Where to begin? That’s always the question for a new blog or
a new post or even a new page. So I
tried to think of the dumbest thing
I’ve heard since the start of the year, and there it was: the “bathroom bills.” For
those who haven’t heard of these newly passed laws, they represent the most
overt legalization of discrimination since the Civil Rights Movement began
(provided you don’t count voter rights – which was far from overt; like you-didn’t-even-know-it-happened not
overt). Because that’s really the dumb part: we’ve institutionalized this bigotry
to the point where “conservative” states can write laws like this with impunity. The worst part of it all is that we’ve seen
this particular indictment repeatedly in the world’s history as well as our
own. And yet, zealots rise up again,
with the familiar refrain that “this time it’s different” and once again fear
mongering the ignorant to join their xenophobic indictments. But, fear not, gentle reader, because I’m
here to show you exactly why the
so-called “bathroom bills” are one really
dumb thing.
So,
What Exactly Are They?
Okay, so I editorialized my original
description. What are the bathroom
bills? Well, these “bathroom bills” were
introduced and passed into law by social conservatives in North Carolina and
Mississippi that typically mandate that people use the bathroom that matches
the sex on their birth certificate. The
North Carolina bill went proverbial extra mile and modified the state’s
existing civil rights protections to only include one’s biological sex (meaning that the state doesn’t recognize your civil
rights based on an assigned sex). Tricky, right?
Don’t worry, it gets much more insidious
when you hear how they’re defending these
laws...
Prey
for the Children
In this era of tribalism over politics,
it’s hard to imagine there is anything that
binds us together as humans, all the world over. Aside from sharing the same biological
obligations to breathe and die, and such, we are as diverse as any species
could ever hope to be. Nevertheless, it
is just such a biological imperative that unites us – the universal belief that
we should protect children. Now, this
takes many forms, some of them so profoundly backwards (non-immunization, home
schooling and forced religious indoctrination to name a few) that they barely
qualify as protective efforts – but nevertheless, campaigning any idea on the basis that it helps to
protect children is as good a guaranty of success as simply redefining the
voting pool to only include people who you know will vote for you (Hey! That’s a thing, too! I see what you did there).
So, here’s the setup: social
conservatives identify the transgendered (or those “just pretending” to be so)
as predisposed to predatory towards children, because they will (obviously)
expose their offending genetalia to any/everyone in the bathroom/locker room or
spend all their time leering at children and then parents will have to pray the
gay out of their children’s heads, or some such nonsense. Anyways, by employing this spin, these
hatemongers can turn their shouting towards “Save the Women and Children” and
away from “God Hates Fags.”
What’s
Dumb About That
Here’s the problem with that argument: we’ve seen it before and it’s been wrong every time.
Members of unpopular minority groups are
often stereotyped as representing a danger to the majority's most vulnerable
members (the women and children). For example, Jews in the Middle Ages were
accused of murdering Christian babies in ritual sacrifices. Black men in the
United States were often lynched after being falsely accused of raping White
women.
Similarly, homosexuals have often been portrayed as a threat to children. Back in 1977, when Anita Bryant campaigned successfully to repeal a Florida ordinance prohibiting anti-gay discrimination, she named her organization “Save Our Children,” and warned that “a particularly deviant-minded [gay] teacher could sexually molest children.”
Similarly, homosexuals have often been portrayed as a threat to children. Back in 1977, when Anita Bryant campaigned successfully to repeal a Florida ordinance prohibiting anti-gay discrimination, she named her organization “Save Our Children,” and warned that “a particularly deviant-minded [gay] teacher could sexually molest children.”
Since then, we’ve learned that Jewish
congregations aren’t searching out Christians (have you not heard of JDate?),
black men aren’t roaming the streets in rape gangs looking for white women and
the widespread normalization of gay and lesbian lifestyles hasn’t resulted in a
startling increase (or any increase)
in “teacher rapes.”
So, what’s different this time? Nothing.
* * *
Here’s the thing, I have no idea what it’s like to be assigned
the wrong gender. For as many hours as
I’ve dedicated to trying to understand women,
I’ve never wanted to be one (seems like a raw deal, overall, if you ask
me). But I do know what it’s like to have my spiritual identity denied, marginalized and publicly vilified, and
we’re still way behind on
discrimination against the secular. And,
I have a pretty solid idea that that particular
hell wasn’t even close to the
suffering that the transgendered endure.
No, I don’t understand it, but that’s exactly why I’m not in a position
to judge it. The idea that this is a
“new” problem is reductive and (also) dumb.
Gender identity issues have been around as long as there have been
people, we’re just finally getting around to actually helping these people.
The bottom line is, you don’t have
to like the transgendered. You can
consciously avoid them, say bigoted things about them and even go out of your
way not to support their efforts for
equality. But what you cannot do is hijack the law to serve
those ends. We do not govern solely as a function of the consent of the governed –
the Founding Fathers saw to it that we installed check and balances,
protections against ourselves. And just
like Kim Davis’ idiot crusade, the Defense of Marriage Act and countless other
legislative transgressions before them, the court (the Supreme Court, if
necessary) will ultimately reveal these efforts to codify religious-based
bigotry and fear mongering to be what the rest of us already know they are:
profoundly myopic and unimaginably dumb.
