One retail giant steps forward. One million Americans step back.

In response to recent discrepancies regarding gender-assigned public facilities, Target’s “A Bullseye View”,  has made a undaunted decision, stating that transgender employees as well as customers are permitted to “use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.”

For the hundreds of thousands of transgender individuals whose numbers rise each day, this is but one small step towards societal equality and acceptance. For a vast portion of cisgender Americans, that is, people who identify with their birth sex, this is but another unnecessary call for outrage.

It is undeniable that modern America faces a crisis quite like no other in the history of the nation. Women are subjected to sexual harassment, discrimination, and assault at far more alarming rates than their male counterparts, and are often lead to feel unsafe in even the most public of places. Opposition to the Target policy such as the American Family Association claim that their protest is in the name of women’s protection, those who will be wronged by this “harmful” decision. What these groups fail to consider about those who intend to abuse the policy, however, is that a bathroom predator is not intimidated solely by an androgynous figure in a triangle dress, but rather the presence of witnesses to a public setting. In addition to this concept, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network reports that roughly four out of five assaults are committed by someone known to the victim. The efforts of such groups, therefore, should not be placed in the prevention of spontaneous bathroom assault, but in the reverse of rape culture and its undeniable presence in today’s society.

As this highly debated policy begins to be recognized by Americans across the country, a new controversy presents itself to the public: the idea of unisex bathrooms. Should policies similar to Target’s continue to be implemented,, American restrooms may soon bear witness to a single father escorting his daughter, a son assisting his aging mother,and a transgender individual who feels no apprehension when exercising a human right.

It is time that the nation begins to recognize gender as a spectrum existing on a subjective premise. Target has begun the movement, and it is up to the rest of the nation to enact it.