liberty, isn’t being able to redeem your voucher at the school of your choice a bit more fundamental than being able to go the rest room of your choice? 

A final thing… there is a difference between tolerating innocuous differences, even when they’re very eccentric, which we ought to do generall, and accommodating differences when doing so compromises public health & safety.  All for Now.  Next time, local Minimum Wage legislation.