When you have nowhere to do your business, whose fault is it?

Retail corporation Target announced on Apr. 19, 2016 the decision to allow transgender workers and shoppers to use bathrooms and fitting rooms that correspond to their gender identity in all of its stores in the United States. In response to the Equality Act enacted in 2015, Target aimed to support the act in protecting LGBT persons and opposing discrimination of the community.

“Inclusivity is a core belief at Target. It’s something we celebrate,” the statement read. “We stand for equality and equity, and strive to make our guests and team members feel accepted, respected and welcomed in our stores and workplaces every day.”

Since the day of the statement, the American Family Association has boycotted the decision. Nearly 1.4 million people signed the AFA’s petition to make a statement to Target that the decision does not pave the way to a safe shopping environment according to AFA.net.

“This means a man can simply say he ‘feels like a woman today’ and enter the women’s restroom… even if young girls or women are already in there,” the AFA’s website stated. “Target’s policy is exactly how sexual predators get access to their victims. And with Target publicly boasting that men can enter women’s bathrooms, where do you think predators are going to go?”

As questionable as that argument sounds, it seems to be a genuine concern out of the hearts of a well-intentioned organization. The AFA, however, has one massively fatal flaw going against it: it’s a hate group.  Yes, the non-profit 501(c)(3) charity organization centered on the protection of traditional family values is labeled as a hate group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center in November 2010.

The AFA is placed among groups like the Illinois Family Institute, Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment and Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. The group aims to spread the fundamental Christian message that “God ordained the marital covenant as the exclusive context for sexual contact to be enjoyed between a husband (one man) and his wife (one woman).”  

The AFA also fronted conspiracies like homosexual Nazi leaders in the Third Reich, the SPLC supporting homosexual dominance by holding an anti-clique and anti-bullying Teaching Tolerance program, and its own organization supporting the kidnapping of children with same-sex parents and placing them in, according to former Director of Issues Analysis Bryan Fisher, “‘normal” homes.

It’s safe to say this boycott is a moot resort to pushing a conservative agenda of delegitimizing the concerns of the transgender community. Some of those concerns include discrimination and exclusion in social events and business gatherings. Thus leading to turning transgender individuals into targets of violence for being different. They’re looking for a lame excuse to separate transgender people from public view.

The AFA instead offers a “common-sense approach and a reasonable solution” to appease transgender people.

“Target should keep separate facilities for men and women, but for the trans community and for those who simply like using the bathroom alone, a single occupancy unisex option should be provided,” the AFA’s website stated.

Well, that’s purely an opinion, and the AFA is not the spokesperson for the whole trans community.

If any gendered person wants to use any bathroom they please, who has any right to stop them?

The AFA reasoned that the policy puts wives and children at risk of predators and violence and that it does not place protection as a priority.

The transgender community should not be equated or even compared to sexual predators because there is a difference between someone who just wants to use the toilet and someone who is in the bathroom to claim a victim.

More often than not, bathroom legislation assumes that transgender people include people that pretend to be the opposite gender. There’s a word for that, and it’s not transgender. It’s called fraud. If anything, the law should be punishing predators equally, regardless of gender identity and sexual orientation.

The bigger problem, however, stems from the false fear that a transgender person will use a bathroom to cause harm to someone. The intent is the focus of the crime, not the person’s gender, and predators come in all different identities and even different ages.

The predator can either be a complete stranger but more likely someone the victim knows personally. There are too many factors to simply deduce predators as people pretending to be the opposite gender to follow someone to the bathroom.

There needs to be a greater emphasis on educating people and calming the fear of trans people and bathroom predators. Transgender people are human beings and deserve to have their voices heard.