Personal experience has taught me that being one’s self and putting one’s welfare at risk should never be synonymous. I am against forcefully interfering in the lives of adults whose choices are not harming others, yet I do not believe that society is required to accommodate any individual’s personal decisions. As a result, I am opposed to transgendered people ignoring the gender designations of public restrooms.

My opinion is not based on malice but rather rooted in the idea that it is impossible to meet the specific needs of every person. My grandparents immigrated from Mexico and often had to supply their own translator. They chose to come here without knowing English and were not offended to find that few people catered to them.

Along the same lines, Muslims and fundamentalist Christians do not believe in women displaying their knees and do not condone even looking at scantily clad individuals, yet they do not impose their dress codes on people at the local mall.

Heck, believe it or not, there are undergraduates who pledge sexual purity for religious reasons and never demand the sex-obsessed campus culture to spare their virgin ears; every day they decide whether the guilt that accompanies lying about their experience is worth the momentary social acceptance.

In short, although it would make many lives easier, individuals cannot always have what they want.

On a different note, there is the concern that non-transgender predators could take advantage of bathrooms no longer being gender specific. Any male could enter a women’s bathroom as long as he claimed to inwardly identify as that gender, and who could question him? At the very least, it would be peeping Toms galore, and security could not intervene without fear of a lawsuit.

Some argue that predators will prey anyway. I dislike that rebuttal as it is akin to turning a blind eye to college hazing or elementary school bullying because it “still happens elsewhere.” As a woman, I know that we are already vulnerable to assault in so many settings. Why would we ever want to compromise one of our few sanctuaries?

Finally, ignoring the signs on a bathroom door will not lead to the positive results that many anticipate. For someone who is still transitioning, I do not imagine that using the bathroom of the gender one identifies with would result in any less risk of harassment or gawking.

It is a tough situation, but schools—as much flack as they get for it—have the right idea by converting extra bathrooms, such as those in the teacher’s lounge or nurse’s office, into gender-neutral restrooms for transgendered students. It does not require extra funds and protects youth from the ridicule that would likely occur in any other restroom.

Additionally, it would be reasonable to dictate that every public place have a “family bathroom,” which is a single-stall toilet that serves the disabled, families, individuals with severe social anxiety and anyone else who needs it. Popularizing these facilities would benefit many and serve as a perfect gender-neutral alternative for transgendered individuals if they would only accept such a compromise.