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After awhile, reporting on the anti-transgender bathroom and locker room hysteria gets pretty old and pretty repetitious. But, it seems to not be getting old for Ruth Jacobs of Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government. 
On Friday, February 26, 2010, the Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government released another blast of hysteria filled with nothing but blatant fear mongering. Just the crazy font and color schema of their opening paragraphs should give you an idea of the email’s tone:
It’s back! Despite failing to get their Gender Identity/Peeping Tom legislation out of Committee in 2009, the LGBT lobby is trying yet again. They’ve dusted off last year’s legislation, and re-introduced it as HB-1022 (House bill) and SB-583 (Senate bill). With the 2008 Montgomery Co. Gender Identity/Bathroom bill passed- despite the protests of citizens- and the recent rape of a student by a male in a female bathroom in Takoma Park, Mont. Co. MD, the dangers to women of HB1022/SB583 Gender Identity/Bathroom bills are clear.WE NEED YOUR HELP TO PROTECT WOMEN AND CHILDREN!
STOP HB-1022 and SB583
Don’t allow men in women’s bathroom, lockers or shower areas.CALL OR E-MAIL NOWYour calls will HELP STOP IT AGAIN!
Ask legislators to vote NO
It would be too easy to laugh at this email as crazy, and boneheaded, blatantly raising false fears over bathroom and locker room safety — but let’s be honest with ourselves. This is the second year Ruth Jacobs and the Citizens For A Responsible Government have used these kind of tactics to stop a statewide bill within Maryland in the past, and last year the bill was killed — and they’re taking credit for killing the bill.
But let’s point out a flaw or two in the reasoning of the email blast. One significant problem is the citing a the case of a man who raped a woman in a public bathroom. Well, the rapist wasn’t crossdressed, and he didn’t identify as a transsexual — or even under the broader trans umbrella term of transgender. This is seems a case to me of an argument from spurious similarity — where there’s actually no similarity at all.
The main critique of their tactics is something I wrote about in a piece last year entitled Again With The Bathrooms:
[T]o my point about what’s wrong with the fears expressed in this opposition piece about bathroom predators — Maryland Citizens For A Responsible Government needs to be able to tell us exactly how many predators across the nation have crossdressed and entered women’s restrooms to do harm to women and children. Their argument needs statistics, and this organization doesn’t have ‘em.If Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government can cite some real world examples that back why their fears should guide public policy, I’d like to see these examples. So far, all I see from the organization is arguments that seem to be based on irrational fears.
Ruth Jacobs and the Maryland Citizens For A Responsible Government are engaging in unabashed fear mongering; it’s pretty clear to me that the fear mongering is based within hate for trans people. At least if Ruth and company are going to rail against the bill, they should do it with honest representation of trans people and experience, and not misrepresent what even they know is true about trans people and experience.
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Further Reading:
* Opposing Views: Maryland Gender Identity Bill Endangers Women and Kids (By Maryland Citizens For A Responsible Government)
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Related:
* Pam’s House Blend tag: Bathroom
* White Male Privilege & Women’s Fear Of Crime Intersecting With Gender Expression & Public Restrooms
* When It Comes To Transgender People & Civil Rights, It Really Is Always About The Bathroom
* Always With The Bathroom; Always With The Misrepresentations
* AFA Michigan’s Gary Glenn Up To The Usual Fear Tactics — This Time In Kalamazoo
* A Further Update: Why A Commission Is Investigating The Suspension Of A Trans Student
* The Predator Argument Doesn’t Work With Transgender Fifth Graders
* Kevin Moore’s Take On Colorado’s “Bathroom Police”
* If Dr. Dobson Were King, We’d All Be Wearing Depends
* The Non-Trans Woman Thrown Out Of A NY Women’s Restroom Sues
* Outing #2: When You Endanger A Child For The Sensationalism Of It
* Latest Attacks Of Teh HomoSEXual Agenda’s Transgenderededs’s Bullet Points
11 Comments
YikesAnd is their website called “notmyshower.com”? Good gravy.
Always with the bathroom thing… if only that tactic wasn’t so effective at whipping up fear and hysteria.
Note that trans men aren’t even on the radar here. Shouldn’t we be protecting our men and sons from, um, something?
Wow.The logo on that flyer, of the slashed circle over the hybrid male/female symbol, is threatening as all get out. And way to appropriate misogynistic sexual violence to use it against a group that is regularly victimized by misogynistic sexual violence.
When are these bozos going to learn – - – . . . that laws protecting against discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression provide no protection whatsoever for rapists. There is nothing, either in the Montgomery County law, or in the proposed statewide bill, that would repeal the laws against forcible, or statutory, rape.
Why do these people want to insist that MBTs (FTMs) must use the women’s bathrooms? What is their reason for insisting that these men share women’s restroom facilities with women? (And conversely, why are they insisting on forcing some women (WBTs (MTFs)) to endure having to share bathroom facilities with men?
It’s typical of the right wing conspiracy to get the facts wrong – and to rely on hype in the face of scientific fact.
These people need an education, something they apparently did not get when they were in school.
the sky is falling!! the sky is falling!!
Am I missing something?If only someone somewhere could explain to me what is preventing men from entering the ladies room right now. I was at a party at a bar. The line for the ladies was too long so I went into the men’s room. The sign on the door did nothing to prevent me from doing this.
Maybe the way to eliminate this debate is to make all restrooms both gender. Who hasn’t been to the restaurant or bar where this is the case? Easy fix.
Stupidest thing in the world to spend time worrying about.
Nothing.Men use the women’s restroom often all across the country — and vice versa.
It is not, however, an easy fix to make all restrooms unisex — there’s significant costs involved to private enterprise.
IT is, however, pretty stupid. Those costs would be effective in helping to provide additional money tot he economy, and if Jesse Helms hadn’t sabotaged the ADA, they’d have to make allowances anyway.
Irrational or not…The irrationality of the particular argument used of the rape case doesn’t matter. In the end, it is a use of a very effective tactic that needs to be addressed head on in the same manner and using the same basic toolkit.
The key here is fear. It doesn’t matter that the person wasn’t trans — indeed, if you look at the most common usage of the argument, it’s basically being argued that men in general are bad people.
All men. Including the one’s in dresses.
Dismissing the argument as irrational is a great tactic in a one to one discussion with an opponent (and one I thoroughly suggest, but add the caveat that logic is never strong suit for them and often they won’t give a damn), but that doesn’t do one any good in removing the issue itself.
The issue itself is using the “Threat”, the fear that people really and genuinely feel regarding us, against us, and that is what we have to combat.
We can do that by launching a massive public relations campaign to show that we are not a threat (which will cost large sums that no org or group has at present) or we go directly up against the fear being promoted by pointing out that we can be victims of the same violence.
And that they are actively seeking to promote such violence against us.
They do know it.They’re just ignoring it because it doesn’t help their agenda of bigotry.
Men and boysare supposed to be able to protect themselves. That’s why male rape victims are so frequently the subject of ridicule regardless of the gender of the rapist.
The ‘bathroom question’ is very irking for me. I’m IS (and TG as well) and I’ve had to deal with that issue my ENTIRE LIFE. I’ve been unwelcome in both boys and girls bathrooms. Starting in 7th grade I was ‘pushed’ out of the boy’s locker room and the boys bathroom. The boys insisted that I wasn’t a boy at all… but that was then.
A few months ago I help someone doing research on the issue. The task given to us was to scour the internet looking at specific cities newspapers and other local sources of information. The question was “any story that includes; Transgender, Transexual, assault, sexual assault, bathroom, public bathroom, public facilities” and even “man in dress, man in drag”. Anything story that crossed a Transgendered person with sexual assault in a public bathroom. I searched a total of 6 cities for the research project. I never found a single story that included all three.
I kept looking afterwards on my own. I know that it is possible for a Transgender person to sexually assault someone. One of my young Trans friends was sexually assaulted by an older Transgender person. It is possible for it to happen.
But, after 3 months of searching on my own, the only story I found that included ‘Transgender’ + ‘Bathroom’ + ‘Assault’ was a different story. Well, not different, it’s the same old story you do hear about when you hear anything.
A Transgender woman went in to a rest stop restroom for women. 6 men went in to the Ladies room and physically assaulted her, drug her out of the facilities and beat her. They then called the cops to come pick her up. Most, not all, of the ‘rightous viliganties’ were arrested by the police.
See? The only story I found out of some 4,000 stories on the internet (at that time, just a few years ago. Now the count is over 100,000 and its all about the bathroom question) that included all of those variables was a story about a Trans person being assaulted.
And ‘The Question’? Its not just a Trans issue. Its an Intersex issue. It’s a Gender Variant issue. It’s a complicated issue that, like a lot of us, has no real well defined boundries.
How complicated? I’m not out at work, not at all. I’m so Stealth the Romulans can’t even find me. My closest coworker who knows about me said it best. “I can stand you in the bathroom with me and I’ll fight anyone for you to be there… But, I can’t stand for a man in a dress to be in there with me.” You can’t fight baseless fears. Ask anyone that’s 3 years old who’s afraid of the monster under the bed.
Another story for GinaThis incident happened on March 9, 1996, and I’ve never been able to find anything on how this incident was resolved.
A trans support group was going to meet at a Red Lion Inn in Denver, CO. They had talked to the manager when they booked the meeting room, and he okayed the group using a certain set of toilets.
During the course of the meeting, some of the ladies of course used the loo. Soon, two security personnel were seen flanking the entrance to the toilet, and when someone from the meeting exited the toilet, they were escorted to the manager’s office whereupon a Denver police officer cited them! The charges were the usual “Disturbing the Peace” and other various BS misdemeanor charges. A total of a dozen people were charged.
What was most disturbing was the fact that the manager didn’t notify the group of this action, and just allowed it to happen.
Several of the attendees were TS and held letters from their psychiatrists, stating they were under their care and five of them were still cited by the police!
The reason given by the manager was of an “hysterical woman” (who was neither identified, nor produced!) who complained of “men in the women’s restroom”.
I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find anything online regarding the incident period, let alone any resolution about the citations.