Today's missing link is common ground

They say "pick your battle." But what to do when every day there's a new war.

Common ground. I’ve been thinking of these two words lately because it seems we can agree on nothing. Every day presents a new battle.

In the state where I live, legislators are concerned about who is using which bathroom. They say your gender at birth takes priority. They say they fear sexual predators in the bathroom.

Until recently, I’d never given this much thought. I have trans friends who navigate this quietly, carefully, every day. I didn’t think about their vulnerability until legislators decided to make it everyone’s business.

As a cisgender woman, I’ve often used “the wrong” bathroom—ducking into the men’s room when the women’s line is too long. I simply walked in, tried to shield my eyes at the unguarded urinals, made haste and left. Each time a male encountered me, he smiled and went about his own business. No one called security. No one questioned my right to be there.

That’s the difference. I broke the “rule” out of convenience and faced zero consequences. Trans people are just trying to exist - and now face criminalization for the same act.

Yet Indiana legislators think this is the battle to wage in this moment - manufacturing crises about bathrooms while ignoring healthcare, education, infrastructure. They’re prioritizing culture-war theatrics over constituents’ actual needs, policing bodies instead of solving problems.

Today is the Point in Time count—the annual effort to count every unhoused person in our communities. Where I live

YWCA of Central Indiana leads this charge. Volunteers are out in the bitter cold, searching shelters, transitional housing, and outdoor spaces where people huddle against the weather. The data they gather determines federal funding and programs for our most vulnerable neighbors. This is the work happening while our legislators obsess over which bathroom transgender people use.

Here is the tragic irony: supporters claim they want to protect privacy in bathrooms. Yet enforcing this legislation would require invasive monitoring of people who simply want to keep their business to themselves.

I do not expect all my friends or family to always believe as I do. But these days, I long for common ground. Maybe a good place to start is letting people use the bathroom in peace

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