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The stoopid…it burns.
Over yonder in Tennessee, State Rep. Richard Floyd is defending his bill to harass transgender people using public bathrooms. His measure would prohibit trans people from using use public bathrooms and dressing rooms that don’t match the gender listed on their birth certificates.
Quoting Rep. Floyd from the Chattanooga Times Free Press article Watson withdraws Senate version of bill affecting transgender use of restrooms, dressing rooms:
“I believe if I was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there — I don’t care if he thinks he’s a woman and tries on clothes with them in there — I’d just try to stomp a mudhole in him and then stomp him dry.
“Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk. We cannot continue to let these people dominate how society acts and reacts. Now if somebody thinks he’s a woman and he’s a man and wants to try on women’s clothes, let them him take them into the men’s bathroom or dressing room.”
He doubles down on his take on trans women in a video for a webpiece entitled Proposed State Bathroom Bill Would Limit Transgender Options.
““I don’t care for what reason, how depraved their mind is, how perverted their mind is, or for what reason they think a man has a right to go into a women’s bathroom, or dressing room to try on clothes…I’m just sick and tired of society having to adjust to every little alternate life style, or little whim or someone who thinks they’re different…If things go in the future like Washington wants them to go, people will be marrying their dogs, their cats, and their horses. We can’t continue to let society go down a slippery slope of depravity and survive as a society.
And note that I said “trans women,” and not “trans people.” You see, Rep. Floyd only thinks of trans people being male-to-female — he hasn’t really thought through the reality that there trans people who are female-to male.
To take trans women out of women’s restrooms, one would put trans men into women’s restrooms. So would Rep. Floyd rather have someone like a Marisa Richmond in a women’s restroom or would he rather have a someone like a Diego Sanchez, a Masen Davis, or an Ethan St. Pierre in a women’s restroom?
And beyond that, does that mean that everyone who uses a public restroom in Tennessee is going to have to carry a copy of their birth certificate with them? Exactly how is this measure, if enacted, going to be policed?
Jonathan Cole of the Tennessee Equality Project dubbed the proposed measure the “Police the Potty” bill, and describes the situation this way:
With unemployment rates higher than the national average and poor educational outcomes in the State of Tennessee, it’s alarming to see lawmakers champion legislation that will only bring unwanted embarrassment to our state. I suppose it’s easier for some lawmakers to manufacture a problem, propose an invasive big government “solution”, and target a small minority than to actually solve real problems in Tennessee.
That sounds like an apt description of the situation to me. Rep. Floyd should personally be embarrassed that he even proposed this bill — it’s a fail of a measure on so many levels. But, that’s the kind of stoopid we seem to see too frequently from those on the extreme right: manufacture a problem, propose an invasive big government “solution” to the “problem,” and then target a minority rather than solve real problems.
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Bill affecting transgender use of restrooms and dressing rooms loses Senate sponsor
http://timesfreepress.com/news/2012/jan/13/bill-affecting-transgender-use-restrooms-and-dress/
As this idiot seems to want to prove, transwomen are more in danger if they go into a men’s room than they are to non-transwomen if they use the women’s room. Nasty violent idiot!
A comment from the Chattanooga Times Free Press FaceBook page:
“Clint Carruth I’m more concerned with my child sharing public restrooms with Republican lawmakers… They have a reputation you know…”
This bill is truly odious. However, it’s inaccurate to say that it would limit the right of trans people to use “public bathrooms and dressing rooms” without also stating that the bill only applies to public bathrooms and dressing rooms in government-owned or -leased buildings.
The bill (http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/107/Bill/HB2279.pdf) defines the term “public building” as “a building owned or leased by the state, any agency or instrumentality of the state or any political subdivision of the state.” It then permits only people of the designated sex (as determined by the person’s birth certificate) to use sex-segregated “restroom[s] or dressing
room[s] in a public building.” In other words, because of the special, limited definition of the term “public building,” it only limits the use of restrooms and dressing rooms in buildings that are government owned or controlled. That, of course, does not make the bigotry behind this bill (or Rep. Floyd’s comments) any less objectionable. However, it harms our credibility when we exaggerate its impact by implying that it applies to every public restroom (and dressing room) in the state.
When I was a kid, I remember the constitutional amendment to grant equal rights to women losing, after it seemingly was going to pass. I’m pretty sure TN was a state that passed it, then reversed. And to this day, women do not have equal rights according to the Constitution. And no significant amendment has passed since.
I remember well that one main reason it was defeated was the absurd claim that it would require all public restrooms to be unisex! Yep, men, women, and all children forced to share the same bathrooms, enforced by Big Gummin!
I’ve lived in TX and the South (mostly TN) my whole life. Why do my neighbors vote for the same old rascals year after year, decade after decade, as their economic standard declines? The analysis that it is a result of race-based propaganda from the 60′s is true, mixed with a highly-tuned class system , which dares not speak its name. I swear, a person making 70k in a small town thinks he’s in the national 1%! Why? Because he has a 51″ flatscreen, and the next biggest on the street is 39″.
There are a few fine colleges in TN, but the students are already in the upper class, or will play along to get along.
Like millions of progressives, I will be faced with Wall St Romney vs Wall St Obama in The Year of Our Hell 2012. I never thought America would come to this. The status quo is destroying itself, but how long will that take? I hope I get to see it, it may take as long as 8 more years. More or less.
You are correct. Scalia has pointed out that the only COnstitutional right women have, in the minds of strict constructionists, is the right to drink and the right to vote.