Transgender Bathroom Rights

I'll move directly into arguments, for the convenience of the voters. Public vs Private BathroomsThe opponent has claimed that the bathrooms that this debate topic covers includes only those that are regulated by the government. This point will likely be the longest in my response, as my argument cannot stand if it concerns only government facilities. "Public bathrooms" -- conotation versus denotationAll words have a denotation and a conotion. A word's "denotation" refers to its technical definition found in a dictionary. A word's "conotation" refers to the likely definition of the word in context. For example, if SkaterBro were to say to his friend "Yo dude, the ollie was sick," the term "sick" has a different connotation than it does denotation. In the dictionary, "sick" would be defined as some sort of illness being experienced by a person. In context, the word clearly means "awesome" or "fantastic". Similarly, the term "public restroom" has a different conotation than it does denotation, specifically with regards to this topic. While I cannot deny that in some aspects, "public restroom" may technically refer to only government facilities, it cannot be denied by any purveyor of the news that the current connotation of "public restroom" includes those provided by privately owned stores. While Wikipedia is not a great source for many things, it is a fantastic example of the public consensus and understanding surrounding an issue. Wikipedia states that a "public toilet" is "a room or small building containing containing one or more toilets ... for use by the general public or ... by customers of other services." Notably, it later states that "public toilets are typically round in railway stations, schools, bars, restaurants, nightclubs or filling stations." [1]Notably, there is a clear mention that private businesses like "bars", "restaurants" and "nightclubs" have toilets that are considered public. Furthermore, when one sees a news article referring to public bathrooms as it relates to transgender people, the bathroom being referenced is almost always a business bathroom. This is made particularly evident by the sources my opponent herself references. Woman being beaten -- McDonald's bathroom. (Opponent's R2 Ev #6) Transgender discrimination study -- only referenced bathrooms are work bathrooms. (Opp. R2 Ev #7) Please note, these are the only two sources provided by the opponent that describe the particular bathrooms this issue is concerning. The prevelance of "business" restroomsThe opponent makes a point that the public sector accounts for over half of economic output, then provides the false implication that this means there are more government bathrooms than business bathrooms. Recall that my argument concerned the fact that "business" bathrooms are considerably more common than "government" bathrooms, which is part of the reason people consider business bathrooms to be public bathrooms. Consider that the US government says there are 27.9 million businesses in the US. [2] Let us make the reasonable assumption that each business has exactly one bathroom. (This is undoubtedly an underestimate.) The US Federal Real Property Council estimates that there are under 160,000 government buildings currently in use. Again, let's assume that each of these buildings has a bathroom. [3] Finally, the number of towns in the U.S. is just under 20,000. Let's assume one government building and bathroom per town. [4] Let's even assume that every town has a public park with a provided government bathroom. This puts the government bathroom total at under 200,000. This means that "business" bathrooms make up 99.3% of all non-residential bathrooms in the United States. From this data alone, it is completely evident that when people say "public restroom", they are referring to business bathrooms as well as governmental bathrooms. Round 1 clarity.The opponent's final claim on this topic was that she made it clear in the first round that when she said "public bathrooms", she was only referring to those regulated by the government. First, that was not clearly specified anywhere in Round 1 or Round 2. The voters are encouraged to reread those sections to confirm this for themselves. Secondly, the only restrooms clearly referenced in any of the opponent's sources were concerning business bathrooms. That opponent clearly didn't intend for the "restroom scope" to be so narrow, given that her evidence concerned restrooms outside that scope. Finally, since it was not clearly stated, it was Con's natural inclination to go with the "common sense" definition of the terms in question, since they were not defined. Danielle wants to claim that I'm "playing semantics", when the opposite is true. She is attempting to limit the restrooms in question to just 0.3% of the restrooms considered "public" by general consensus. ConclusionI have effectively demonstrated that "public restroom" has the connotation including business restrooms. I have shown that the opponent herself implicated this definition by including sources that also used this definition. I have finally revealed that it was the natural position of Con to assume common sense definitions and that the opponent's attempt to semantically limit me is unjustified. Business bathrooms are public restrooms, and it is these 99.7% of bathrooms that are affected by my argument. Business Owner RightsThe opponent doesn't include much in this response, since she is assuming my argument is already invalid. She mentions boycotts, but fails to adequately prove how this justifies the reduction in business owner rights. If she is implying that boycotts combat my "economic pragmatism" argument, then she's flat wrong. Transgender people make up a tiny proportion of the population (0.2%) [5], especially in areas where stores are likely to deny service to transgenders. A boycott in the Bible Belt by transgender people would damage a business about as much as a small stone would damage an aircraft carrier. The boycott said business in the conservative area would face from customers due to the business' support of transgender bathroom usage would no doubt be greater than the potential boycott from the transgender and supporting community. (Consider the boycott on target exists, while there is no news of a transgender boycott of other businesses. Not that it doesn't happen -- it's just not significant enough to pragmatically matter.)Regarding the opponent's second point, it is true that many transgender people look like the sex matching their gender identity. If a business owner cannot tell someone is transgender, they likely will not ban them from using their services or the restroom. I never claimed that a conservative business would disallow all transgenders from using their toilet -- I simply claimed that they should have that right. (A right that would realistically only be implemented when the transgender nature of the customer is evident.)The opponent next makes the (unsupported) claim that transgenders face discrimination because they are using the bathroom matching their biological gender. None of her evidence supports this, however. We have one specific case in which someone was abused, which is hardly proof of the way things are generally. Next, we have the D.C. gender discrimination study which says a great deal of the harrassment happens outside of bathrooms. As I've already explained, people are abusive and mean to transgenders not because of the bathroom they use, but because of the very fact that they are transgender. The Trans Panic defense not only nearly always fails in court -- it's hardly relevant. People can use said (ineffective) defense regardless of where they attack the transgender person. Bathrooms have little to do with it. Again, the opponent claims she already proved that this discrimination occurs because they use the "wrong" bathroom, when in fact no such proof has been submitted. (The opposite, in fact, given the DC survey). ConclusionThe amount of danger a transgender person is in has little to do with which bathroom they are legally entitled to use. As such, business owners should maintain the right to run their business as they see fit. One cannot force a business to change behaviors just because said behavior is offensive to someone in the US. SafetyRunning out of space; will be brief. All of the opponent's evidence concerns areas where it is already legal to use the bathroom you want. Bills like HB2 in NC change this law. Clearly the violence exists despite the legal state of the matter, thus invalidating the opponent's unsubstantiated claim that these rights should be implemented in the few remaining places where it isn't. If the discrimination and violence is prevalent where it is already legal, there is no reason to believe it will suddenly be decreased in other areas where it is not. The opponent's most compelling evidence, the DC survey, takes place in an area where free bathroom use is not illegal. That makes this actually a compelling piece of evidence for my claim that the legality of this issue won't change violence rates. Law/Mitigating FactorsI believe it was obvious how business owners would enforce their business right -- by just saying no. Ie, I'm a transwoman who goes into a gas station. Owner says "get out". I leave.ConclusionI don't have much room, so I'll leave you with saying that my arguments are clear, persuasive, and clearly conclusive that business rights are the critical issue here. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to the vote. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org...2 - https://www.sba.gov...;3 - https://www.washingtonpost.com...;4 - http://www.census.gov...;5 - http://www.livescience.com...;