Transgender bathroom debate
On the Transgender Public Accommodation bill, MA:
Myth: This bill allows people to use the bathroom that the gender the(y) associate with, not the gender they are.
Fact: There is a big misunderstanding on the difference between gender and sex. Gender is what it is to be psychologically male or female and sex is what it is to be biologically male or female. This bill only allows a person who identifies as a male to use a male bathroom and who identifies as a female to use a female bathroom.
Myth: This bill allows for predators and perverts access to bathrooms and locker rooms.
Fact: This bill does not permit a predator or pervert access to a bathroom or locker room; it is only allowing a transgender person access to all public accommodations. If a predator or pervert tries to gain access to an opposite sex bathroom or locker room, that is already against the law.
— Paul Heroux
Huffington Post
Joseph Backholm, executive director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, recently posted a video of a “thought experiment” he conducted at the University of Washington, in which he pulls at the threads of the nation’s gender confusion (beginning with dispensing with “sex” for “gender,” which is important only if you’re a verb). He found widespread acceptance among the young of the idea that men and women should be allowed to visit whichever toilet they choose, regardless of how they’re made. They should be happy by the year 2020, when for the sake of the “transgendered,” who make up about one-tenth of 1 percent of the population of 320 million, all toilet facilities will be “gender-neutral.”
— Editorial Board
The Washington Times
The American Family Association launched a boycott of the nation’s second largest retailer a week ago – over Target’s corporate policy allowing men who identify as women to use the bathrooms and fitting rooms of their choosing.
The American Family Association stressed that their boycott has nothing to do with the transgender community.
“We want to make it very clear that AFA does not believe the transgender community poses this danger to the wider public,” Wildmon said. “Rather, this misguided and reckless policy provides a possible gateway for predators who are out there.”
— Todd Starnes
Fox News
GOP politics, Trump
It’s a sign of the stunning success of Donald Trump’s crossover act that we no longer even think about this campaign’s most revolutionary effect on our politics: the demolition of the line between celebrity and political achievement.
We need to think hard about the multiple weaknesses Trump is exposing in our politics. How has he been able to convert fame and outrage into votes without even a moment of apprenticeship in public service?
One reason is the anger in a large segment of the Republican Party that has been stoked by its leaders. You might say they have now lost control of the beast they were feeding. There is also the utter contempt toward government that their ideology encouraged. Trump has played on the fragility of our media system, which, in its search for ratings, can’t get enough of him, and on a pervasive pain among the many who have been cast aside by our economy.
— E.J. Dionne Jr.
The Washington Post
Donald Trump now looks set to be the Republican presidential nominee. So for those of us appalled by this prospect — what are we supposed to do?
Well, not what the leaders of the Republican Party are doing. They’re going down meekly and hoping for a quiet convention.
The better course for all of us — Republican, Democrat and independent — is to step back and take the long view, and to begin building for that. This election — not only the Trump phenomenon but the rise of Bernie Sanders, also — has reminded us how much pain there is in this country. According to a Pew Research poll, 75 percent of Trump voters say that life has gotten worse for people like them over the last half century.
Trump’s success grew out of that pain, but he is not the right response to it. The job for the rest of us is to figure out the right response.
— David Brooks
The New York Times
Something has changed in American politics since the Great Recession. The old slogans ring hollow. The insurgent candidates are less absurd, the orthodox candidates more vulnerable. The GOP donor elite planned a dynastic restoration in 2016. Instead, it triggered an internal class war.
The puzzle for the monied leaders of the Republican Party is: What now? None of the options facing the GOP elite is entirely congenial.
— David Frum
The Atlantic
