Last night North Carolina’s legislators held a special session in order to prohibit local governments from passing anti-discrimination laws, particularly targeting an ordinance in Charlotte that would have allowed trans people to use public restrooms corresponding to their gender.
“Lawmakers returned to Raleigh because a Charlotte City Council ordinance was supposed to take effect April 1 that expanded protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity for treatment at hotels and restaurants.
Critics focused on the ability of transgender people to use the bathroom or locker rooms aligned with their gender identity. So did McCrory, Charlotte’s mayor for 14 years.
The resulting legislation went further. Now cities, towns and counties can’t pass anti-discrimination rules beyond a new state standard. And public schools, public college campuses and government agencies must require bathrooms or locker rooms be designated for use only by people based on their biological sex.”
Lambda Legal has a primer for anyone uncertain about what protections are available to them when it comes to bathroom access in various parts of the country. The Transgender Law Center has an update on anti-trans bathroom laws being proposed in several states; take a look and see if your state is on the list and contact your state representative if any legislation is on the books.
A national database of safe public restrooms:
“REFUGE is a web application that seeks to provide safe restroom access for transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming individuals. When the Safe2Pee website passed out of functionality it left a hole in our hearts. REFUGE picks up the torch where Safe2Pee left off and makes the valuable resource available to those who find themselves in need of a place to pee safely once again. Users can search for restrooms by proximity to a search location, add new restroom listings, as well as comment and rate existing listings. We seek to create a community focused not only on finding existing safe restroom access but also looking forward and participating in restroom advocacy for transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming folk.”
Jos Truitt writes about an increase in trans visibility and in anti-trans legislation at The Nation:
“According to a new report from Human Rights Campaign, there are 44 anti-trans bills in the works in 16 states, double the number that were filed in the previous legislative session. Seventeen of the bills—including those in Illinois, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Virginia—place trans students in their crosshairs by focusing on bathrooms, locker rooms, or sports…The timing of this legislation is terrifying; 2015 saw the highest number on record of reported murders of trans women in the United States in a single year—most of them black or Latina and engaged in sex work or profiled as such—and the murders have continued in 2016, part of a global epidemic of violence that seems to have only worsened with the increased visibility of trans women. Conservatives have found that combating LGBT rights with panic about “men in women’s restrooms” has proved successful in blocking antidiscrimination legislation at the same time there is increased trans visibility.
Who Birthed the Anti-Trans Bathroom Panic?
“This stuff—the invocation of a threat to the personhood of anyone who isn’t trans, this victim mentality so divorced from the reality of anti-trans discrimination and violence—is not the province of the conservative right alone. The conservative trump card, the myth that women and girls face a particular threat from transgender women, is still alive, painfully, in feminist circles.”
Thanks for sharing these resources, Mallory.
This stuff makes me so sad. I can’t muster anything intelligent to say. I’m just sad.
Ditto.
my town got an anti-discrimination ordinance, it got reversed on a special election (you might have heard about the michelle duggar robocalls), then we voted again and it went forward. a few other towns in our state did the same thing. the arkansas legislature responded by banning all anti-discrimination ordinances. we’re waiting for a variety of court cases to wind themselves through, hoping we’ll prevail. we’ve already made it successfully through a couple challenges.
just this last week, an alderman (who was helped into office through bathroom panic and the duggars money) approached a woman while she was doing her job, demanded to know her gender, and said he was a man and could “prove it” (he claims this wasn’t a threat to expose himself, because he thinks we were all born yesterday). he’s also demanded to know the gender of a city contractor and makes statements about how “you just can’t tell.” we’re stuck with him for 3 more years.
transphobia is a blight and states barring towns from being more inclusive are giving comfort to that bigotry. i am eager for federal action that enshrines lgbt protections, with special focus on the rights of trans people.
Re: your second paragraph – what the actual fuck.
here’s an article covering most of it. i can’t wait to vote him out.
Basically, he’s all, “I want to sexually harass you, but only if I’m sure you’re a woman, just as the Bible says.”
Not even an equal opportunity harasser.
Horribleness aside, it is wonderful to see an Arkansan Toaster! I recently moved back to NWA after living elsewhere for six years. It’s been difficult readjusting.
hello! i was gone for 15ish years! grew up here, moved back because these roots just kept pulling at me. dealing with jerks like latour has been rough, but it’s still home.
I wish I had something insightful to say about all of this garbage but right now all I want to do is find the people writing and supporting this legislation and say
Very true. Or tell them to worry about real issues; poverty, homelessness, access to clean drinking water, etc. etc. etc.
I’ve said this before, but what do those lawmakers think goes on in women’s bathrooms? I mean, they keep going on and on about penises, but, spoiler: I’ve never seen a vulva other than my own in a woman’s bathroom. I mean, odds are I’ve already been in the same bathroom as a trans woman without even knowing it! As a cis woman, I’m perfectly ok with trans women using “my” bathroom. And I’m not okay with my safety being used as a transparent excuse for lawmakers to bully and discriminate.
Yeah, like, lawmakers, if you’re sooooo concerned for women’s safety, there are other things you could do for us without making decisions that affect trans people so horribly. So. Many. Things.
Yes to both these comments.
I’m sure these guys take sexual assault super seriously in general and have supported all the reforms in criminal code and law enforcement practices that women have actually been demanding for decades… Right?
MMM YES SEEMS LEGIT, NO HYPOCRISY HERE, NO SIR
Here’s how I think it goes:
CITIZEN A: Sexism! Misogyny! Do something!
MALE LAWMAKER: But whaaaaaaat
CITIZEN A: Pass some laws on the issues that disproportionately affect women – pick one! Hiring discrimination? Domestic violence? Stalking? Reproductive rights?
MALE LAWMAKER: sounds like work
CITIZEN B: SPREAD RUMORS THAT PEOPLE WHO MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE FOR REASONS YOU HAVE NEGLECTED TO EXAMINE ARE SEX OFFENDERS AND BAN THEM FROM PUBLIC LIFE
MALE LAWMAKER: Now you’re talking!
I really do wonder if they truly think they’re protecting women from a real threat, or if they’re just explicitly like “I want to punish trans people for being trans, here’s a good flimsy cover for that.” Because the former just falls apart instantly in the face of any logic or thought.
Yeah, it’s seriously just a move to criminalize being trans–there is no real desire to protect women.
I haven’t read Mallory’s link re: history, above, but there’s also a very clear line from racist nonsense about ‘protecting’ white women in bathrooms in the desegregation battles.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/11/10/ant…
Yeah, this is intended to protect women in the same way that all those abortion restrictions about ‘admitting privileges’ are designed to protect women.
It’s a lie that nobody even pretends to believe (except, maybe, the TERFs)
It’s just perpetuating the bogus notion that possession of a penis turns a human into an uncontrollable sex and violence monster with no ability to behave respectfully around women. While also perpetuating the notion that trans people are sneaky and untrustworthy and just trying to trick cis people. So a double whammy of awfulness!
the city council meetings when my town got our anti discrimination ordinance were brutal. i wish it were something i could just blame on “lawmakers” (in my case the lawmakers were actually mostly on the pro-inclusion side) but unfortunately there’s a fairly vocal group of transphobic fearmongering citizens here and they are proud to wave that ignorance and hate around. i was especially disappointed as female sexual assault survivors (a group i’m part of) used their prior assaults – which didn’t take place in bathrooms by strangers or women – to bolster their safety claims. i am proud of the overwhelming majority of people who stood up and supported our ordinance, and the incredibly brave trans women who spoke on their own behalf. little by little we chip away at this hate, hopefully.
“i was especially disappointed as female sexual assault survivors (a group i’m part of) used their prior assaults – which didn’t take place in bathrooms by strangers or women – to bolster their safety claims.”
Your point here is super important and I emphasized the shit out of its most salient bit.
Also, I can’t personally vouch for this but my friend teaches high school and is constantly amazed at how accepting her students are of their LGBT peers, compared to when we were in high school. She does teach in MA and NC could be different, but a lot of the OUTRAGE seems based around schools and the idea of boys sneaking their way into the girls locker room somehow, and I do wonder if anybody’s asked the students how they feel about their trans classmates being allowed to use the proper bathroom. I’m willing to bet they might be surprised at the response. I could be totally wrong, but to me it’s just another sign of how out of touch these politicians are with the citizens they’re “protecting” and how hysterical the whole thing is.
I briefly taught high school in DC and it took my breath away how wonderful the students were to transgender students. Empathy is not something to be squelched (or imposed, for that matter) from the top down. Young people get it. (Not all of them, obvs, but many more than those in the generations when phobia was the norm can understand.) It’s called being human.
Do these legislators honestly think no one at those schools has heard of “Porky’s” or any other “cis men crossdress for lascivious purposes” movies?
I think that’s exactly what they’re pretending to try to stop. They are trying to imply that all men will start pulling a Bosom Buddies to take a peek at girls peeing or whatever. So you can’t pass legislation to protect trans people because then how can we kick out peeping toms if they’re wearing a dress.
It’s bullshit, but a lot of average citizens seem to buy into this fear they’re being sold. It’s awful.
Considering how few people are actually prosecuted for sneaking into women’s bathrooms and hiding goddamn video cameras all over the place, including inside the toilet bowl, this is an especially infuriating pretense.
It absolutely is.
In Maine we had a case where a boy’s grandpa told him to follow a trans girl into the girl’s bathroom and claim he had a right to be there too. It started a whole controversy because the school didn’t feel like they had good legal standing to say who counts as trans or not, so they asked the trans kid to use faculty bathrooms.
Her family sued and they won, which is great. But it does highlight how tricky this stuff can get. Not in the sense that we actually need laws to prevent men from using women’s restrooms, but that transphobic assholes can use these loopholes (and even their children) to harass people who are just trying to live their lives. It’s awful.
This story is well-recounted in the book Becoming Nicole–I was thinking about that particular situation while reading these comments, because her classmates were otherwise completely unfazed and accepting of her. It was this one kid whose parents weren’t around and thus felt obliged to pass along his grandfather’s poisonous thinking because he had nowhere else to go. Infuriating.
Huckabee said that if trans women were allowed in women’s locker rooms, he would go into women’s locker rooms and sexually assault women. Because apparently, that logo on the door is all that’s holding him back now.
Screw Huckabee and his god.
Can we write laws that ban Mike Huckabee? Not from anywhere in particular, just… anywhere.
That speech was so disgusting, with his little chuckle after that gem.
Agree with this 100%. I worked at a university in VERY rural northeastern NC, and while there were some major, horrible, grind-your-teeth issues involving LGBT students, they came from the administration and faculty. For example, we ran a group for high school girls, and the students had no problems with LGBTQ members. However, the principal and faculty did, and how.
A friend of mine tried to start a Gay-Straight Alliance in his high school Hickory, NC about 10 years ago, and other students were enthusiastically on board. An administrator called him into the office and said, “Gay people don’t exist.”
Right? What’s so confusing about this is what a non-issue it should be all around. Like, how often do I pay attention to anyone else in the bathroom beyond like, maybe nodding at them while we’re washing our hands or warning them if a stall’s out of toilet paper. Mostly the whole point of bathrooms is we all stick to minding our own business until we finish our business and move on.
I try very hard NOT to acknowledge anyone else in the bathroom. I feel like that’s just part of the social contract.
The only exception to this is when somebody asks you to pass them some toilet paper under the stall wall, but it’s understood that this is never to be spoken of between the two of you again.
This is exactly right. And if someone in a public restroom is creepily trying to get a look at your genitals, regardless of gender, you can call the police. This goes for cis-men in men’s rooms or cis-women in women’s room or anyone in a unisex restroom! It’s very simple to tell the difference between someone using the facilities for their intended purpose and someone hanging out being a creeper.
Thank you — i couldn’t figure out a way to say it, but what you have here is what I have been thinking about this.
When I was about 7.5 months pregnant, I walked into the women’s room at my workplace and there was a repairman replacing a lightbulb. I just smiled and entered a stall to pee. . . because with 6 lbs of baby pressing on my bladder, I cared not one whit who was on the other side of the stall door. He definitely panicked and ran out of the room, though. I remember thinking “Dude, you can finish with the lightbulb — I’ll just be a minute here and out of your way.” It was obvious what he was doing there. . . unless I am a complete idiot and his big creeper goal was to impersonate a worker to sneak a peek at a really pregnant lady.
ETA: I’m rambling, but my point was, “It’s very simple to tell the difference between someone using the facilities for their intended purpose and someone hanging out being a creeper.”
I’ve said this before, but what do those lawmakers think goes on in women’s bathrooms?
EXACTLY. Are they aware that there’s no women’s-bathroom equivalent to a urinal, so all our stuff takes place in a stall with a door? We go in, find a stall, deal with our business, wash our hands and leave. What in the world is unsafe about letting a trans woman into that environment – she’ll cut the line? She won’t pass TP under the stall door when someone’s in need?
Oh yes, the famous “I can’t spare a square” panic.
Yeah, honestly I’d pee in a stall next to anyone with no fear. I’m not afraid of trans women, but like, creepy dudebros can come into the ladies’ room and pee next to me if they want. It’s not that exciting.
Ugh, seriously. Like, if someone was being inappropriate in the bathroom, THAT would be the problem, not what kind of genitals they have. These bills don’t even address the problem they’re “supposed” to.
This is very helpful, Mallory. Thank you.
UGH. I know of three rallies so far – two in Raleigh and one in Asheville, if there are any Toasties in those cities. (If folks know of more, do let me know! I work for a national organization that’s trying to get this info out to people on the ground.)
Campaign for Southern Equality (Asheville, 5 p.m.)
Black Lives Matter (Raleigh, 5:45 p.m.)
HRC/Equality NC (Raleigh, 5:45 p.m.)
THANK YOU!
-NC Toastie
Oh my gosh thank you!
Thank you! I’ll be going to the Raleigh HRC one.
Here’s a link for Illinois.
Thanks for the roundup, it makes this stuff a little easier.
Thanks! Signing now.
Thanks for the IL link – signed.
Signed. TY
signed, thanks for linking!
These laws are disgusting. And just like how homophobes tend to forget lesbians exist when they rant on about gay sex or STI transmission data, these bigots tend to forget trans men exist. Do they really want someone who looks like Buck Angel using the women’s restroom?
I’m going to gently push back against your comment here – it shouldn’t matter what a trans person looks like, or whether he or she or they “pass” as a cis person. Butch/masculine trans women exist and are still women; Femme trans men exist and are still men, and they should be able to use whatever facilities they are most comfortable with even if they don’t look like they “belong” there.
Not only that, but there are also plenty of cis women who are butch or non-gender-conforming, and that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have access to the bathroom that matches their gender identity either.
I totally agree, I was just thinking more about how those who are stuck in the binary aren’t taking the full trans spectrum into account. All their talk is solely about trans women and “protecting” girls and women from men coming into segregated restrooms, and it’s that talk that got me thinking of some of the particularly traditionally masculine trans men. The bigots freaking out over this would be bothered by a femme trans man using the women’s washroom, but they would lose their shit over someone they read as their idea of a man walking in.
Basically the whole idea of bathroom bills is, aside from being bigoted bullcrap, ridiculously ill thought out by people who are stuck with one horrifyingly wrong idea of who a trans woman (and it’s all about trans women to them) is.
The thing is, with regards to the gender binary, trans women will inevitably end up the most vulnerable to violence because of transmisogyny. This doesn’t mean trans men don’t experience transantagonism (they do!) or erasure (they do!), but they do have access to male privilege because, y’know, trans men are still MEN.
If you want to get into the rest of the spectrum: what of those under the nonbinary umbrella? Or genderfluid and genderqueer people? Or, hell, certain intersex people? They’re not going to be safe no matter what bathroom they choose.
I just am so blinded by rage at this fucking thing. Because it isn’t just transphobia, it is very specifically transmisogyny that is the basis for these bills. And, personally, I see a lot of trans men (but, y’know hashtag not all trans men whatever) who just stay quiet about these things, or just ignore the fact that these bills are aimed at trans women. Yes, they affect us, but they were not designed specifically for us, and I just get so ANGRY.
Excuse me while I grumble at various volume intervals throughout the rest of the day.
Although it may not seem this way from the outside, NC is a deeply purple state. We went for Obama in 2008. I am hopeful that 2016 will see us return to the blue column, both nationally and on down ticket races.
But the problem is, with how gerrymandered the districts are, we can’t win. We might vote blue in terms of a presidential race, but the districts are done so that the incumbents are going to win. There’s apparently one state congressman that brags in the state house about having 300,000 unread emails – these guys literally don’t need to listen to their constituents because they know they’re not going to lose. NC state politics is brutal, and it’s pretty hardcore backlash against Dems having gerrymandered for 100 years. We’re a purple state who is going to be represented in the house by 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats because when they redrew the districts they couldn’t find a way to make it 11 and 2.
True, but last I heard Harris v. McCrory was still alive. At least in the 1st and 12th should have some impact.
Fingers crossed
When in doubt, blame autocorrect.
Clinging to that hope is pretty much the only thing keeping me going right now.
Honestly I think that many red states are more purple than they look on the map, which is exactly why gerrymandered state legislatures are now spending their time trying to make sure that individual communities can’t make their own decisions.
(Hi, Rooster! Nice avatar!)
Thank you! I stole it from The Morning News – big fan of their Tournament of Books.
Ditto! (I’m Melanie G over in that comment section.)
I was so proud of Charlotte – I thought NC had its issues, but Charlotte was making progress. Now I know how deep those issues are. Living here right now…I’m so angry. I’m so, so angry. And it’s now not just bathrooms. This legislation minimizes protections based on age, gender, and race as well. The backlash against one city’s decision has now taken the whole state back by decades. I’m so ashamed of NC.
From my local state senator:
“”But Jeff, I didn’t like the Charlotte ordinance! Why should I care what just happened in Raleigh??”
Because you just got played, that’s why.
The ordinance was used as political cover to pass a sweeping bill that was written in secret, unveiled at the last minute, rammed through in 12 hours, does all kinds of things that have nothing to do with the ordinance, has likely jeopardized our state’s business recruitment, and has generally embarrassed us nationally.
And here’s my point: It was all because a few politicians saw this as a golden opportunity.
The truth is, folks in Raleigh could not care less about the ordinance.
The person who ran the bill in the Senate is a Republican running for Attorney General. His colleagues always let him give the first speech about the bill and you’ll never guess who he blames for all this: the current Attorney General! You know, the same guy who *literally* had nothing to do with any of this.
For good measure, the state Republican party released an attack ad against the current Attorney General on this issue yesterday morning, just as the special session got started. What a coincidence!
Our Republican Governor – the one who originally refused to call a special session because he said he didn’t want a broad bill that dealt with matters beyond the ordinance – signed the bill anyway, just before midnight. His political incentive for caving? His veto would have been overridden and his legislative agenda would have been blocked as punishment for even trying to stand firm. And even though he doesn’t like this bill, he’ll still campaign on it. Watch.
The Republican leadership in the state House and Senate is terrified of a Donald Trump nomination. They think this is a great issue to protect their gerrymandered seats, so they’re going to use this issue to run absolutely vicious ads – the type we’ve really never seen before in North Carolina – this fall. So get ready for that.
Bottom-line: Even if you strongly opposed the ordinance, please know that this bill wound up having almost nothing to do with it. These guys grabbed your banner and marched right off a cliff, on your behalf.
That’s why, no matter how you felt about the ordinance, #WeAreNotThis.”
Do you have a link for this? I wanna signal-boost.
Here’s his FB page – he posts a lot of really interesting stuff related to what’s going on in Raleigh.
I wouldn’t blame the entire state for what happened last night. Both in North Caroline and across the whole nation, legislative governments are FAR more conservative and extreme than the people they represent. Gerrymandering is part of it, as well as apathy about local and midterm elections.
Oh, I don’t blame all of NC – we are fairly purple for the most part, and that’s a lot of what I value about living here. That was more disappointment in the legislature and the apathy that’s led to this. It just wasn’t well-expressed, sorry!
Totally understand. This is Our State (like the magazine says). I have faith that this will be short lived and that it represents a scared group throwing red meat to their base. Moral arc of the universe and so forth. It will get better.
Thanks for sharing this. Kansas also has a bill before its legislature to make it possible for individuals to sue their school or college if they encounter a trans person in the restroom.
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/03/22/3762490/…
As always I really appreciate the focus and support the Toast has put on trans issues, for my own sake and for my daughters.
Can people collude to sue? A trans person and a cis friend walk in and out of the bathroom 400 times, sue the state for a million dollars, and split the proceeds?
How are these bills not obviously discriminatory and illegal? How can we challenge them immediately?
(Massachusetts doesn’t fully protect gender identity in public, either, and I heard some really anti-trans stuff on the local radio re: trans kids in locker rooms. How are they the threat and not potential victims?)
I think being obviously discriminatory is a feature and not a bug. It’s still okay to be blatantly discriminatory against trans people and people get off on that. I think they get off on having the ability to lash out however they want without worrying about, horror of horrors, being criticized for it.
Which I guess summarizes majority groups. They fear being criticized, we fear being killed.
Omg. So I was kinda paraphrasing a half remembered quote, so I searched “men fear criticism women fear death” to find it. The first hit tells me men are bald because they fear criticism.
I think it’s Margaret Atwood you’re looking for, “Men fear women will laugh at them; women fear men will kill them.”
But good to know baldness comes from fear! (Har har.)
HAHAHAHAHA. My husband is bald and. . . yep, accurate.
This is totally not the point of this thread but I am so distressed by this bill and the hatred behind it that my brain is focusing on the funny, instead. . . .
Yes, what Nashirakins said — discrimination is the feature. That’s why conservatives are so riled up about exercising their “religious liberty” to discriminate against LGBT people. And when you’re using such hateful tactics as in NC and in Houston last year, when you’re deliberately conflating trans people with child predators — then your discrimination looks like goddamn heroism.
MA has bills in front of the senate and the house right now that would protect trans people in public spaces, including restrooms. They’ve gotten a lot of support, incl. from every major sports team, etc. – but it’s taking a while, and last I read they still don’t know if Charlie Baker will veto or not.
How interesting how I find ways to hate Charlie Baker more and more every day.
I mean, he hasn’t said anything like that he WILL veto, it was more of vague “he looks forward to seeing the legislation when it crosses his desk please dont make us say anything hhghgrrrUUUAAAHHHHH” statements from his staffers that don’t exactly inspire confidence.
*sigh*
They’re *meant* to be discriminatory. People support them *because* they’re discriminatory. Most states have protections on the basis of “sex” but not gender/gender identity. Obviously anti-trans discrimination is a form of sex-based discrimination but the law doesn’t necessarily see it that way.
This is so infuriatingly illogical! I have no idea if I’ve ever shared a bathroom with a trans woman, nor do I feel any concern for my or my daughter’s safety. The people in danger are the trans women who have to walk into the men’s room. It’s just horrifying that something so simple and necessary should be so dangerous.
It makes me so goddamn angry that (shitty) people still claim that trans women are so how dangerous given how much violent THEY face. Trans women GET harassed in bathrooms; they are a vulnerable group and this bullshit is designed to INCREASE that vulnerability.
These are almost certainly the same kind of people who pull shit like this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/dave-eva…
Hey, if you want to make women feel safer, I can think of an entire raft of potential legislation that you are definitely opposed to
As an NC transplant who has watched with horror as her state has turned from purple to burning red in the last ten years, I’ve been just sick with fury over this in the last 24 hours. We really are not this. We really, really aren’t.
North Carolina is cruising for a lawsuit. This is quite similar to a Colorado constitutional amendment struck down in Romer v. Evans. I hope Lambda or another LGBT rights org is able to get this awful statute enjoined as soon as possible.
I’ve been wondering about Romer ever since I heard about this. I mean, every version of any bathroom panic bill should be dragged into court for being discriminatory, but this law appears to be so directly copy-pasted from that one that I don’t understand why they wouldn’t have done something a little differently to try to make it more court-survival-oriented?
Okay, so a little googling and a HuffPo piece had a one-sentence version: In Colorado, they were specifically saying that localities couldn’t protect LGBT+ folks; in NC, they are saying that localities can’t protect anyone (beyond the protections from the state). Still nonsense, but it it one way to argue that the fourteenth amendment need not apply. *scowl*
Here’s a discussion of Romer at Slate (also federal education funding, which I knew about but had forgotten).
(Anyway I donated to Lamba Legal and the National Center for Transgender Equality; they don’t have free-text fields to say why you’re donating, but it’s not like it won’t be useful no matter what.)
Yeah, this time they managed to avoid giving away the game in the text of the law, but I don’t think a federal court is going to be fooled. A judge is perfectly free to look at the legislative history, including public statements by sponsors.
I’m curious is anyone has thoughts on #IllGoWithYou? I’m a cis woman and have been thinking since last night about ordering a couple buttons to wear.
Wait, is that really a thing? That’s awesome.
As another cis woman: I find it hard to imagine that a stranger would trust me enough, based on a button, to out themselves and put themselves in a vulnerable position. Wear them as political support, sure; have your trans friends’ backs in person, sure; but don’t expect that strangers will take you up on it.
I’m cis myself, and my gut instinct says that reeks of cis saviourism, even infantilization, even if it’s well-meaning. We should be deferring to trans people, finding out what THEY need.
I’d take a button wearer up on it.
1. It’s similar to safe space sticker. You’re declaring your allegiance but it’s passive. You’re not demanding a response from trans people.
2. It’s way lower stakes to disclose to a declared-friendly stranger you’ll never see again than to a stranger who’s angry you’re in the bathroom with them and might cause a scene.
3. Who knows, we might end up friends?
I do have concerns about the saviorism aspects of it. The website says the campaign was started by folks in the queer community, but nothing about if they’re trans* identified or not. So I am a bit wary about jumping on board. BUT I feel like the main reason I want to do it is to give a kind of small, passive, I support your human rights and dignity announcement to folks around me (even as I fire off emails to my representatives opposing legislation and do other more active things). As someone partnered to another cis woman, I appreciate the safe space stickers or when people make their profile pic a rainbow or whatever as a reminder that even when it feels like the whole world hates me, there are people on my side. I just don’t know if that applies here as well or not.
Given that bathrooms can be a very real threat for trans and gender non-conforming people, I feel like offering a modicum of safety isn’t infantilizing at all, but obviously I don’t speak for all trans or gender non-conforming people. And yes, even if no one ever took you up on it, it can be nice to look around a room and feel certain that *one* person, at least, isn’t giving you dirty looks when you’re not looking.
This is why local elections matter.
I know a lot of states are gerrymandered as fuck, but god damn, we have GOT to get every single Democrat and progressive person out to vote every single election if this is going to change, if the balance of power will shift at all.
I was in Houston, working with LGBT groups that birthed the equal rights ordinance (HERO), and I saw how transphobic and fear-mongering conservatives seized it and turned it into this same thing — “men in women’s bathrooms” — with horrible and infuriating ads that showed a man slipping into a stall after a little girl. But we still got HERO to pass into law by a majority of city council votes. My friends spent more than one day sitting all day in City Hall to testify alongside business groups about how this was a good thing, but the other side bused in people from outside city limits to speak against it. And I’ve never heard such hatred and bigotry, voiced in a public space in 2015. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be there in person, in the same room (rather than watching it over livestream at my office). They said all the ugly things that people used to say about gay men a few decades ago, especially insinuating (or saying outright) that they were all deeply disturbed and child predators.
But even Texas didn’t do what Raleigh did last night. The Texas state court put it to public referendum, and the fear-mongering ads increased, and they won. So yeah, what happened in Raleigh was far, far, far less democratic. But we have too far to go when it comes to educating and changing public opinion about trans people.
with horrible and infuriating ads that showed a man slipping into a stall after a little girl.
I mean, if cis men (or otherwise) are going to do this, they’re going to do it regardless of the laws you have in place, right? Weird bathroom laws are not going to keep people from assaulting kids.
Right! It’s not like sex offenders are sitting around waiting for unisex bathrooms to become the norm before they start assaulting people! They ALREADY DO and it’s ALREADY ILLEGAL.
As we kept saying in Houston, IT IS STILL AND WILL ALWAYS BE AGAINST THE LAW TO ASSAULT SOMEONE IN A BATHROOM.
What’s worse is that there actually was a case, shortly after they revoked HERO, of a young girl assaulted in a bathroom within the county. And of course all those politicians campaigning against HERO had nothing to say about that.
The National Center for Transgender Equality has a page where you can send an email to the governor!
Where can I go to send a fresh cat turd to the governor?
Amanda Marcotte has an op-ed with some links as well.
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/24/hate_is_alive_and…
I’m really sick to my stomach the way proto-feminist taglines about “women’s safety” are more often than not used as a way to criminalize trans women, men of color, and butch and gender non-conforming cis women who are propped up as predators. White, cis feminists have got to keep this in mind every single time there’s talk of “safe spaces” and “safety.” It’s so, so often code for hideous, bigoted behavior.
Think about how “rape prevention” classes, often free at schools and community centers, are usually cis women only and very often taught by cops and ex-military. Okay, sure, go learn how to flip someone over your shoulder in a gym when you’re not terrified, and also, gee, learn to see cops as protectors and strangers as predators, when often it’s trusted, and usually more powerful, people close to a victim who will take advantage of them.
It doesn’t matter if someone calls themselves a feminist or an anti-feminist, “public safety” is always something that makes me suspicious at the end of the day. Ugh I am going to puke about this. A good friend of mine in NC showed up and worked hard against this and is heartbroken and personally terrified.
Not to mention the ABLEISM of “rape prevention” classes.
I kept interrupting my teen (the one whose ex-girlfriend is now a guy – he uses the men’s room at school and even in our conservative suburb he has support, because teens are better than lawmakers) to read out bits of the Jos Truitt article last night, and finally he stopped filling out his US History worksheet to ask me what, logistically, would need to happen for him to leave this country.
Lucky him, he’s got an EU passport. Lucky us, I have some links now so I can join the fight to make this a place he doesn’t need an exit strategy for.
Who are the people paying SO much attention to who they’re sharing a public bathroom with. All you gotta do is pee, wash your hands, and leave. No one’s asking to share the closet inside your bedroom or bathe in your personal bath.
I looked up the “transgender bathroom bill” in my home state of Massachusetts, and found that the only bills in the state legislature on this topic support trans bathroom rights. The bills would make it illegal to bar transgender people from using the bathroom of the gender they identify with.
However, it looks like the legislation got stalled in late 2015 with worries that it wouldn’t have enough support to override a veto from Gov. Baker (although he hasn’t said outright that he’d veto it). Perhaps we need to email our local reps, Mass Toasties, and urge them to do the right thing?
P.S. My Google search turned up editorials from “Mass Family” groups, all protesting the legislation as “going too far” and calling for the need to “protect our women and girls.” I won’t link to them as they are terrible and don’t deserve extra traffic.
Mass Freedom is organizing for this legislation, and the vote has to happen before session ends at end of June. @mass_freedom on twitter, and their webite has auto-emails, etc.
The bills are HB 1577, SB 735.
I’m in NC. I was pretty happy when the local ordinance passed, because there was opposition to it locally. And then this mess happened. I’m really not happy about it. And now I have to double-check how my elected officials voted and send emails in support or vehemently disagreeing with their choices.
This makes me so mad I want to blow up the sun. I am just so angry.
How fucking tragic is it that there are multiple websites dedicated to tracking and listing places where it’s safe for trans people to use the goddamn bathroom? Writing letters and making phone calls just seems so inadequate in the face of how fucking awful that is.
If you’re in a public bathroom and you can see another person’s genitals SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG. It doesn’t matter what those genitals look like. This bullshit isn’t even designed to protect anyone.
Thanks for posting this, Mallory. It’s been a rough day, and it helps to know that The Toast is a good ally. Excellent resources, BTW.