North Carolina has earned itself a lot of bad publicity by passing a law requiring transgender people to use restrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate.
Businesses are threatening to avoid or leave the state. New York has banned state employees from making nonessential work trips there. The NBA is thinking of moving an upcoming All-Star game out of the state. Even the state’s governor is beginning to back-track.
Nobody, seemingly, likes the law except the people who passed it.
So why’d they do it? Were there swarms of transgender people invading the restrooms at the state Capitol or something and finally some prissy senator got annoyed?
Probably not. I’ll bet those senators and representatives have used a stall or urinal next to transgender people for decades and not realized it because – amazingly enough – they don’t wear nametags saying “I’m transgender, how about you?”
Maybe that’s North Carolina’s next step, though.
I’m sure there was a religious component to their thinking. Although, again, God knows what it could be. I’m not very churchy but I don’t recall one of the Ten Commandments being “Thou shalt use the restroom that corresponds to what it says on your birth certificate.”
I like to think that’s because God had bigger, better things to think about. Although, who knows, maybe it was Commandment No. 11 and Moses dropped the tablet.
I suspect what North Carolina passed is a law in search of a problem. I’ve used public restrooms my whole life and I’ve never noticed a transgender person, and if did I wouldn’t care. I’d assume they were there for the same reason I am, so let’s all just take care of business and get out of there, shall we?
That, in the fact, is one of the implied arguments for the North Carolina law that bugs me the most – the assumption that transgender people are in the bathroom for some reason other than answering nature’s call.
Get over yourself, people. Transgender people are there for the same reason you are, and I presume follow standard etiquette.
I don’t know what that is in the ladies’ room, but in the men’s room it’s customary to follow the same procedure one would follow lining up a putt, which is “Keep your head down, focus on what you’re doing and try to aim straight.”
Honestly, I think we could dispense with all of this bathroom nonsense if we got rid of gender-specific restrooms altogether and just had restrooms – pee one, pee all.
Why not? No one has separate bathrooms at home and we manage to survive.
As a guy, I’d love it because – and I’m just guessing here – that women aren’t nearly the slobs that guys are. The only disadvantage is it’d be more crowded and I might have to wait for a stall since women take forever in the bathroom, for reasons I can’t fathom.
Gender-free restrooms would solve North Carolina’s potty problem, but I doubt they’ll happen. They make too much sense.
Maybe the next best solution would be, like I said earlier, for some folks to realize that transgender people are people, too, and they just wanna go to the bathroom.
Just like you.
Go figure, huh?
Candi says
April 15, 2016 at 12:11 pmI kinda thought this was a ploy to help raise the employment levels. You know, hiring people to man the doors to check everyone’s birth certificate. Eliminating (no pun intended) unemployment one bathroom at a time…
Linda Earl says
April 15, 2016 at 12:33 pmI agree with everything you said BUT…..I’m not sharing a pubic bathroom with random men. Sorry. I don’t even use the bathroom at home with my husband present (although I hear some couples do handle their “business” in the company of their spouses). A little privacy please. But back to the real issue, the folks that passed this law are the same ones who preach the bible and then break all the commandments. SMH….
Bill says
April 15, 2016 at 12:35 pmThis stupid law came to you from the party that makes laws based on stupid positions and “issues” that really aren’t there. That way people take their eye off the ball when major issues occur and they vote in laws affecting the 1%’s interest…
James says
April 15, 2016 at 12:45 pm“Amen! To all the above.”
Sue says
April 15, 2016 at 1:19 pmBet they can’t get their roads fixed either. Seem the reps all over the USA are busy saving our souls and ignoring the state of our states.
Judi Heu says
April 15, 2016 at 1:40 pmSeems like we have morons in government. With no term limits, we will have them for a long time. Thanks for the article, Andrew.
The Scottish1 says
April 15, 2016 at 2:34 pmA lame attempt at trying a control issue over people. Chances are you’ve already encountered a trans gender person and didn’t even know it. Where do you think they’ve been “going” all this time?
Linda Crittenden says
April 15, 2016 at 3:18 pmTypical politicians, much of these United States are in desperate need of better roads, help for the poor, Flint water has been poisioned , undrinkable, police are killing innocent people and people are killing innocent police, Donald Trump is running for president and the politicians are worried about who is using what bathroom. Sad to say but that is typical today.
Pat says
April 15, 2016 at 4:59 pmI had dinner tonight in a mighty fine restaurant in Bruge, Belgium, and guess what? The line to the two stall toilets included both men and women. All washed their hands after exiting their individual stalls in the same sink. No one raised a single hair on a single eyebrow.
Rick Schlaud says
April 15, 2016 at 10:17 pmCreate a diversion, pass a nonsense bill and an uproar will ensue. Divert the eyes off real problems and allow harmful issues slip in to law.
Doug roth says
April 16, 2016 at 7:55 amI would be more concerned if a priest or a congressman were in the bathroom with a family member than a transgender person.
Tres says
April 16, 2016 at 10:18 amWhen I taught kindergarten, I covered the Boys and Girls signs. You used the bathroom available and when one wasn’t functioning, there’s was no “Ew, I can’t go I the Boys/Girls bathroom!” Five year olds can handle it, why not adults?
Patricia Duffy says
April 16, 2016 at 10:31 amRight on. I spoke to my Mott students about this very issue. They were scared that it would make it easier for rapists to get into bathrooms. Like there will suddenly be more rapists and they’re going to cross dress? I asked them if the’d seen Gigi Gorgeous, the beautiful transgender model. If anyone saw her in a bathroom, the last thing they’d suspect is that she was once a man. My guess is N. Carolina has a plethora of shell company owners worried about getting cought. This is a smoke and mirrors issue to hide them.
Andrew Heller says
April 16, 2016 at 10:40 amIt’s weird that visceral response – like rapists think, “If I only I could somehow dress like a woman and go into the ladies room to rape everyone.”
Tom Neely says
April 16, 2016 at 1:57 pmThe single weird situation I (a male) ever had in a public restroom was in the Newark, NJ, airport, in 1996. It involved a man. This guy apparently was peeking at me through a round hole in the stall wall; he was making goofy sounds. That’s the whole story. Nothing bad happened. Nothing could have happened. It was a busy public men’s room.
I cannot imagine that a predatory female ever might sneak into any men’s room. Not worried about it in any way, for me or my kids, or for anybody. What if that same guy had gone into a ladies’ room? He would not go there. He liked guys, apparently.
Katy Mason says
April 17, 2016 at 12:55 pmNice one, Andy!!!