I just don't see the need for the 'bathroom bill.'

While I agree in the abstract that men should use men’s bathrooms and women should use women’s bathrooms, I cannot work up much passion for the pending bathroom bill. I just don’t see the need for it. It is not as if there are hordes of transsexuals, transgendered people and cross dressers trying to use the bathroom that corresponds to their outward appearance. I question if this is a response to a real problem or an attempt to make a statement.

I have never in my life encountered a transgender person using the restroom at the same time as I. Of course there are very few transgendered men and more transgendered women so it would not be surprising that I would never encounter a transgender man. There are very few transgender women either however but I bet most women have never encountered a transgendered women in their restroom. ( I am sure most know, but for clarification a transgender “man” is person who is biologically a women but acts like and dresses as a man such as Chaz Bono, and a transgender “women” is a person who is really a man but identifies and dresses as a women such as Caitlyn Jenner.)

If the bill should pass, it would have no impact in practise on anything. The rare transgendered person would most likely ignore it. The transgendered women would go to the women’s bathroom and go in a stall and do her business, maybe primp at the mirror a little and leave and no one would be the wiser. How would this law be enforced? How could it be enforced! Would we have to have a genital inspector at the door of each restroom comparing birth certificates to genitalia? What would be the procedure for enforcement?

Ignoring this “problem” would probably cause much less disruption than trying to fix it. If this proposed legislation was law and a chick-with-a-dick goes into the men’s room and does “her” business at the men’s urinal there would be more disruption than if she went into the women’s room undetected and did her business in the women’s restroom. One of the stupidest arguments I have heard about this bill is that parents want to protect their daughters from boys being in the girls restrooms. I think your daughters have much more to fear from aggressive lesbians in the girls restrooms, which is probably none at all, than they do from transgendered women. I don’t think transgendered women want to molest your daughters.

This bill would only apply to public schools and colleges. I think if there is a problem at any of those institutions, the local administrators should try to resolve it, and if that fails, the local policy making body should address it. If it then becomes a problem that can’t be solved at that level, then maybe it would be time for a law.  More than likely the way this would ever become an issue is if some junior high guy starts dressing as a girl. If this happens, maybe "she" can be escorted to the restroom by a teacher and other students can leave the restroom while he does "her" business or maybe "she" can use the faculty restroom until he or she sorts this out.  The rare occurrence of this ever happening hardly justifies a state law.

According to this proposed law, even if a person had had a complete sex change, they would still have to use the restroom that corresponded to the sex on their original birth certificate. I don’t know if there is really such a thing as a person born in the body of the wrong sex or if people who undergo a sex change are people with severe mental issues, but in any event, if they have had a sex change and now have all of the physical attributes of a women, in my view it would be wrong to force them to use the men’s bathroom.

There are issues about loss of Title X funds if this passes and there are threats of boycotts and loss of business. How much of that threat is real I don’t know. I hate to see the State be bullied and I don’t want to let Hollywood and rock star celebrities dictate our policy. It does appear PayPal pulled out of North Carolina due to passing a similar bill, so there could be some loss of business opportunity. The loss of business opportunity and federal funds are factors, but my main concern with the bill is that this is a solution in search of a problem, is another unnecessary law, and to a degree it is simply mean-spirited. I think the State legislature should send it to a summer study committee.

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