We learn how to use the bathroom before we even learn our ABCs. Yet, the simple act of going to the bathroom has become a political statement for transgender people.
"Some people just take bathrooms for granted, but over history, the bathroom has been a place where rights are fought," Andrea Zekis, a transgender woman from Portland, told The Rolling Stone.
Proposed legislation like the controversial North Carolina bathroom bill and now SB6, a similar anti-transgender bathroom bill from Texas, often come from fear and ignorance of non-cisgender gender identities. So a new ad from director Richard Linklater aims to fight back by educating people about what the bill really means, Pink News reports.
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The video was posted on YouTube with the title, "Taking a Seat, Making a Stand." It opens with several people explaining that SB6 would force transgender people to use public bathrooms that align with the sex they were assigned at birth, and then urges viewers to "pee with LGBT" to fight the bill.
"Passing the bill discriminates against family and friends," a man with a deep southern drawl says while standing at a urinal. A transgender man comes out of the stall next to him and adds, "And me."
People in the video continue to explain that the bill will harm Texas businesses and that keeping transgender people out of public bathrooms that align with their gender is not about privacy, it's about discrimination.
The ad closes with the whole group saying, "I pee with LGBT" and one woman explaining, "because everyone pees and everyone deserves a safe place t0."
We wholeheartedly agree — how could we not? Going to the bathroom is a basic human right, and should not cause as much anxiety and fear as it often does for transgender people.
Yet, we'd be remiss not to mention that asking people to "pee with LGBT" isn't quite accurate. These bills are clearly anti-transgender, and do not target the LGBT community as a whole. As a cisgender lesbian woman I have never felt discrimination in a public bathroom.
Still, the initiative is sweet and could be a powerful way to educate people in Texas about how discriminatory SB6 is, and what they can do to stop it.