US "bathroom laws", on balance, are justified and beneficial to society.

I want it to be absolutely clear that DDO's rich text feature fully supports a variety (~10) fonts and font sizes ranging from 8pt to 32pt. I again ask that the opponent keep the argument here as the generally accepted rules demand. It is unfair that I should be burdened by a 10,000 character argument while the opponent can provide a 10 page argument. (This argument included my argument, word-for-word. So in reality, the opponent provided a 13,000 character argument, according to Google Docs' word count feature.)IntroductionThe opponent's arguments all stem from a central misunderstanding or unwillingness to understand that I will clarify here.There are two important terms that we need to know the difference between. The first is "biological gender", sometimes called "sex". It refers to the physical attributes that separate two members of the same species into distinct groups characterized by reproductive function. In other words, genitalia, chromosomes, and hormones all define someone's biological gender. The next is "gender identity", which refers to a person's interpretation of their own feelings regarding which gender they feel like they should naturally express. As a relevant example, a transwoman has the gender identity of a woman, in that she feels as if she has all the characterstics of a female, including behaviors and mannerisms, but not that she is a biological woman. A transwoman is aware that she is a biological man.One can get a sense of "gender identity" by imagining oneself as having been surrounded by men and women growing up, but without the knowledge of one's own sex. This includes no knowledge of one's own genitalia, chromosomes or hormones. Imagining this scenario, most people believe that they would know their own gender. This feeling of knowledge regarding one's gender is their "gender identity" and this identity does not always correspond with one's biological sex.The opponent's arguments all make the assumption that "gender identity" does not exist in any meaningful way and that the conversation regarding bathrooms should be strictly relegated to the biological gender. This assumption by the opponent ignores the reality that many claim to have a gender identity, ignores the psychiatric consensus that gender identity is real, and blatantly disregards the fact that the term "gender identity" definitionally exists. As such, the opponent is largely saying "obviously a man would use the man's bathroom, as a man has biological markers indicating male-ness, and this is all that matters". He completely disregards that I am not making my arguments based upon biological gender at all, but instead gender identity. Therefore, he is not actually clashing with my arguments in any meaningful way, but is instead maintaining a reality that does not hold true and arguing under the assumption of that reality.Mental IllnessAnother important aspect of the opponent's assumption concerns whether transgenderism is a mental illness. If we can reasonably conclude that it is not (or is more likely to not be, given the shared burden of proof), then the opponent's arguments completely lose all validity.As I mentioned, the American Psychiatric Association, which is considered the de facto psychiatric "source" in the United States, does not consider transgenderism to be a mental disorder. The opponent argues that "they are wrong and I am right" on the basis that he has an argument as to why it is a disorder, whereas I did not present the APA's actual logic on the matter. So at this point, I'll first discuss why the APA considers transgenderism not to be a mental illness, then show why the opponent's comparative argument is not a valid comparison and argument.A mental illness is defined as "some mental state that brings about significant distress or disability". It was found that being transgender did not in and of itself bring about significant amounts of either of these two qualities. It is a common misapplication of statistics when it is said that "transgenders are 40% more likely to commit suicide" or any similar statistic. This is not because it is technically false, but because it does not explain the whole situation. Allow me to elaborate:Transgender people are no more likely to commit suicide than a "normal" person whenever they a) have the support of their family and b) have the support of their friends. [1] It is when they lose either or both of these support groups that their suicidality begins to increase. This largely makes sense, as being abandoned by those we consider our support system can cause an increase in anxiety and depression. The important thing to note here is that society's reaction to a mental state cannot be considered as part of the mental state. A transgender person who has the support they require are not any more likely to hurt themselves or be distressed than anyone else. As for "disability", this is where the opponent's argument comes into play. He essentially states that "a person who wishes to have a limb removed is clearly ill, so transgenderism is the same because transgender people wish to surgically alter their body". There is a key difference here, though -- that being that the former example clearly causes disability, while the latter does not.Anytime someone loses a limb, they are considered to be disabled because they are no longer able to easily do what a fully limbed person can. The same cannot be said about transgender people, as a surgical sex change does not stop a person from doing what the normal person of the sex they've "switched to" can. Ie, the "average" transwoman and the average biological woman can both do the same things, equally as well. (Arguably, the transwoman would have some physical advantages due to their male hormones, but this cannot be called a disability.)So given that transgenderism does not fit the definition of "mental illness" and given that the opponent's argument is an incorrect comparison, we are left with the conclusion that trans people are indeed not mentally ill, simply due to their transgender state. The Case, RehashedWe will again go over the case with the previous arguments in mind and see why the opponent's arguments are all essentially the same thing, which I showed was invalid in the above to arguments. Being Transgender is not a mental illness.This is specifically addressed above. The mentioned BIID is not an apt comparison to transgenderism, as one promotes a disability where the other does not.Laws that promote Equality without doing Harm are Beneficial to Society.Premise 1: Bathroom laws promote equality.The opponent's two arguments here are 1) people don't get to choose their biological sex and 2) experts do not define truth.The latter argument was countered above in demonstrating the APA's logical conclusion on why transgenderism isn't a mental illness.The first argument is irrelevant, as I have demonstrated that transgender people don't believe they are physically a different sex than they are, but that they instead have a different gender identity. Given the statistical prevalence of people displaying different gender identities than that which matches the biological sex, it cannot be said that gender identity does not exist. We've already concluded that it's not a mental illness, so with these two facts we know that transgender people are a legitimate group of people. It is an increase in equality when transgender people are allowed the same liberty of using the bathroom matching their gender identity just like every other group can. To make this extra clear, I'd like to again say that everyone currently has the right to use the bathroom matching their biological sex. Only some people have the right to use the bathroom matching their gender identity. Allowing transgender people to use the bathroom matching their gender identity does no harm.The opponent here brings up a few examples of when this has not been the case. To be fair, 3/4 of these cases were documented (the third was not). It's important to note, however, that these all happened in areas where it was currently not legal to use the bathroom matching your gender identity.I am by no means claiming that people will not break the law and abuse people in the bathroom. It is a fact that this type of behavior has happened since the dawn of public bathrooms and there is little way to effectively stop it. People will always commit crimes. But this does bring up that the point that predators have no issue breaking the law to commit their crime. Regardless of whether bathroom laws exist, predators will still enter the "correct" and "incorrect" bathrooms to assault their victims. "Bathroom police" do not exist and regardless of whether these laws exist, the people who wish to commit a bathroom crime will.It cannot be said that bathroom bills themselves will increase the frequency of bathroom crime. If some predator A wishes to assault women, he can just as easily dress up as a woman and illegally enter a woman's restroom as he could legally do it. There is no reason to believe that some predators who are unwillingly to illegally enter a bathroom and illegally rape someone is more likely to do so if they can legally enter the restroom, as the rape itself is illegal and punishable more harshly than using the "wrong" bathroom.Given this, we can see that there is no reason to believe a significant increase in crime will result. (As a matter a fact, since the introduction of these bills, we haven't seen an increase in this type of assault.) So the contention that bathroom bills cause no harm remains true.ConclusionsBecause I am following the rules, I am about out of characters. I'll conclude by stating that I've shown my opponent's arguments to be illegitimate and that bathroom laws are justified and beneficial to society via the equality that they increase and they harm they do not do. 1 - http://www.huffingtonpost.com...;