It is all reduced to the potty

One incident in the movie The Help plays out over the course of the movie. A black maid sees a severe storm brewing at a time when she badly needs to use the toilet. She defies her employer and uses the bathroom in the house and is fired. A white character tries to get the state legislature to ban black domestics from using the "white" facilities in a white home. They have their own diseases, you see. Another white family builds a separate bathroom for the help, telling her how pleased she should be to have her own facilities while ignoring how humiliated she feels.

Autumn Sandeen, a transgender woman, notes how many times civil rights issues degenerate into fear of bathroom assault.

Jim Crow demanded separate public facilities for black people.

Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum dismissed the need for the Equal Rights Amendment because it would ban separate public restrooms for men and women and if men used unisex restrooms they couldn't control their sexual urges.

Critics of the Americans with Disabilities Act complained about the expense of accessible bathrooms.

Gay men were (and sometimes still are) accused of being pedophiles and thus made public restrooms unsafe. A big part of the fear of repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell was the fear of gay men attacking their straight colleagues in the latrine and shower.

And a big argument against acceptance of transgender people is that transgender men are really "men in dresses" and do that simply to attack women and children in public restrooms.

Why do these same arguments come up every time a minority fights for rights? Because as a scare tactic it works. Really well.

Sandeen says the issue needs a logical study:

1.) Is bathroom predation of women and children by “men in dresses”/”transvestites” is really a common occurrence? 2.) If it is a common occurrence, is it a more common occurrence in countries, states, provinces, territories, counties, and municipalities where public accommodation antidiscrimination laws based on gender identity have been put into law?

The people who use the bathroom scare haven't done such a study. Why bother when their unsupported claims work just fine? The progressive folks haven't publicized a study yet, though some research has been done. A commenter had been a part of such a study and found when bathroom assaults took place the transgender person was never the perpetrator and always the victim.