According to a recent study by the Williams Institute, transgender people are more likely to face harassment when using restrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth, as opposed to their gender identity.

The study examines experiences in the past 12 months from both trans male and female participants who were asked if they ever experienced verbal harassment or were denied access to restroom facilities of their corresponding gender and sex assigned at birth.

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In the study, it was found that around 10% of transgender men were denied access to and or verbally harassed in women’s restrooms.

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For transgender women, 7% were denied access to male restrooms, and nearly 9% faced verbal harassment in those same restrooms.

When it came to restrooms that matched their gender identity, around 5% of trans men were denied entry and around 7% were harassed verbally in men’s restrooms.

Only 5% of transgender women were denied access to women’s restrooms and more than 7% were subjected to verbal harassment in women’s restrooms.

This portion of the study was conducted using data from the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey, which had 92,329 participants.

Despite the dangers bathroom bans pose, according to this study, President Donald Trump insists that banning trans people from restrooms matching their gender identity would guarantee women’s safety in public. 

One of Trump’s first actions as president was to sign an executive order that denied the existence of transgender people and restricted them from gendered spaces under the argument that it was done to protect women. Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse.

In another part of the study, researchers examined data from Massachusetts and other states with nondiscrimination laws to assess the impacts on public safety and privacy in restrooms. 

The research used data from criminal incident reports on violations related to assault, sex crimes, and voyeurism in public restrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms. To which the data pointed to no significant change to privacy and safety after these nondiscrimination laws were enacted, with incidents of such behavior remaining rare.

The Williams Institute did a similar study in 2018, finding similar results when comparing states with and without gender discrimination laws.

It is easy for people to view trans people through this lens as nothing more than a statistic, but we can’t forget there are high-profile examples of trans and nonbinary people being assaulted in public bathrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth. One of the more notable examples of this is the death of Nex Benedict, a nonbinary Indigenous teen from Oklahoma, who passed away after being assaulted by a group of girls in the restroom at their high school. 

The Williams Institute concluded the idea that women are threatened by trans people being allowed to use the restroom is baseless. There are consistent reports from transgender people who have had negative experiences in public facilities perpetrated by others, including physical assault.

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