US debate over transgender bathroom access spreads nationwide

[webfact]

Debate over transgender bathroom access spreads nationwide
By DAVID CRARY

There was a showdown in Houston last fall. This spring, North Carolina became the battleground. By now, confrontations have flared across the country over whether to protect or curtail the right of transgender people to use public restrooms in accordance with their gender identity.

The upshot, in virtually every case, has been emotional debate over privacy, personal safety and prejudice.

Many of those who favor limiting transgender rights contend that expanding anti-bias protections to bathrooms and locker rooms raises the risk of sexual predators exploiting the laws to molest women and girls on those premises.

Transgender-rights advocates consider this argument malicious and false. They say that 18 states and scores of cities have experienced no significant public safety problems linked to their existing laws allowing transgender people to use bathrooms based on the gender they consider themselves to be.

On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department weighed in, suing to overturn North Carolina's new law restricting transgender bathroom access and warning that any similar measures elsewhere in the country could also face challenges on grounds they violate federal nondiscrimination rules. North Carolina has sued to keep the law in place.

Washington state is among the many jurisdictions with ongoing debate over bathroom access. Conservative activists are gathering signatures with hopes of putting a measure on the November ballot that would override state and local protections against gender-identity discrimination in public accommodations and require public schools to restrict transgender students' bathroom and locker room access.

"Stand with us as we stand to protect women and children from this dangerous rule," says a group pushing the ballot measure, in its online appeal for volunteers and donations. The group is called Just Want Privacy, reflecting the view that opposition to the laws goes beyond safety concerns for some.

Among those supporting the current rules and opposing the ballot initiative is John Lovick, former sheriff of Snohomish County.

"We've protected gay and transgender people from discrimination in Washington for 10 years, with no increase in public safety incidents as a result," he said. "It's important to remember that indecent exposure, voyeurism, and sexual assault, are already illegal, and police use those laws to keep people safe."

A current sheriff, John Urquhart of the Seattle area's King County, also defends the existing law. "I'm the father of two daughters. I'm not concerned," he says.

On the other side of the country, similar arguments are percolating in Massachusetts, which — despite its liberal tendencies — is not among the states banning discrimination against transgender people in restrooms and other public accommodations.

A bill to do that is advancing through the state legislature this spring. The state's Republican governor, Charlie Baker, has not committed to signing the bill if it reaches his desk but has said he opposes discrimination in any form.

To assuage critics who say male sexual predators might take advantage of the proposed change by claiming to identify as female, language has been added to the House version of the bill to allow legal action against anyone who makes an "improper" claim of gender identity.

Some critics of the bill were unimpressed by the addition, citing concerns about privacy.

"It still offers no protections to women and children who don't want to be eyed by or exposed to naked men in locker rooms or other intimate spaces," said Jonathan Alexandre, legal counsel for the Massachusetts Family Institute.

In South Carolina, lawmakers considered — but did not approve — a bill that would have required transgender people to use public bathrooms based on their biological sex. In opposing the bill, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said it addressed "a nonissue."

Elsewhere, the bathroom debate has flared on the local level. In the Dallas suburb of Rockwall, city councilors rejected the mayor's push to block transgender people from using the public bathrooms of their choice. In Oxford, Alabama, the city council approved such a restriction, complete with criminal penalties, then repealed it a week later.

The issue jumped into the spotlight last fall, after the Houston City Council adopted a wide-ranging nondiscrimination ordinance that included protections for transgender people using restrooms based on gender identity.

Opponents of the ordinance gathered enough signatures for a repeal referendum, then mounted a campaign using the slogan "No Men in Women's Bathrooms." By a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent, the anti-bias ordinance was repealed.

In March, the North Carolina legislature — reacting to a Houston-style nondiscrimination ordinance adopted by the city of Charlotte — hastily passed a law which limits protections for LGBT people and requires transgender people to use public bathrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate. The law has been assailed by gay-rights groups, businesses, sports leagues and entertainers, and is now the subject of the dueling state and federal lawsuits.

Among those defending the new law is Phil Berger, Republican leader of the state Senate, who contends that the Charlotte ordinance was dangerous.

"Ill-intentioned, non-transgender individuals, some with criminal pasts, have used similar ordinances elsewhere in the country to gain legal access to changing facilities and bathrooms of minors of the opposite sex," Berger wrote in an April 19 letter to business executives.

Asked for examples of such cases, Berger's office provided links to a few recent news articles. One concerned a man who reportedly entered a women's locker room in a Seattle park, started undressing and said, when asked to leave, "The law has changed and I have a right to be here."

The man eventually left after being confronted by park employees; no charges were filed.

Other cases cited by Berger and his allies involve voyeurs and peeping toms who tried to film or photograph women in restrooms or dressing rooms. Transgender-rights supporters who've checked out these cases say the incidents generally led to an arrest and had no direct connection to laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity.

The claims that nondiscrimination laws are dangerous "capitalize on the general public's lack of knowledge and understanding of who transgender people really are," said Dru Levasseur, Transgender Rights Project director for the LGBT-rights group Lambda Legal. "It gets down to prejudice and it's not based on any kind of reality."

Activists say transgender people already experience above-average levels of violence and harassment, and would be at extra risk if required to use restrooms that do not match their gender identity.

The surge of disputes over transgender rights began last year after social conservatives lost a long battle to prevent the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage. The debate over bathroom and locker room access is now one of two main battlefronts for many of those who opposed gay marriage, along with efforts to allow certain types of anti-LGBT discrimination if based on religious beliefs.

At the local level, the transgender-rights disputes have often boiled down to visceral debates over school policies for bathroom and locker room use. Among them:

—The school board in Virginia's Gloucester County is challenging a federal court ruling that a transgender teen must be allowed to use the boys' restroom at school.

—In the Chicago suburb of Palatine, 51 families are taking legal action in a bid to stop the school district from allowing a transgender student to use a girls' locker room. An attorney for the families, Jocelyn Floyd, said the federal Education Department had pressured the school district into a "dangerous social experiment." Edwin Yohnka of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which has represented the transgender student, depicted the lawsuit as "a sad development by groups opposed to fair and humane treatment of all students."

—In Texas, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is demanding the resignation of a Fort Worth school superintendent, Kent Scribner, who helped draft restroom guidelines accommodating transgender students.

—In Florida's Marion County, the school board voted to require that students use the bathrooms and other facilities based on their biological sex. Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal group, said it pushed for the policy after learning that a devout Christian boy was "extremely upset when he encountered a female student in the boy's bathroom at his high school."

"The passage of laws declaring a 'right' to bathroom and locker room accesses based on 'gender identity' defies common sense and puts women at risk," Liberty Counsel says on its website.

Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel's chairman, cited a 2012 incident at Evergreen State College in Washington state — a school with a policy allowing people to access bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity. There was a police investigation, but no arrest, after some girls from a local high school swim team complained that they saw a person with male genitalia in the sauna area of the women's locker room they were using.

The college said the person seen by the girls identified as a woman and was entitled to be at the sauna. It subsequently added some screening to prevent possible recurrences.


-- (c) Associated Press 2016-05-11

[helpisgood]

It's amazing that this is even a public issue. I don't recall a problem with transgender people using public restrooms before. As Chris Wallace at Fox said after researching the issue, "...it's a solution in search of a problem."

My only guess is that it just has to do with certain folks having very negative, insensitive and stereotyped impressions about transgender people. It is one thing if someone is not comfortable with the LGBT scene. It is another to not realize that they are just basically people like you and me. However, for whatever reason or reasons, they may have different personal issues that may be hard for us to understand.

Aren't there many more serious problems in this world right now other than playing bathroom monitor?

Edited May 11, 2016 by helpisgood

[NickJ]

Stupidity......Or maybe they are talking about those giant public restrooms without stalls????

[ggt]

If a woman wants to use the men's toilet she should be required to stand-up to pee...

If a man wants to use the woman's toilet...a man with a knife will be waiting just inside the door to take care of your sex change...

Problem solved...

[kamahele]

This is an issue created by Republican politicians to pander to bigots and morons.

[mesterm]

If a woman wants to use the men's toilet she should be required to stand-up to pee...

If a man wants to use the woman's toilet...a man with a knife will be waiting just inside the door to take care of your sex change...

Problem solved...

Okay Fred Flintstone.

[Pinot]

It's amazing that this is even a public issue. I don't recall a problem with transgender people using public restrooms before. As Chris Wallace at Fox said after researching the issue, "...it's a solution in search of a problem."

My only guess is that it just has to do with certain folks having very negative, insensitive and stereotyped impressions about transgender people. It is one thing if someone is not comfortable with the LGBT scene. It is another to not realize that they are just basically people like you and me. However, for whatever reason or reasons, they may have different personal issues that may be hard for us to understand.

Aren't there many more serious problems in this world right now other than playing bathroom monitor?

Not if you're a Republican wingnut. It's all you think about.

Stupidity......Or maybe they are talking about those giant public restrooms without stalls????

No, it's stupidity...and hate. Your Republican base in action.

This is an issue created by Republican politicians to pander to bigots and morons.

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner, boys and girls! Exactly the right answer.

[wabothai]

All talking 'shit'.

[Khon Kaen Dave]

What about the perverts that arent true trans gender but throw on a frock,a touch of Elizabeth Arden round the eyes and then have unopposed access to girls toilets and locker rooms.i can see that point also.

[Krataiboy]

This little sketch from my all-time politically incorrect favourite TV show, says it all. . .

[thaihome]

What about the perverts that arent true trans gender but throw on a frock,a touch of Elizabeth Arden round the eyes and then have unopposed access to girls toilets and locker rooms.i can see that point also.

If you had read the article, you might have noticed that argument has been throughly debunked.

This is all about the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage and the last gasp of the religious right to continue the fight to have biblical law in the US.

TH

[dunroaming]

Can't see the problem. On the left have the ladies toilet, on the right have the men's toilet and then in the middle something for the transgenders.

[Jingthing]

Can't see the problem. On the left have the ladies toilet, on the right have the men's toilet and then in the middle something for the transgenders.

No. That's not how it works in the U.S. It's not Thailand. There is no "third sex" paradigm there. Gender identity is the thing and that trumps the genitals you are born with. So if a male transgender to female identifies as female then that person chooses the most sensible facilities to use for them that is most comfortable for them and the least disruptive for the public. So right now Caitlyn Jenner is fully presenting as a female (but she still has a penis, so what?) so it would be disruptive to use men's facilities, so she doesn't, but the bigot fanatics want to criminalize that sensible choice.

People need a lot of time to make the transition, and people choose for themselves how far to go with it physically, so yes, there are grey areas. It is not practical to build third gender toilets everywhere.

[luk AJ]

Can't see the problem. On the left have the ladies toilet, on the right have the men's toilet and then in the middle something for the transgenders.

No. That's not how it works in the U.S. It's not Thailand. There is no "third sex" paradigm there. Gender identity is the thing and that trumps the genitals you are born with. So if a male transgender to female identifies as female then that person chooses the most sensible facilities to use for them that is most comfortable for them and the least disruptive for the public. So right now Caitlyn Jenner is fully presenting as a female (but she still has a penis, so what?) so it would be disruptive to use men's facilities, so she doesn't, but the bigot fanatics want to criminalize that sensible choice.

People need a lot of time to make the transition, and people choose for themselves how far to go with it physically, so yes, there are grey areas. It is not practical to build third gender toilets everywhere.

If there are only toilets for men and women there can't be a "gray" area right? No exceptions or IMO, the only democratic solution would be; no separation anymore between male and female toilets. This is what equal rights is about no? As such proposal would be rejected by the majority back to square1 which is no exceptions.

[Jingthing]

It's not practical to have bathroom police checking birth certificates at toilets. The sex crimes in toilets the lunatic paranoids are fear mongering about are already illegal so no law change is needed. Recent polling shows the majority of Americans are against these bigot transphobic "toilet" laws. Ted Cruz, far right wing republican anti-GLBT fanatic, tried to use this issue to save his campaign. It failed. This noise from the right wing will be around for awhile but it will fade with time. Even Trump, and I am not fan as he's a psychopathic demagogue, is against the transphobic bigot laws.

[Chicog]

Can't see the problem. On the left have the ladies toilet, on the right have the men's toilet and then in the middle something for the transgenders.

[luk AJ]

It's not practical to have bathroom police checking birth certificates at toilets. The sex crimes in toilets the lunatic paranoids are fear mongering about are already illegal so no law change is needed. Recent polling shows the majority of Americans are against these bigot transphobic "toilet" laws. Ted Cruz, far right wing republican anti-GLBT fanatic, tried to use this issue to save his campaign. It failed. This noise from the right wing will be around for awhile but it will fade with time. Even Trump, and I am not fan as he's a psychopathic demagogue, is against the transphobic bigot laws.

Don't understand me wrong, in my toilet everybody is welcome (as a matter of speech). You are right it is unpractical to check birth certificates at toilets but even more unpractical to check the level of transformation. There are as many reasons to be "for" or "against" so people should be free to choose. It sounds stupid indeed, but I don't see another solution.

[Jingthing]

Yes as it has been without problems before the bigot laws. People choose.

[RKASA]

Can't see the problem. On the left have the ladies toilet, on the right have the men's toilet and then in the middle something for the transgenders.

No. That's not how it works in the U.S. It's not Thailand. There is no "third sex" paradigm there. Gender identity is the thing and that trumps the genitals you are born with. So if a male transgender to female identifies as female then that person chooses the most sensible facilities to use for them that is most comfortable for them and the least disruptive for the public. So right now Caitlyn Jenner is fully presenting as a female (but she still has a penis, so what?) so it would be disruptive to use men's facilities, so she doesn't, but the bigot fanatics want to criminalize that sensible choice.

People need a lot of time to make the transition, and people choose for themselves how far to go with it physically, so yes, there are grey areas. It is not practical to build third gender toilets everywhere.

If there are only toilets for men and women there can't be a "gray" area right? No exceptions or IMO, the only democratic solution would be; no separation anymore between male and female toilets. This is what equal rights is about no? As such proposal would be rejected by the majority back to square1 which is no exceptions.

This is why I pointed out when this first started that it is not a gender issue - it is a building code issue - not properly made bathrooms in the first place - and it is being used by both sides just to piss off the rest of us that have a brain and use it. I don't have male and female bathrooms at home - do you? The federal government which loves to make laws and mandates can order all bathrooms protect everyone's use of it by making them function properly and then sue every state and make them rebuild them all - this will also solve the problem of the long lines at the women bathroom during events and ensure everyone has a long and expensive line to stand in. Call it promoting the general welfare..

[luk AJ]

Can't see the problem. On the left have the ladies toilet, on the right have the men's toilet and then in the middle something for the transgenders.

No. That's not how it works in the U.S. It's not Thailand. There is no "third sex" paradigm there. Gender identity is the thing and that trumps the genitals you are born with. So if a male transgender to female identifies as female then that person chooses the most sensible facilities to use for them that is most comfortable for them and the least disruptive for the public. So right now Caitlyn Jenner is fully presenting as a female (but she still has a penis, so what?) so it would be disruptive to use men's facilities, so she doesn't, but the bigot fanatics want to criminalize that sensible choice.

People need a lot of time to make the transition, and people choose for themselves how far to go with it physically, so yes, there are grey areas. It is not practical to build third gender toilets everywhere.

If there are only toilets for men and women there can't be a "gray" area right? No exceptions or IMO, the only democratic solution would be; no separation anymore between male and female toilets. This is what equal rights is about no? As such proposal would be rejected by the majority back to square1 which is no exceptions.

This is why I pointed out when this first started that it is not a gender issue - it is a building code issue - not properly made bathrooms in the first place - and it is being used by both sides just to piss off the rest of us that have a brain and use it. I don't have male and female bathrooms at home - do you? The federal government which loves to make laws and mandates can order all bathrooms protect everyone's use of it by making them function properly and then sue every state and make them rebuild them all - this will also solve the problem of the long lines at the women bathroom during events and ensure everyone has a long and expensive line to stand in. Call it promoting the general welfare..

Exactly! They should indeed rethink the whole toilet concept so they are accessible for all genders. Next objection will be religion....

[arjunadawn]

This issue spread nationwide when it was contrived to create one more fractured, victim class for the Progressive movement. I make zero commentary on validity or necessity of protections or the public debate, only that the entire issue is generated, contrived, and rolled out from a political machine. By now, the ability to do this most be perfected. The problem is, there are no longer any real targets left in America.

Everyone except the white American male has already been identified, culled from the herd, given victim status and special protections, and then made militant to vote for "their" own special interest.

...the war on women, the war on gays, gay marriage, the war on moms, blacks, drugs, Latinos, poor, middle class, Mexicans, illegal immigrants, muslims, LGBTs, bathrooms, safe zones, offense, "I feel therefore its real," arghhhh. Like the Jailhouse Mamma in Chicago,if you agree to 'protection' in the US, you are a protected class.

@.45 the entire arrangement is captured in this video

[Krataiboy]

This issue spread nationwide when it was contrived to create one more fractured, victim class for the Progressive movement. I make zero commentary on validity or necessity of protections or the public debate, only that the entire issue is generated, contrived, and rolled out from a political machine. By now, the ability to do this most be perfected. The problem is, there are no longer any real targets left in America.

Everyone except the white American male has already been identified, culled from the herd, given victim status and special protections, and then made militant to vote for "their" own special interest.

...the war on women, the war on gays, gay marriage, the war on moms, blacks, drugs, Latinos, poor, middle class, Mexicans, illegal immigrants, muslims, LGBTs, bathrooms, safe zones, offense, "I feel therefore its real," arghhhh. Like the Jailhouse Mamma in Chicago,if you agree to 'protection' in the US, you are a protected class.

@.45 the entire arrangement is captured in this video

You forgot single moms. In the UK instead of marrying the fathers of their children, many prefer to marry the state and live off the proceeds.

[stander]

Police in Idaho Falls , Idaho, arrested a man dressed as a woman who claimed to be transgender and charged him with voyeurism for taking photos of a women in the changing room of a Target store, reports reveal.

46-year-old Sean Patrick Smith was arrested when a Target customer said she saw Smith using his cell phone to take images of a woman removing her clothing in the store’s women’s changing room, according to Daily Caller.

“The woman was begging for help as she chased the man out the door. She kept saying she wanted those pictures deleted,” a witness told EastIdahoNews.com.

Read more: http://www.bizpacreview.com/2016/07/13/target-wouldnt-listen-to-conservatives-man-identifying-as-a-woman-does-the-unthinkable-in-idaho-store-364663#ixzz4ELmTdJeO

[up-country_sinclair]

These people are not women.

They are men who for whatever reason want to pretend they are women.

This is the real world and these people don't deserve special rights. Particularly when it puts our wives and daughters at risk.

They can use the men's room like every other man. Or they can use the single stall handicapped bathroom should one be available. Other than that, they can hold it until they get home.

[Ulysses G.]

These people are not women.

They are men who for whatever reason want to pretend they are women.

This is the real world and these people don't deserve special rights. Particularly when it puts our wives and daughters at risk.

They can use the men's room like every other man. Or they can use the single stall handicapped bathroom should one be available. Other than that, they can hold it until they get home.

There is a first time for everything. I agree with you.

[PTC]

Just in time for the influx of all those repressed, closeted Republicans next week

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/07/cleveland_to_adopt_transgender.html