> You've called this a dogwhistle, a "harmful and dangerous trope from half a century ago". Do you have an actual, substantial response that isn't "this person is secretly a wrongthinker!", though?

Sure. Trans bathroom panic is a ridiculous fiction that ignores how bathrooms and access to them really works. Restrictive bathroom legislation would also be completely unenforceable in any way that wasn't also incredibly invasive. Rather than focusing on punitive policies as a result of transphobic panics, we should write legislation that actually protects all vulnerable people in substantive ways.

> You seem to offer one of "it works if you just make the bathrooms gender neutral like in SF", but to me that says either 1. allow all men to enter the same bathrooms as women, but stop calling them "women's bathrooms" or 2. make a separate category of bathrooms for trans women, which we call "gender neutral bathrooms". I think JK Rowling would say that #1 is not actually a solution, and many trans people and activists would call #2 an unacceptable difference in treatment.

There's a lot here. The biggest thing I would say to you is that you've built up an idea of trans politics in your head that is not realistic. My guess is that you've been spending a lot of time on Twitter or listening to celebrities or otherwise.

Second, in the Bay Area I've seen mostly four kinds of bathroom setups:

1. Traditional mens and womens bathrooms. These are definitely in the minority amongst places I frequent.

2. A "hybrid" format, where there is a mens bathroom, a womans bathroom, and a gender neutral bathroom. This is by far the most common setup I've seen in both offices and restaurants etc. Anecdotally, at most places I've worked, the gender neutral bathrooms are the "most desired" bathrooms -- my guess is that it is because they're usually more private. Usually mostly stalls. Trans people I've spoken to are not always a fan of this precisely because everyone loves to use them so much, which makes it more difficult for them to be used by trans folks.

3. Only gender neutral bathrooms, single use. This is the second most common setup I've seen. There can be a throughput problem here, but these are my most favorite style of bathroom by far. It's also most common to how bathrooms work in most folks households (which is what the stall is meant to emulate as scale, remember).

4. Only gender neutral bathrooms, multi use. These are extremely uncommon in my experience, but I haven't been to every bathroom in the city. They're more awkward to use in my opinion, but I've never personally seen or heard of much controversy stemming from actions done in them.

In the world outside of the Bay Area, the overwhelming majority of the world uses 1, 2 or 3. But Rowling and her ilk only talk about number 4. Why is that? Because the concern is not about what is safe for most people -- remember, trans people are often physically unsafe entering the bathrooms of their birth genders. Instead, it's concern trolling. An extreme rhetorical point meant to reinforce that trans women Are Not Like Us And Should Not Be Around, and to garner the support of those who are afraid and uneducated. I'd imagine Rowling herself was indoctrinated in exactly this way, although that may be too generous (or patronizing, depending on your view).