North Carolina, of course, is where the state Legislature passed a law specifically to overturn a local ordinance in Charlotte that protected the right of transgender men and women to use the bathroom of the sex they identify with. Raising the morals alarm, the Republican governor and Republican-controlled state Legislature rushed to protect the women and children of North Carolina from hordes of imaginary child molesters disguised as women. The president has sided with the transgender community and issued an executive order to all states that links federal education aid with the protections they have in place for transgender children, particularly the right to use the bathroom that matches their identity.
The shit predictably hit the fan, and I'm sorry to say that I've lost respect for people I've known for 18 years, over the way they've surrendered to moral panic.
Calm down, everyone. It's worth noting that transgender people for years have used bathrooms of the sex they identify with. All the Obama administration has done is to reaffirm the right that they already have. Why are we suddenly worried now? No one is trying to give anyone special rights. The GOP is simply trying to take them away.
There are no documented cases of child molesters and rapists claiming to be transgender so they can enter the women's room and sexually assault girls or women in there. None. On the other hand, there are plenty of cases of transmen and especially transwomen being physically and sexually assaulted, and even killed because people feel threatened or skeeved out by their presence.
We're called as believers to protect the helpless and to defend those who live on the margins of society. That includes the transgender. What we are doing is putting the lives and safety of transgender people at risk because we are afraid of an entirely different group of people. That makes no sense, morally or legally.
There is a real human cost to the fear being whipped up over this manufactured issue. I read a story a few days ago about a ciswoman who was verbally and physically assaulted because people felt she didn't look feminine enough to be in the women's room. Transwomen already are at risk of assault, including sexual assault; sending them into the men's room is only going to increase that risk.
I get the desire to protect my three daughters and other girls from sexual predators. But statistically speaking those sexual predators are far and away most likely to be cisgender straight men than they are gay men, women of any orientation, or people of any other gender. So we handle the risk the way parents always have: Don't send a small child into a public bathroom unaccompanied, even if it means that she's going to head into men's room with her father. Little boys are at a higher risk of being molested by a trusted sports coach than a little girl is by a stranger in the women's room.
We cannot and dare not marginalize one group of people, the transgender, because of a baseless association with another group of people, like sex offenders. There is no justification for it spiritually or morally or legally.
When we listen to fear as we are doing now, we always end up regretting it.
Copyright © 2016 by David Learn. Used with permission.
Tweet
No comments:
Post a Comment