HERE WE GO AGAIN

If you think the radical right is all talk, take a gander at the latest instance of “bathroom issue” politics. This story has already appeared on television on several Bowling Green, OH stations.

In August, Bowling Green City Council passed ordinances 7905 and 7906 which added protections against discrimination in housing and employment to lesbian, gay and transgender individuals. No sooner had they been enacted when the local gender bigots…in this case, “Bowling Green Citizens Voting No to Special Rights Discrimination”, pushed a ballot initiative to toss ordinances 7905 and 7906 out. None of the articles states specifically how many signatures were required, but evidently these fear mongers were able to gather enough to force the ballot measure. The signatures were obtained by use of referendum and petition.

Crystal (Krystal?) Thompson, a spokesperson for BGCVNSRD used the familiar canards as defense. "We can't protect women and children in public restrooms, and showers, because the way the ordinance is written is that it will be legal if a man feels he is a woman, he can go into a restroom, he can go into a shower." She embellished this stance by adding “"It is a health risk. It is a public health risk."

Okay…here we go again. How many times have we replayed the bathroom issue??…Let me see…there was Gainesville, FL and Montgomery County, MD which made big headlines several years back. If you recall, both jurisdictions ended up keeping the locally passed ordinances after lengthy court battles. Then there was Massachusetts...trans protections failed here after the bill came to be called “the bathroom bill” and ended up dying after being tabled.

I have collected news stories from twenty nine states and DC in which there have been bathroom issue campaigns and battles. Most recently, the Maine Human Rights commission validated an Orono, ME School District decision allowing a transitioning former sixth grader to use the appropriate bathroom. Unfortunately, or fortunately…whichever way you spin it...success in passing and keeping gender protections is probably less than 50% nationwide. This is merely a guess, but anything short of one hundred percent tolerance is unacceptable by my count.

What concerns me is the facility with which gender bigots manage to collect enough votes to force these ballot measures. In Montgomery County, MD, the courts held that there had been inconsisitencies and violations regarding the manner in which signatures had been collected and the validity of certain signatures. I have to believe that there is a distinct likelihood that these aberrant methods of signature collection are the rule, not the exception.

Regardless, there is no denying that gender bigots, neo fundamentalists and others of their ilk are not only outspoken and vitriolic, but well organized. This should not be taken lightly. Unless we are able to counter their arguments and vitriol, we stand to face the fact that these challenges will probably escalate.

A year or so ago, Dr. Jillian Weiss did a study aimed at authenticating the non existence of trans predation in public restrooms. There is no…zero, nada, naught, nil…evidence that there is ANY substantiating evidence to validate the gender bigots claim that use of appropriate bathrooms by trans persons increases the risk to public health and safety. How it is that the same canards continue to reappear eludes me, given the baseless nature of their claims. And it is in this context that we, ourselves, must debunk the campaigns predicated on fear and lies and dogma.