A truly terrible idea

Transgender men — that is, men who live their lives as women even though they haven’t had sex change operations — can now use the women’s restrooms in the New York subway:

The line for the girls’ room just got longer. Men who live as women can now legally use women’s rest rooms in New York’s transit system under an unprecedented deal revealed yesterday.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to allow riders to use MTA rest rooms “consistent with their gender expression,” the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund announced yesterday.

The group filed a complaint against the MTA on behalf of a 70-year-old telephone repair technician who was arrested for using the women’s room at Grand Central Terminal.

The technician, who is assigned to the terminal by Verizon, was born Henry McGuinness but now goes by Helena Stone.

“I’m a 24-hour woman,” Stone declared proudly. “I just feel like a woman and I like to wear women’s clothes.”

The ruling, of course, leaves the bathroom door wide open for opportunistic perverts who dress as women solely to fulfill their warped “Peeping Tom” desires, and for actual cross-dressers who are feminine in their attire, but heterosexual in their desire.  Indeed, some women have already figured that out:

“I would not like that,” said Gloria David, a retiree from Connecticut. “I have nothing against gay men or drag queens, but they can use the men’s room. I just don’t want to go to the bathroom next to a man.”

One rider feared predators might dress as women and lurk in the women’s room.

Interestingly, a Gen-X gal (or is it Gen-Y or Gen-Z by now?) is totally happy with gender self-identification:

But Rena Gantz, 23, a college student, shrugged off the settlement.

“It doesn’t bother me because it is a reality,” she said. “If they believe they are women, they should be treated as one.”

I’m deeply, deeply sorry for people with gender identification problems.  I can’t imagine the misery of having one hormone wash control your external genitalia, and another hormone wash control your brain function.  Nevertheless, opening the women’s restroom door to anyone with male equipment who comes dressed in a skirt is a disaster — and a huge Metro lawsuit — waiting to happen.

Hat tip:  Drudge