If you are an ally (or even a trans person), I really need you to stop showing pictures of masculine trans men with "so you want HIM in the women's bathroom?" as a "gotcha". Because yes, yes they do. Can I tell you why?
Before I do, I need to make one thing clear: I am not a "discourse queer". I don't get involved in the labels shit, the oppression Olympics, or any of that BS. I don't see the point in inter-community bickering. So save the "well actually" shit and listen to a queer man just this once. We all have our battles to fight but at the end of the day I'm going to be in exactly the same fucking camp as you, if I haven't already stepped in front of a bullet for you instead.
They want trans men in that bathroom to make them stand out. They want transness to be obvious. If they could make trans people wear a pink triangle, they would. The easiest way to drive trans people to suicide or back into the closet is to make it impossible to live a quiet, private life as a trans person. To expose them to as much pain, ridicule and suffering as possible. If they make transition a gauntlet of agony where you will never fit, never have peace, very few people would survive it.
Trans men are viewed as lost incubators. Their sacred bodies belong to the state and the nation as mothers and wives. Their masculinity is viewed as stolen valour. Transition is a radical act of defiance against that ownership, as it is for trans women in the opposite direction. Forcing both trans men and trans women "back" into their "spaces" where they can be suitably punished for the audacity of putting themselves over society's choices for their bodies is exactly what transphobes want.
It was never about safety. It was never about the dignity of the masses. Only the thickest terfs swallowed that cover. It was always about lumping as much indignity and cruelty onto trans people as possible so no one ever transitioned.
So please, for the love of fuck, stop posting Leo's picture up with "HIM IN YOUR SPACE?" Because yes. They would love the opportunity to humiliate and belittle Leo. Putting him in women's spaces would do exactly that.
This is exactly the point of bathroom and single sex space bans. It's never been based in logic or morals, it's about making it harder for trans people to exist in public. It's already hard enough to exist as a trans person without all this extra shit. They WANT to make us ashamed. They WANT us to have nowhere safe to go.
What would happen if a trans man went into the female bathroom? He would get kicked out, beaten up or arrested. Or all three. This is already happening. Stop using me and my brothers as a fucking gotcha and focus on the actual enemy.