New War In The South Against Gay Rights

Back in the day, the Beatles wanted nothing more than to do a concert or two in Russia. It's Ringo's fulfilment of a decades-old dream if you will. Paul McCartney played in Moscow and St.Petersburg in 2004 I think it was, and George Harrison vacationed in Russia a few times in the 80's-90s after Gorbachev's Glasnost became excepted and American and British citizens were welcomed.

 

On my brother's (and his spouse's) annual trip they always meet one of their friends in NC - Charlotte, I think. Anyway, with this happening - and opening the door for businesses everywhere to treat a person as they please, neither they nor I think it would be good nor wise to go to NC.

They will be coming the end of this month, and when they have gone to NC, it is a planned trip and to my mind a lot of money is spent there for just a short time. They will all probably meet up in Atlanta this year.

In NC if a person doesn't know going in to a particular business, an act as simple as getting gas or food could be a problem for a gay person/couple, according to who owns the business...

I believe throughout NC, they are going to feel a financial setback. It seems that money is the only thing (besides being bigots) some of these law-makers understand, or rather care about. Perhaps when they experience and hear enough from businesses about there being much less money, they will rethink this.

 

One of the first things he did in that interview was bring up the old worn-out stereotype that all blacks hate gay people. His comment about Hamlet being a typical small town is pathetic. It was past its prime 50 years ago. Thinking about it makes me hear in my head the Simon and Garfunkel line, "Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town." So, support from Hamlet is not impressive.

The rest of his interview was mostly political doubletalk, showing himself to be nothing more than a slick politician with no personal convictions. And he's not going to do anything but talk.

I already knew that Charlotte had a large gay community, traditionally centered in the Plaza Road area, but some local news outlets are now calling it the fourth largest in the South, behind New Orleans, Miami, and Atlanta. That's believable. Not much of an LGBT presence in Asheville, but McCrory and his more conservative friends are probably hated there more than anywhere else, except on the campus of Appalachian State. And... at Duke University. And the NC School of the Arts. And... you get the picture. He's the one who's out of touch with reality. All these people are not going away, no matter what anybody says or does.

 

Here is a nice summary from The Advocate that encouragingly says this law will not pass challenge in federal court. The underlining was mine and a link to the article is at the bottom.


10 Things We’ve Learned From the North Carolina Debacle

ADVOCATE COMMENTARY
By Brynn Tannehill
April 18 2016

Here's your primer on where we go from here.

Now that several weeks have gone by, the situation in North Carolina appears to have settled into a bloody stalemate. While Gov. Pat McCrory has issued an executive order that protects LGBT state employees, it has been widely seen as a bit of legerdemain that attempts to deflect criticism of the governor without actually addressing the real issues. As a result, local protections still remain overturned, no one can file a civil rights claim in state court (even non-LGBT-related claims), and localities cannot set a local minimum wage higher than the state and federal minimum.

Also, transgender people are still not allowed to go pee where they feel comfortable. It takes some serious chutzpah to tell transgender state workers they can’t be discriminated against on the job but they’re also not allowed to use the bathroom of their choosing unless they have bottom surgery — which state employee insurance plans also do not cover.

Given all of this, what have we learned?

1. It’s the bathrooms, stupid.

The people who are against transgender people being in “their” bathrooms say it’s not about transgender people; this is supposedly all about keeping sexual predators pretending to be transgender out of bathrooms. The folks fighting back against this with pro-LGBT messaging keep trying to pull the conversation back to discrimination claims in state court and losing local LGB protections.

However, as Joe Pesci said, “Everything that guy just said is bullshit.”

The “bathroom predator” is a myth, and the people pushing these laws know this. This law is as much about protecting women and children from predators pretending to be transgender as it is about preventing Jabberwocky attacks. Neither was real to begin with. Thus, the only actual people meant to be affected by this part of the bill are transgender people.

Going after transgender people is the one area where social conservatives still (rightly) think they have popular support. North Carolina is just the first state dumb enough to pass one of these laws. This is going to be the fight of the movement for the foreseeable future. Everything else was just poorly thought out overreach.



2. This is all part of the plan to drive transgender people out of public life.

The Family Research Council has published a five-point plan to “morally legislate [transgender people] out of existence” by passing laws that make it impossible to transition. House Bill 2 accomplishes three of the five by eliminating all legal protections for transgender people, making it illegal to use public bathrooms, and making it nearly impossible for transgender children to go to school as their identified gender. The fact that North Carolina managed to hit these square on, along with so many other state bills, is not a coincidence.

3. The people behind HB 2 are part of Ted Cruz’s election team.

While progressive media types have been wringing their hands over the possibility of a Donald Trump nomination (or presidency), the fact remains that Trump almost certainly cannot get to 1,237 delegates, and Cruz has positioned himself to win at a contested convention. That said, three of the leading proponents of HB 2 are on Cruz’s faith advisory council. This should be terrifying to the LGBT community, especially since Cruz is running neck-and-neck in polls against Hillary Clinton, and she tends to fade hard at the end of campaigns.

If you’re transgender, better update that passport.

4. The truth is irrelevant.

This should be patently obvious by now, but the truth is irrelevant to political debates at this point. Politifact rates 76 percent of Donald Trump’s statements as “Mostly False” or worse, and Ted Cruz fares only slightly better, 66 percent. And they’re the front-runners. Along the same lines, Politifact found that transgender people and their allies were telling the truth when we stated that predators don’t bother pretending to be transgender in order to commit sex crimes. It also rated Ted Cruz’s allegation that schools are forcing kids to get naked with transgender kids as “False.” Politifact further rated McCrory’s disingenuous spin control as “False.”

What progressives are failing to realize is that being truthful and correct doesn’t mean we’ll win. Right-wingers have told a lie that preys on people’s fears and misconceptions, and such lies are impervious to facts. All the polling data we have shows that a majority of the public believes the right-wing narratives about transgender people and supports HB 2. It also doesn’t help that most media outlets keep repeating the lie over and over again.

We’re going to need a bigger narrative.

5. Hit ’em where it hurts… the wallet.

After McCrory signed HB 2, a social media firestorm erupted. It didn’t make a difference; he and sympathetic right-wing media felt confident enough to sit back and ridicule transgender people as men in dresses and “angry liberals.” He didn’t start talking detente until companies like PayPal decided not to expand and the National Basketball Association started talking about taking away the 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte. The Center for American Progress just published a report detailing the $89 million in business already lost because of this law and the $500+ million of future private-sector losses likely to occur if the law isn’t repealed.

The lesson here is that while advocates of direct action might feel good that they made a lot of noise and there’s been some movement, it wasn’t until businesses and performers started costing them money that most North Carolina Republican politicians gave a damn what LGBT people thought. However, making a giant stink may have been part of what motivated these companies to do something tangible.

I know this is hurting the gay community and gay-friendly liberals in the metropolitan areas of this state, but as I mentioned earlier in this thread to Karen, it is a war and collateral damage is a reality. There is no nice way around that.

Hopefully, the other backward Southern states like SC will take heed before enacting these same ridiculous laws that go against the entire civilized world with which they rely on for business. (Even a German bank is boycotting NC) Mississippi is a lost cause - other than their gambling enterprises on the Biloxi Gulf Coast they have no need of outside money - they wallow in their poverty and ignorance. Alabama is likely the same. But, Georgia is trying to avoid this debacle and in SC where it is being considered the sheriffs and other rational ppl are publicly against it. Unfortunately NC is the testing ground for the backward South's self-destructive fundamentalism.

6. The law is unnecessary and unenforceable.

Law enforcement leaders in North and South Carolina have spoken up and stated the obvious: This law is unenforceable. It has no penalties specified. It invites lawsuits if police start strip-searching people, and especially if they get it wrong. They don’t have the manpower to deal with people using bathrooms exactly the way they’re supposed to, and they certainly don’t have the money for DNA testing.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott wrote, “In the 41 years I have been in law enforcement in South Carolina I have never heard of a transgender person attacking or otherwise bothering someone in a restroom. This is a non-issue.”

The law, as written, is exceptionally poorly written. Which brings up the next point…

7. North Carolina’s law is in deep trouble when it gets to court

North Carolina is already being sued by two transgender men, a lesbian, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina, and Equality North Carolina. The state attorney general refuses to defend the law in court. Jillian Weiss of Lambda Legal pointed out in a recent USA Today article that it runs afoul of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Mark Joseph Stern of Slate also pointed out that the law likely runs afoul of Romer v. Evans, Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan, and Reitman v. Mulkey. All HB 2 has to do to be overturned is violate one of them, much less all five.

In short, the odds that none of these favorable cases apply look pretty slim.

8. Did I mention this is really all about transgender people (redux)?

The ban on transgender people is pretextual. Transgender people aren’t hurting anyone in bathrooms. People aren’t pretending to be transgender to do nefarious things. But the law specifically excludes janitors, and makes no mention of actual registered sex offenders and bathrooms.

It also makes no mention of anti-transgender Republican politicians, however.

In just the past few weeks former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert as much as admitted to molesting boys as a high school wrestling coach. The main sponsor of Tennessee’s anti-transgender bills turned out to be a serial sexual harasser of women. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley will likely be indicted for trying to cover up a sex scandal with a former “adviser.”

All Republican politicians, and a perfect illustration that we’d get a lot more bang for the buck keeping them out of bathrooms instead of transgender people.

9. All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again…

..(A)1936 anti-Semitic cartoon published in a Nazi-run publication captioned, “Here, kids, I have some candy for you. But you both have to come with me...”
...(An) American antigay tract published in 1986.
...(one that) came out this year right after Charlotte passed its nondiscrimination ordinance. All of them accuse minorities of being pedophiles and perverts in order to whip up hatred. In the first two cases, minorities were successfully demonized by this propaganda, with terrible consequences (does Reagan’s response to the AIDS crisis ring a bell?).

Based on all the available evidence, right-wing hate groups like the Liberty Counsel, Family Research Council, and Alliance Defending Freedom are succeeding at doing the same thing to transgender people. It’s up to us to keep the inevitable body count down.

10. Get a new plan, Stan.

Credit where credit is due: The LGBT movement has stood firm behind the transgender community on this. There have been calls from some LGB quarters to “dump the T,” and some political observers suggesting that perhaps the movement should leave transgender issues for now and come back to them later. The latter looks particularly foolish, however, in light of what’s happened in Massachusetts and New York when this strategy was attempted.

Anti-transgender laws pushed by hate groups are growing much more common, and getting further and further through the legislative cycles as conservatives latch on to this as a “winnable” social issue. (Not that they’ve had many since 2004.) The tactics, mobilization, and messaging used so far have only been partly successful. Public opinion remains dominated by fear, ignorance, and innuendo driven by right-wing lies and fearmongering. The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance fiasco serves as a perfect illustration of exactly what not to do.

While some leaders correctly see this as a sign that we’re winning in the long run, the trick is to not be eradicated in the short run before we get to the winning part.

Sort of makes the whole winning thing a moot point in that case.

Which is why transgender-led organizations like the TransUnited Fund have sprung up to assist grassroots level organizing. While it hasn’t been clear what the right approach is, it clearly is not avoiding the issue, leaving transgender people out of the conversation, ignoring communities of color, and trying to change the subject. Taking it on and changing the polling numbers is going to require years of outreach by transgender people and their allies as well as a better ground game (as illustrated by a recent study.) And make no mistake, this is going to be a long fight. Interracial marriage wasn’t supported by a majority of Americans until the 1990s.

In the short run, however, we’re going to simply have to count on good legal teams to prevent the worst of the damage.


http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/4/18/10-things-weve-learned-north-carolina-debacle

 

Of course, boycotts won't influence federal court rulings at all.

Since I'm not okay with being collateral damage, maybe I should consider switching to the wrong side. Ironically, my support would be appreciated there.

 

But, you know you can't do that. You are intelligent, astute and have a sense of decency, a rare individual where you live. I am really sorry about your plight.

I hate that I have to live with the embarrassing backwardness of Floriduh but it has never actually affected me financially. SoFlo is just profitable enuf to make the backwater fundamentalists leave us alone. In fact, we take in more money for the state than they shell out.

Charlotte was a little jewel of a city in a decaying Old South state that did not appreciate what it was and what it would become had they just let them make municipal ordinances that any modern city needs for international competition.

 

I'll still buy stuff from North Carolina. It's not like everyone there supports the law. NC business people still need to make a living. I just went shopping on Amazon and ordered a few Freakers, which happen to be made in Wilmington NC

 

You're the first person to say that, and I appreciate it.

Imagine how weird it must be to be a member of NC's LGBT community and find out today that you're being laid off from your job because of the boycott. I'm sure that happened to a few people. How are they supposed to feel? What are they supposed to think?

Thank you! I'm sure more focused and efficient ways to fight this law will be found; legal funds, political action committees, etc. after liberal activists have a little more time to get organized and study their options. A blanket boycott of all activity is like using a shotgun when you need a sniper rifle.

And for anybody contemplating not following through with their plans to go to Charlotte or Asheville, conservative leaders in Raleigh would LOVE to see both of those cities suffer. That's never going to motivate Raleigh to change anything at all. Behind closed doors, the Republicans would probably laugh about it.

The situation is quite parallel to the endless hostility between New Orleans and Baton Rouge in Louisiana. There are plenty of right wing hardcore people in Baton Rouge that would love to see New Orleans sink into the ocean. They keep passing conservative laws, and New Orleans simply ignores them. Not sure we can do that in NC. Asheville tries sometimes. America has responded to Louisiana's feud by supporting New Orleans and generally ignoring Baton Rouge. I don't find any fault with that.

 

Latest cancellations: Pearl Jam and Boston. Pearl Jam's press release appeared to confuse the new NC law with the one in Mississippi. NC does not allow private businesses to refuse to serve LGBT individuals, nor does it dictate a specific bathroom policy for privately owned businesses. Well... at least the Pearl Jam cancellation is for the city of Raleigh, which makes sense.

Mumford & Sons yesterday joined Cyndi Lauper in choosing to keep NC on their tour but use the event as a fundraiser for efforts to repeal the new law. Styx and Journey are still on the calendar for Greensboro, and haven't made a public statement.

No country music artists have cancelled anything around here, since most country music fans oppose LGBT rights at least to some degree.

Just about every business conference and convention in NC this summer has already been cancelled or relocated to another state. The majority of advertising, marketing activities, promotions, and expansion plans by out of state companies, already put on ice.

During the election in which the Republicans took over our state government, a huge amount of out of state money poured in. This fall, NC Democrats need a similar amount of campaign cash, so we can start fixing this mess.

 

The wrong side of what? It's mostly the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Bryan adams that have fueled media attention with this non issue.

Every time, any LGBT issue always gets overrun by conservative political parties on one side, dogooders on the other. In this case in an election year


Seriously, what does this have to do with us? The T in the LGBT, they seriously have any kind of voice with this, that isn't drowned out by everyone else with their own little agenda

You are probably going to get your nose out of joint, and I am sorry you are losing business, but your motivation about this issue is obviously financial. You don't think we can tell?

LGT (I refuse to include the B), they don't come up and give you a big hug for your genuine support....you really need to wonder why?

 

I'm one of those horrible people who wants to eat and pay their bills. How can I face myself in the mirror every day? :yikes:

I've hated group punishments ever since childhood, when my lazy teachers would punish the whole class because some troublemakers were acting up. Punishing an entire state is the same thing on a much larger scale. Good people want to fight unfairness wherever they find it.

Also, a lot of other states have ridiculous laws. For example, parents in Idaho who believe in faith healing don't have to take their kids to the doctor even when they're seriously ill. If the child dies, the parents get in no trouble. That's legal child abuse! Why aren't we boycotting Idaho? And what about all the states with extreme restrictions on abortion and/or black voting rights? Half the states in the US probably deserve to be boycotted for one reason or another, applying the current standard of the far left.

I've said it before, there are a lot of lazy liberals in the US currently trying to react in a very simplistic way that will make them feel better about themselves without having to make much of an effort.

In real life (not online), I have limited encounters with the LGBT community, so I don't think many of them have an opinion of me at all. We just don't spend much time in the same places.

I don't think I carry liberalism far enough to please the average LGBT activist.

 

Well, bit by bit they are coming for NC stupid law.

[SIZE=24pt]Federal appeals court overturns transgender bathroom rule[/SIZE]
Associated Press
April 19, 2016

RICHMOND, Va. -- A policy barring a transgender student from using the boys' restrooms at his Virginia high school is discriminatory, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

In a case closely watched by public schools and transgender-rights activists across the country, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Gloucester County School Board's policy. A federal judge had previously rejected Gloucester High School student Gavin Grimm's sex discrimination claim.

Transgender rights have become the latest civil rights battleground issue across the country after the Supreme Court laid to rest the gay marriage debate when it ruled last year that same-sex couples had the right to marry. The issue was thrust further into public consciousness in 2015 when Olympic athlete and reality TV star Bruce Jenner disclosed his transgender identity and name change to Caitlyn Jenner.

The appeals court's ruling establishes legal precedent in every state in the 4th Circuit, including North Carolina, which faces a lawsuit challenging a new state law requiring transgender people to use the public bathroom that corresponds to the sex listed on their birth certificate. The sweeping law, which also barred cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances like one recently passed in Charlotte, has prompted a national backlash. Businesses and politicians have announced boycotts of North Carolina, and legal challenges ensure that the wedge issue will dominate Republican Gov. Pat McCrory's re-election campaign.

Other states in the 4th Circuit are Maryland, West Virginia and South Carolina.

Grimm was born female but identifies as male. He was allowed to use the boys' restrooms at the school for several weeks in 2014. But after some parents complained, the school board adopted a policy requiring students to use either the restroom that corresponds with their biological gender or a private, single-stall restroom.

Grimm called the policy stigmatizing. School officials said the policy respects the privacy of all students.

The U.S. Justice Department filed a "statement of interest" in Grimm's case in July, declaring that failure to allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity amounts to sex discrimination.

Grimm, 16, said he started refusing to wear girls' clothes by age 6 and told his parents he was transgender in April 2014.

Grimm's parents helped him legally change his name, and a psychologist diagnosed him with gender dysphoria, characterized by stress stemming from conflict between one's gender identity and assigned sex at birth. Grimm began hormone treatment to deepen his voice and give him a more masculine appearance.

 

Your post is utterly hypocritical. It makes no sense whatsoever and you clearly have an agenda you want to thump across. Other than that, its fine

Clearly, you have no interest in protecting children from the systematic indoctrination of extremists.

 

I'm going to surprise some folks with my unpopular opinions. All I can say is that even though I'm a progressive, I think for myself and sometimes agree with conservatives.

Maybe it's because I am the father of a girl. Also I have noticed that the LGBT community is very extremist and never considers the feelings or rights of most non-LGBT people. They come on so strong against every attempt to protect children from unusual sexuality or nudity. I am on the side of parents who don't want their young daughters to see a penis near them. That seems reasonable and in fact, if daughters cannot be prevented from seeing penises, this would be a huge change in the psyche of the nation and I don't think this should be rammed through, because we are not ready for it. We don't even allow children to see breasts on TV. I was completely unimpressed by the argument that there is not one case of men or boys pretending to be LGBT in order to get into a women's room. I am sure that this will happen in the future. It's just human nature, but the LGBT people completely deny that.

Having said that, I recently changed my mind about the bathroom bills.

I now think they are wrong, but only because of the physical layout of women's rooms. Private parts are not on display there, unlike men's rooms, where the lack of "modesty panels" is very common and men can see other men's penises.

The other thing about the reaction of conservatives to bathroom bills is that they feel it's a slippery slope and the next thing will surely be locker rooms, where lots of bare skin can be seen. I side with the conservatives on this point. I would be against allowing anyone with a penis into a girls' locker room. I would change my mind only if I could be convinced that girls' locker rooms are completely different from men's, where naked men are walking around.

I never hear LGBT people show any consideration for young children, unless they are transgender. This bothers me a lot.

 

All I can say is that even though I'm a progressive, ..
This post does not support that at all

Maybe it's because I am the father of a girl. Also I have noticed that the LGBT community is very extremist and never considers the feelings or rights of most non-LGBT people. They come on so strong against every attempt to protect children from unusual sexuality or nudity. I am on the side of parents who don't want their young daughters to see a penis near them. That seems reasonable and in fact, if daughters cannot be prevented from seeing penises, this would be a huge change in the psyche of the nation and I don't think this should be rammed through, because we are not ready for it. We don't even allow children to see breasts on TV. I was completely unimpressed by the argument that there is not one case of men or boys pretending to be LGBT in order to get into a women's room. I am sure that this will happen in the future. It's just human nature, but the LGBT people completely deny that.

Ref my comment on "Progressive." This attitude seems quite Mainstream Culture to me - the one that we progressives and Hippies rebelled against in the '60s.

Apparently, you have never attended a pop festival or lived communally where we progressives threw off our old cultural constraints and went skinny dipping with hundreds of other men, women and CHILDREN, who seemed to accommodate seeing penises and female breasts without being harmed at all.

BTW, these were str8 ppl as well as gay ppl. We all had our own sexuality - accepted by the others.

Having said that, I recently changed my mind about the bathroom bills.

I now think they are wrong, but only because of the physical layout of women's rooms. Private parts are not on display there, unlike men's rooms, where the lack of "modesty panels" is very common and men can see other men's penises.

Every modern men's room that I have been in has a barrier between urinals and I would have to bend my head over that to see the other guy's penis, usually with his hand on it. So a little girl could walk into a men's room and see men standing at urinals, that is all.

Now WTF is a little girl going to be doing in a men's room? We are talking about adolescents who usually got thru the process of transitioning, or if a girl child is dressing like a boy she will use the commode, same as a boy child dressing like a girl. The commode stalls are almost as private as a separate room where no one sees anything.

The other thing about the reaction of conservatives to bathroom bills is that they feel it's a slippery slope and the next thing will surely be locker rooms, where lots of bare skin can be seen. I side with the conservatives on this point. I would be against allowing anyone with a penis into a girls' locker room. I would change my mind only if I could be convinced that girls' locker rooms are completely different from men's, where naked men are walking around.

Towels. When I was a kid in the midwest in the early '60s we had those open communal showers, just like we had in the Air Force. IDK if they still use those but they likely have individual showers by now. You can wrap a towel before entering the shower and pulling the curtain. Most transgender women will likely be growing breasts and the penis would be concealed for her modesty. It is not like a testosterone fueled guy will be in the women's locker room, this is a person who has given up on male characteristics and is receiving female hormones.

I never hear LGBT people show any consideration for young children, unless they are transgender. This bothers me a lot.

How about the two men in Floriduh who were foster parents to an HIV positive child. They wanted to adopt the child to give it more permanence and security. The state of Floriduh would not let gay couples adopt, so these guys took it to court and fought it for years,. finally being able to adopt the adolescent. I think that showed a lot of consideration for a young child.

 

It's all well and fine to expand one's consciousness in whatever way you want, but then to force your views on the unenlightened seems arrogant. Are we actually arguing that at this point in time, we need to force everyone and their children to change their deep-felt attitudes on privacy and modesty all of a sudden? Coming right after forcing them to accept the idea of gay marriage? It would seem to many (not me) that this is leading to unisex everything, no privacy, open nudity.

I have been in many, many men's rooms that did not have modesty panels. In fact, the one at work does not have one between the two urinals. I've observed that very few men will stand next to another man to urinate, I assume because they are so mortified at the idea of another man seeing their penis. Since I'm so enlightened (ahem), I don't let it stop me. I can remember when Fenway Park only had long troughs for the men, so that there would be the spectacle of many men hanging their penises out urinating over the rim. Actually, recently I was in the SuperDome in New Orleans and I saw the same thing. I was very surprised to see that in a relatively modern facility.

When I said what I said about LGBT people lacking consideration of children's feelings, I was specifically talking about the locker room issue, not in general.

 

I have a young son. One day he will be too old to use the ladies room with me and i will have to worry while he uses the men's room by himself if his dad isnt with us.

This is why i cant really buy the whole protecting our daughters argument.

Predators will be predators no matter what bathroom transgenders are allowed to use.

The whole thing is nonsense.

 

When you compare to the amount of time it took to accomplish anything worthwhile in women's rights and racial equality, the pace of progress with LGBT rights has been truly amazing. Probably too fast for some places, especially areas where a significant number of adults rarely encounter an openly gay person and never, ever see a transgender in public. It's hard to convince them that fully addressing these issues by the end of this year is our highest priority.

I work in a city of more than 250,000 people and I couldn't tell you the last time I saw somebody I thought reasonably sure to be transgender. I think it was last fall. Maybe they're just doing a really good job with cosmetic issues.

I would be fine with European-style unisex everything, but I know we aren't ready for that, and probably won't be anytime soon. My parents' generation needs to die out first.

Children will require the least convincing. My best friend works in a public school, and she says the kindergarteners have no idea why privacy in the bathroom is important. They have to be constantly reminded to close doors.

 

I don't think I understand this issue. Having been alive for a while and having had the misfortune of having to use public "rest"-rooms, I have never been aware of anything out of the ordinary. Men DO NOT talk to one another in rest rooms. It's not a place to chat. You piss or poop and get the fuck oughta' there. I've never seen it any other way. If somebody had tried to peek at my dick, I would have elbowed them in the snot-box.

So anyway, if a female trans has been in a bathroom I've used, I'm sure she used a stall. Conversely, if a male to a female trans was to use a rest room, I'm sure a stall would be used. Are what these people concerned about is that a female with a penis is going to start waving it around in the womens rest room---" looky here what I still have," seems quite unlikely. A male to a female is hardly going to announce in a mens restroom--"Looky here boys--etc. People go in the shitter, get their business over with and have doubts whether
anyone actually knows what goes on behind closed stall doors, so I don't get it. Maybe I'm naive or something? What in the world is the attraction to worrying about this?

 

Right, I agree mostly. I think the concern is that some are thinking "What's next? Locker rooms?" And that is a different and more concerning issue that we will eventually have to deal with.