Without wishing to attack anyone else’s beliefs, I want to pose a few questions to our local Pastor who wrote in a letter about Target’s public stance on their bathrooms. These questions hold no malice, simply curiosity about others’ standings on the matter.

The Pastor said, “I personally would never allow a man to enter a restroom that was used by my wife, my daughters, or my grand-daughters.” While a fine enough opinion on its face, it does raise a few questions for me.

One, what would you advise a father to do when his young, not-quite-fully-potty-trained daughter needs to use the restroom at the store? She is too female for the men’s room, and he too male for the women’s. How shall he assist her?

Next, what do you advise a son to do when he is out with his elderly mother who requires assistance in the bathroom, but does not wish to use the men’s room? Does he simply tell her, “No, Ma, we’ll have to wait ‘til we get home, I hope you can hold it long enough.”

Finally – and I realize this one will be less savory for many to consider – what do you advise the parents of a transgender child to allow? If the child has clearly articulated that they are the opposite gender of which they were born, do you continue to force them to use the “proper” bathroom according to their genitals, which no other bathroom patron will see, or allow them to use the bathroom appropriate for the gender they present as?

I do want to note we have all been sharing public restrooms peacefully with transgendered folks for as long as we’ve been using them, we just normally don’t go checking in their undies for “proof.”