A statement by a government official regarding the usage of a public female restroom by a crossdresser, Idris Okuneye, popularly known as Bobrisky, has sparked controversy. But not many are aware that, as against the general notion that this can only happen in Nigeria, the question of if transgenders and crossdressers can use the restroom of the gender they identify with is actually a global one.
On Monday, Punch Newspaper reported that it had an interview with the Director-General of the National Centre for Arts and Culture, Otunba Segun Runsewe. The report quoted Runsewe as saying,
“The health hazard Bobrisky has is worse than Ebola Virus Disease; travelers and tourists should be careful wherever they notice the presence of Bobrisky, mostly as it affects sharing of public facilities,”
Soon everyone lost the background to the story, being that how the system recognizes Bobrisky has always been an issue.
In 2018, Bobrisky told his fans about how he uses the Airport saying only female security agents are allowed to check him. He also added that he uses female toilet to avoid harassment being that he dresses like and identifies as a lady. In response to the video, a female follower threatened Bobrisky saying should she meet him in a female restroom, she cannot tell what will happen. In response, Bobrisky said he will stab her in places a Doctor will not want to treat.
Months before this, a social media user spotted Bobrisky in the male restroom and made a video interviewing him. Asked what he was doing in the male restroom, Bobrisky says he is there to see the man’s private part. His comment was however taken as a joke.
Earlier this year, the government was said to have received a report that Bobrisky caused a stir at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja when he used a female restroom. An action that reportedly upset female commuters.
Runsewe explained that Bobrisky carries a passport in which he identifies as a man. He goes further to explain why he considers Bobrisky a health risk to those who share the female toilet with him,
“Women are prone to get various types of disease from the toilet than sexual intercourse. Now, Bobrisky will enter the same toilet with a woman and in the end, the woman will contract some kind of disease. When she gets home and sleeps with her husband and the husband discovers he has been infected, the next thing is to seek for divorce without knowing the actual cause of how the wife was infected.”
Yet unlike widely reported, Runsewe did not say the government was after Bobrisky, who is in violation of an Anti-homosexual law, he rather used the opportunity to call on the Medical bodies to “enlighten” Nigerians on the dangers of women sharing public toilets with men.
Can only happen in Nigeria
A widely spread notion as Nigerians reacted to the Bobrisky story was that Nigeria is an unserious country otherwise a restroom will not trend on a Monday morning neither will a “senior government official” be talking about who uses what restroom. But this has been the case for a number of countries. Even more, laws have been made around the world and there are Supreme Court cases regarding who uses what restroom. Gender identity and restroom usage have pitched Nations against their states and regions.
In March of 2016, US’ North Carolina enacted a law that requires people to only use the restroom of their gender of birth. This means a person who says he changed his gender or just identifies as another gender would be compelled by law to use the restroom assigned to his original gender. This means if Bobrisky was in North Carolina, it would have been illegal for him to use the female restroom. There were two Bills for this purpose and multiple Court cases which took three years to reach a settlement.
The Obama administration countered this by ordering all schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice. This led to some lawmakers calling for his impeachment. On the other hand, the Obama administration took North Carolina to court challenging the legality of its Bills seeking to restrict usage of restrooms to the gender of birth. Proponents of the restriction argued that it would be inappropriate to allow transgender women to use the same bathroom as young girls.
After this, state legislatures in Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas did their own bills that would restrict public toilet access to access on the basis of sex as biologically defined. This led to another round of public debates in the US each time a state did its.
On February 22, 2017, President Trump and the Department of Education reversed Obama’s letter, hence allowing schools to make the decision as they please. Many on the left claimed this created a dilemma for transgender children, but others are of the opinion that the confusion in bathroom usage is enough reason to question the whole idea of changing one’s gender.
The United States is making moves to define “sex” as solely male or female as a biological and unchangeable condition determined by genitalia at birth.
Just like the United States, Canada also had a tough time with transgender and restrooms as the first Restroom Bill is a decade old, but failed to pass. The second Restroom Bill passed the lower House but failed at the Senate. It was on a third try that a modified Bill passed so that since 2016, Canada has been allowing transgenders use the Restroom of the gender they ascribe to.
In the UK, transgenders are not allowed to use women or men-only spaces. The UK Government said about this,
“Providers of women-only services can continue to provide services in a different way, or even not provide services to trans individuals, provided it is objectively justified on a case-by-case basis. The same can be said about toilets, changing rooms or single-sex activities. Providers may exclude trans people from facilities of the sex they identify with, providing it is a proportionate means of meeting a legitimate aim.”
This has also led to a lot of debates and petitions. A public review of the law is due this October.
In most parts of the world where being transgender is legal, toilets are a battleground for transgender rights. In Bobrisky’s case, it is not public knowledge that he actually changed his gender. Many consider him a crossdresser. A male crossdresser is a man who dresses like a woman. Neither the US nor Canada’s law allows crossdressers into the restroom for the gender they dress as.
