North Carolina recently passed a law dictating who is allowed in each bathroom. Openly, Donald Trump weighed in on the new act stating, “leaving things the way they are” is the most logical and simplified solution to the perceived issue. Unfortunately, The Public Facilities Privacy Act of North Carolina mandates that in government buildings, gendered facilities may be used only in accordance with the gender people were assigned at birth. Ironically, right-winged Trump may be looking at this in a very clear and sensible way.

Besides the fact that the law is clearly aimed to oppress the transgendered community as a piece of legislation, it is also relatively weak. The act only applies to government buildings which includes airports, DMV’s and public schools. This means that for transgendered students enrolled in public schools their home bathroom is the only one accessible in a way that complies to law and their own personal comfort standards. Legally, the act is only applicable to government buildings, meaning that non-governmental public buildings such as malls, stores and restaurants are not affected by the legislation.

In addition to the act only affecting a small percentage of buildings in the state, it is at large, unenforceable. Just as there is no one stopping a full grown man from walking into a woman’s restroom, it is doubtable that there would be forces in place to deal with an even more unclear situation such as if someone was transitioning between sexes. Even if the state could afford to have law enforcement officials present at every bathroom scanning people’s birth certificates to see if they were in fact approaching the legally correct washroom, what harm would they be preventing?

Legislators claim that the law was enacted on the grounds of safety, but it seems as though aversion  towards the transgender community played a much larger role in motivating the new law. Look at it this way. It is not illegal in any state for a man to walk into a woman’s bathroom. However, if a man assaults a woman inside a woman’s bathroom, the problem would clearly be the assault rather than the fact that he has been in the socially defined wrong bathroom. The same concept can easily be applied to transgendered persons using their respective bathrooms.

People go to the bathroom and mind their own business. An act as mundane as this should be free from complicated government involvement.