https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI1ylg4GKv8

The important question here is: Do you want to relieve your conscience (reason for creating the thread?) or do you want to protect children?

If it's only the former then don't bother with the latter. If it's the latter, I'm sure you can figure something out. Everything from volunteer work, becoming a politician, a lobbyist or trying your hands at business where you have a good skill and then use the money to help children.

Consider the case where the child is transgender. If you have, say, a 7 year old transgender girl who is presenting female, do you think she would be safer in the men's room or the women's room?

Consider, also, the gender swapped version, with a transgender boy; would he be safer in the men's room or the women's room?

There is no guarantee of safety, anywhere for anything. Safety is just a point where the probability of a negative event is extremely low.
Given 100's of millions of people use any of the millions of public bathrooms all through out the day, every day of the year, the statistical probability of an individual assault is tiny. Its definitely in the "safe" area.
Allowing a Trans Male-to-Female use of a Female bathroom, does not alter the probability of an assault on a minor happening in a bathroom.

There is only one scenario where not denying Trans use of a public toilet may be used to aid a criminal. And that is where a male is caught entering a female toilet.

And the defense, "didn't notice the sign" is far more plausible than an unkempt bearded man with no feminine attributes, articles of clothing or history of cross dressing claiming they are Trans.

You want to justify removing the real need for 0.03% of people (which is 15 people in a town of 50'000) to use an appropriate toilet in order to protect children from a statistically improbably event.

You are over-reacting. In places that have adopted trans-friendly bathroom laws, I am not aware of even one case where someone took advantage of such laws to harass a child. (Remember, a predator would not be deterred by a sign; said person would likely not even bother to dress up as the opposite sex.)

Also, I would like to point out that churches are a much more dangerous place for children; if you are so concerned about children being sexually harassed, maybe you should outlaw churches, or at least make it illegal to take children to church?

That's all fair enough. Like I say, I understand why you're defensive, I'd be defensive too if I held your views. I'll explain why I think your views are wrong.

I don't have a problem with men and boys using the same public toilets. I think it makes sense for parents to go to a public toilet with their children when they are young but I don't think public toilets are particularly dangerous. I don't get naked when I go to the toilet and I have never seen anyone else naked in a public toilet.

I think that, sadly, children will be forever in danger from bad people wherever they are, regardless of which toilets transgender people are permitted to go to. I don't think a child going to the toilet alone is more risky than a child going to a park alone or walking down a street alone.

I don't think there will be an increase in sexual assaults. Previously, when a man was found lurking in a public toilet for men, the police would be called. That won't change whether a man or woman is found lurking in men's or women's toilets.

I think it makes sense for a person who looks like a man to go to the men's toilet rather than having a person that looks like a man going to the women's toilet. I think that would create more trouble.

I think you're a very scared person. It also seems to me that you see sex and sexual deviancy everywhere, even something as innocent as taking a piss.

Excuuuuuse me, but I fail to see how sacrificing our children increases tolerance. Probably the opposite, in fact.

"In the name of tolerance" wouldn't necessarily mean it would increase tolerance.

How exactly is a child transgender? I've seen this coming up again and again. How does one ascertain that a child who doesn't have properly regulated hormones like an adult has is transgender? And what exactly is the permanence to being transgender? It can be a hormone imbalance that settles in a few weeks or the result of prenatal hormonal imbalance and hence, more permanent. Saying children can be trans is wrong, because subsequent hormonal changes in teen age or later may fix it.

I have to admit that for me it's not the first time I'm afraid of something real. Growing up in cold war living at the border between two ideological blocks I knew that in the event of a nuclear holocaust I and everyone I know would be among the first to die. I basically lived in constant fear for a long time of my life.

Regarding help. You probably know some things do do. You live in the US - I guess. Laws are made by the Congress. So speak with your local representative, join a party, make politics work, create an interest group who lobbies for your interest, participate in protests. That would be the usual way.

Now for transgender people, they are quite a minority, estimated to be only about 0.3% of the population. Also in general they have quite a lot of problems in life, not really fitting in any of the sexes. I have rather pity with them and believe them that they genuinely feel like the opposite sex of what they were naturally equipped with. It can happen. In the end what you think you are is the most important thing of all.

The problem I see is that pedophiles (many men but also some women) can exploit this and pose as transgender to get access to the other sexes facilities. This is foremost a practical problem but I don't know how to solve that adequately currently.

I would say that the most important rule should be: No adults (of any sex) in public childrens showers/toilets at all, unless it's the parents of the kids. So the swimming pool could maybe designate some showers with special signs only for kids during swimming teaching hours and they must be respected of course.

Hope a solution will be found that restores your peace of mind and that allows maximum security and happiness for all including transgender people. It's not easy - that much is clear.

I guess it just tells you that it feels like the opposite in her mind than what it looks from the outside. The younger they are, they easier a hormonal treatment should be to reconcile state of mind and biology. But of course you have to be super-careful there.

I have no direct experience but here are some articles I found:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/born-this-way-stories-of-young-transgender-children/
http://www.hrc.org/explore/topic/transgender-children-youth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_youth
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/transgender-kids/jacobs-journey-life-transgender-5-year-old-n345131
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/12/transgender-children-have-to-respect-who-he-is
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/a-boys-life/307059/
http://nymag.com/news/features/transgender-children-2012-6/
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/transgender-kids
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/09/27/health/transgender-kids/index.html

Those articles describe kids who felt gender dysphoria at very young ages. I'm guessing that is caused by pre-natal conditions. It would be very interesting to see how they coped through adolescence. But I still don't understand how people suddenly feel dysphoric out of blue, and whether any of this is permanent and if so, to what extent. Scientific consensus seems to be divided.

I don't see what kind of parent would believe their children and not think it's just a pure childish fantasy among many. Especially since hormones aren't developed yet, that's sounds silly if not dangerous that this is even considered.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17875490

Oh good, this thread is still active. :P