Naughty? Nice? So Confused!

list

The American Family Association and Liberty Counsel, bastions of Christian bigotry, have both released their Naughty or Nice lists of retailers, which is basically about whether or not chances are you might hear “Happy Christmas” rather than the oh so evil and awful “Happy Holidays”. Personally, I don’t care, and if I do get a “Merry Christmas” from someone, I happily respond with “A Merry Giftmas to you!”, which always receives an appreciate laugh and smile.

This self-righteous bullshit on the part of some Christians is beyond idiocy. Christians who actually live according to the bible don’t celebrate the blasphemous Winter celebration, as the bible says it’s right bad, that whole tree and decoration business, and it doesn’t have jack shit to do with Christ or Christianity. It really doesn’t take much effort to learn about the Church’s dubious history with the various Winter holidays, and their attempt to stomp out all those nasty festivals and rituals. It’s also very hypocritical, because the majority of Christians celebrate the same Xmas as everyone else, all wrapped up in the commercialism and crassness, but neither the AFA or Liberty Counsel is in the slightest abashed about putting out their list of retail stores, where people can go and toss out astonishing amounts of money on goods which have nothing to do with poor ol’ baby Jesus. It’s like Zoidberg Jesus in a group of Santa Clauses.

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As Right Wing Watch notes, they can’t even agree on the naughty or nice list. Oh, the confusion!

For the second year in a row, the American Family Association and Liberty Counsel have released dueling “Naughty or Nice” lists designed to, as Liberty Counsel puts it, let Religious Right consumers know “which stores are censoring Christmas and which are openly celebrating it.”

Such efforts are vital, the AFA explained, because “there are secular forces in our country that hate Christmas because the word itself is a reminder of Jesus Christ. They want to eradicate anything that reminds Americans of Christianity. That is why it is important to remind governments and companies to keep the word Christmas alive.”

Right. So how many people are suddenly illuminated with thoughts of Jesus Christ when they hear the word Christmas? Or are the associations more likely to be trees, lights, gifts, decorations, family? Or perhaps frustration, debt, loss, loneliness, sadness, or despair? If you’re a Christian, be honest with yourself here. This is Christian puffery and hate at its finest – the mere idea of inclusion being so repugnant to so-called Christians. You’ll know them by their disdain and hate, not their love.

Unfortunately, AFA and Liberty Counsel can’t seem to agree upon which companies are “naughty” and which ones are “nice,” as several stores that are listed in one category by one group are listed in the other by the other group.

For instance, while Liberty Counsel declares that Barnes & Noble, Best Buy and Staples are all “nice,” the AFA declares that those same stores are all “naughty”:

naughtynice

Similarly, while AFA places Dick’s Sporting Goods and TJ Maxx on its “nice” list, Liberty Counsel has designated them as “naughty”:

nicenaughty

Hopefully, next year AFA and Liberty Counsel can iron out this discrepancy so that conservative Christian consumers can know whether they stores they are patronizing are good, God-fearing businesses or evil misanthropes intent on subjecting Americans to the unimaginable horror of being wished a happy holiday.

Oh yes, the awful! Oh all the gods, the thought of being nice to all people! The horror! Christians, the very best reason to eschew Christmas. I’ll take Saturnalia instead.

Via RRW.

No Gay at Grandma’s Funeral!

Connor Hakes (Facebook)

Connor Hakes (Facebook).

Connor Hakes, 23, asked to perform at St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church after learning of his grandmother’s death on Nov. 21.

Hakes says he and his family have been longtime members of the parish, so he was saddened when Father Bob J. Lengerich denied his request in a lengthy letter that has since been made public. [Can be viewed at the linked article.]

In the letter, Lengerich said he was concerned that Hakes was living a same-sex lifestyle and openly advocating for LGBT rights.

“Anytime someone sins and then acts in the name of God, it causes scandal,” said Lengerich. “This is the main reason why you cannot (at this time) offer your gifts in service at St. Mary’s.”

The letter goes on to say that any person who serves in the church or as a representative of the church must uphold the church’s values.

The church suggested Hakes should perform his tribute outside of the church, saying “you are more than welcome to honor your Grandmother with a special tribute in song as long as it is outside of the Mass and outside of the Church, perhaps at the Funeral Home or Parish Hall during the viewing, at the cemetery after the committal and/or even at the luncheon.”

Hakes, who studied singing at Indiana University, says he’s performed at the church for several years, but he wasn’t surprised by Lengerich’s response.

“It was very clear that he had judged me and formed and opinion about me,” said Hakes. “There was no reason to believe I would be changing his mind.”

Hakes says the church’s decision was partly based on a photo that was posted on Facebook last year, which shows him attending a gay pride rally with friends.

Hakes says he believes his grandparents would be “disgusted” by the church’s decision.

“Their compassion and empathy was abundant, no matter who you were,” said Hakes. “They saw beyond race, religion, sexuality, and social class. They loved everyone. That is what it means to be a Christian. That is what it means to be Catholic.”

The church has responded with their usual mealy mouthed nothingness. It would be a bit more on point if they whacked their parish priest over the head with the need for actual morals. Oh wait…yeah, that won’t happen.

Full story here.

Breitbart: We Represent American Values.

Breitbart is declaring a war on advertisers after various companies announced they’re jumping ship over the outlet’s controversial content, the Hollywood Reporter reports.

On Tuesday, Kellogg announced that it would no longer advertise with Breitbart since the site has come under fire for its racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic commentary.

Kellogg is far from the only company to withdraw advertising from Breitbart, but it seems the Kellogg withdrawal really got up their collective nose.

Breitbart and some of its right-wing audience are now declaring a war on advertisers who are dropping the site. The site’s CEO Larry Solov said, “We’ll handle this the way we always do — war.”

Solov added, “What you’re seeing is Kellogg’s and others buying into a false, left-wing narrative that our 45 million readers are deplorables … Our readers are mainstream America and, frankly, that’s who these advertisers risk alienating. They’re creating economic censorship of conservative discourse. They say we don’t represent their values — but we represent American values.”

Mm hmmm. I’m American, and I can say with no uncertainty, you do not in any way represent my values. If you want to say you represent white supremacist American values, fine, can’t argue that one, but you don’t get to speak for every single person in this country. Not yet, anyway.

At least one blogger seemed to agree with Solov’s assessment. John Hinderaker wrote for PowerLineBlog.com that Frosted Flakes should be boycotted — much like Hamilton and Starbucks.

Hinderaker wrote, “I am not generally a fan of boycotts, but this, like so much else in our civic life, has been a one-way street. Executives at companies like Kellogg need to understand that ours is not a one-party state.”

No, American is not a one-party country. What you seem to miss is that freedom, and choice, is not a one way deal. No one ever gets as whiny and starts stamping their little feet like conservatives, when they are reminded that freedom of speech, choice, and freedom of action is not theirs alone – people who disagree with them get those things, too. Oh, they love their free speech until someone dares to criticize them, and then it’s awful, and those critics should be made to shut up. It’s all tears and war and threats whenever anyone dares to disagree:

He added, “A final observation: most cereal like Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops is consumed by children. Who has more children, liberals or conservatives? Right. Kellogg might want to start looking for a new CEO.”

People with a whole herd of sproggen already tend to buy the knock-offs of popular cereals, and as many conservatives embody the quality of the finest skinflints, I expect many of them do the same. People who have a smaller amount of children probably find it easier to indulge their sproggen with preferred brands in smaller boxes. Anyroad, I doubt this will be as simple a matter as you like. People can be oddly dedicated to breakfast cereals. As for Starbucks, you’re boycotting now? Really. Huh, last time I looked, droves of Trumpoids were buying at Starbucks, having the brilliant idear of giving their name as “Trump”, declaring that some sort of glorious victory over us lefties.

Perhaps they should add Apple to the list of companies to boycott, since the App Store officially removed the Breitbart News app last week.

:Laughs: That’s a splendid idea! All you cons, toss all your iPods, smartphones, and lovely Macs into the trash. Go on now, you know you can do without.

Via Raw Story.

Swastika Cupcakes and…(Continuation 11)

Swastika cupcake (KPNX/screen grab).

Swastika cupcake (KPNX/screen grab).

PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz. – Sweet treats at a Jewish teen’s birthday party in Paradise Valley turned into an offensive message after young party goers decided to decorate their cupcakes with swastika symbols.

Pictures of the swastika topping began spreading on social media after the teen’s mom posted about what happened on Facebook, writing that she hoped it could be used as a teaching moment for parents.

According to the post the girls are all friends and told the Jewish teen’s mom they did it to “be funny.”

The teen’s mother also posted that her daughter and the girls at the party had just had a lesson on the holocaust, so she believed they knew very well what the symbol meant.

Carlos Galindo-Elvira, the director of the Anti-Defamation League in Arizona says parents need to teach their children about the meaning symbols tied to acts of hate like the swastika.

“When you joke with symbols like the swastika you begin to normalize them and make it very casual within our society,” Galindo Elvira told 12 News.

“It’s a joke!” “It’s funny!” No, it’s not a joke. No, it isn’t funny. I never see an explanation as to just what makes this sort of thing funny. All I see is an increase in an empathy deficit in people. That’s no joking matter either. Via KPNX.

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All the Disciples and Crocodile Tears.

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Crocodile Tears.

The evangelist Rick Joyner has quite a lot to say about Trump. Silly, unbelievable bullshit, but I’m sure those who listen to him will happily buy it.

On his most recent “Prophetic Perspectives on Current Events” program, televangelist Rick Joyner declared that President-elect Donald Trump is a “tough as nails” leader who is also deeply compassionate and religious …. not unlike the disciples whom Jesus chose.

Yeah, yeah, Jesus was a real tough guy, and those disciples were thugs. Does it matter? No one actually knows if a Jesus actually existed, and if he did, well, let’s just say the story got super-exaggerated. The point is that the soft clay figures of Jesus and crew can be made over into whatever image any one person wants, the premier feature of all gods, because after all, they are made in our images, not the other way around.

Joyner said that he met with Trump once before the election and discussed Trump’s plans to address illegal immigration. During the discussion, Joyner claimed, he “saw the tears well up” in Trump’s eyes at the thought that his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants could split up families.

“He was about to bust out crying,” Joyner claimed. “He said, ‘We can’t do that, we can’t hurt the families, we’ve got to fix that.’”

That’s one way to get me gagging early in the morning. He seriously expects people to believe this bullshit, after months of intense hatred hurled at anyone who wasn’t pasty white? Lazy, liars, rapists, but hey, I don’t want to break up families, we must make sure they are *all* deported! FFS, what a load of crap. Building that bloody stupid wall was a central part of Trump’s platform, one which got mass amounts of people on board with his idiocy and hate.

Joyner insisted that Trump is also “one of the most honest people I’ve met” and that he possesses a “remarkable fear of the Lord,” so much so that he fired his campaign manager after learning that “this guy was cutting off these Christian leaders from being able to contact him.”

“When he heard that, the guy was gone right away,” Joyner said.

Honest? I’ve lost count of how many times Trump has been indicted for fraud. He’s certainly paid out millions upon millions in such cases to prevent being convicted. He can’t open his mouth without lying. Fact-checking website Politifact, who fact-checked at least 337 of Trump’s statements on the campaign trail and since his election victory, noted that 19 percent of his claims were “mostly false,” 34 percent were “false,” and 18 percent were “pants on fire.” And the lies continue. He lies about the popular vote, he lies about everything. No, honesty is not a virtue of Trump’s. It’s not a virtue of Joyner’s, either. Trump fired a number of campaign managers, and I doubt anyone was fired for “cutting off access to Christian leaders”.

“If you look at the disciples that Jesus chose, they were all Donald Trump,” Joyner later declared. “Every one of them were Donald Trumps.”

Well, there’s a nasty image, leaves a bad taste in the brain. Good description of Christianity though.

Via RRW and Raw Story.

Great Genes. The Best Genes! Probably Yuuge, Too.

Shutterstock.

Shutterstock.

Most people have heard by now that Steve Bannon is a believer in genetic superiority. Well, as long as your genes are nice and white. That’s not good news, given his hand is well up Trump’s backside. Compounding the bad news is that Trump is also convinced that genetic superiority is a for real thing, and naturally, he thinks he has said superiority, why he’s just bursting with scientific racism! Oh, I mean genetic superiority. Naturally, all the white supremacists, nazis or otherwise, are brimming with happiness over this news. These don’t even qualify as dog whistles to the white supremacists, more like disaster sirens, because the rhetoric is very plain, there’s little to no attempt to mask it, or wrap it up in flowery bullshit.

Trump has repeatedly connected his success to his “good genes,” as ThinkProgress previously reported. He’s said that his children “don’t need adversity” to build character or skills, because they share his good genetics. In an interview once, he went so far as to compare himself to a “racehorse” and discussing his “breeding” at length.

The belief in the genetic predisposition of qualities like intelligence are a hallmark of white nationalism.

That’s nothing to do with “good genes”. It does have everything to do with being born with a whole set of silver spoons, along with being fed a gross sense of entitlement, especially when much of that came from a wealthy father who was a known bigot. It’s not difficult to see this pattern was repeated with Trump’s own children. Money! Gold! Money, Money, Money! You own the world, babies! If Trump was bursting with this mythical genetic goodness, we might expect to see something like intelligence, and a lifetime spent in cultivating thought, along with how to think, which is something you do have to learn. Instead, Trump swallowed his sense of entitlement whole, where it continued to swell beyond measure, and has spent a lifetime perpetrating fraud, conning people, and occasionally taking time out to assault women, because of course, he and his super genes own all of them, too. But he did inherit all that money, that counts, right? Trump has also gone on, at length, about the importance of breeding. Makes a person wonder why he divorced the first race horse, oh, I meant wife. I guess once she bred, her usefulness was over.

As for his children not needing adversity to build character or skills, all I can say is that money is no substitute. No parent wants their children to meet undue adversity, but it is rather important to learn how to deal with disappointment, a lack of instant gratification, and the like. That simply makes for a better person. When you’re wandering about with the attitude that you can do whatever you want, and get whatever you want when you want it, there isn’t much room for character. I was unaware that lots of good genes makes learning skills unnecessary. Now piles of money, yes, that does rather cancel out the need for skills. Cancels out an ongoing connection with others too, and learning empathy and compassion. But, genes! Really good genes!

Edited to add: If you’d like an interesting insight into how this particular method of child-rearing worked, PZ has a post up at Pharyngula about Ivanka Trump’s recollection of their childhood fleecing of servants and playmates.

There are so many things to worry about, and this is yet another one. No matter how much “scientific” racism is debunked, there are too many people who hold onto it with a death grip, anything in order to justify a sense of superiority, who will cheer this on, and pour support into any policy which may reinforce this notion. Given the amount of white supremacists now poised for power, this is profoundly troubling.

Full story here.

No Citizenship for You! Or You! Or You!

CREDIT: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana.

I had thought that Richard Dawkins was the prime example of old, white, straight male privilege spilling out all over Twitter like toxic waste. We have a new winner for that position, one Donald Trump. For fuck’s sake, if he can’t control himself on effing Twitter, what does that say for when he’s handed the keys to the country?

Adorable, isn’t it, electing a jackass who doesn’t know one thing about government, history, the constitution, or the bill of rights. These are things you should know from grade school, but as we’ll see in an upcoming post, Trump doesn’t think that sort of thing matters, no. It’s just as well to keep in mind that this may well be another smoke screen, give the rubes something to watch, while I do this next evil thing. It’s best not to forget the proposal for legislating “economic terrorism“, aka protests. Everyone in the resistance has to keep all this in mind. Okay, back to the current idiocy:

But even setting aside Trump’s unconstitutional call to criminalize flag burning, which became a staple of American conservative politics long before Trump emerged as a presidential candidate, Trump is calling for something even more extraordinary. He wants to strip citizenship — and with it, voting rights — from political dissidents. Federal law does permit Americans to lose their citizenship after “committing any act of treason against, or attempting by force to overthrow, or bearing arms against, the United States,” but flag burning is a far cry from treason or armed rebellion. It is a political statement, and democracy depends on the free expression of political ideas.

The president-elect of the United States has proposed stripping a political protester’s very status as an American. In the process, he would take away that person’s ability to vote — and thus to vote for someone other than Donald Trump. Today, Trump proposes this consequence for a very specific category of speech that most Americans view as odious. But once a person’s voting rights can be made contingent upon their beliefs, or their silence, then elections become increasingly meaningless.

We have to remember that Trump isn’t done appointing people as of yet; we have to remember that people with truly repugnant views control the senate and congress, so there’s little point scoffing with a “can’t happen”. We’ve seen what can happen. If that “economic terrorism” bill goes through, and there’s no particular reason to think it won’t, especially given Standing Rock, this isn’t quite as impossible as it seems right now. It doesn’t even matter whether or not Trump means what he says, he said it, he said it in a very public manner, and all the bigots, white supremacists, and other weak people who are desperate for a chance to kick others will embrace it. Welcome to the Nightmare.

Via Think Progress. * Support The Resistance.

Joy in Comments.

James Charles.

James Charles.

It’s a good way to start a day when you can take joy in comments, where you get to see people standing up against bigotry, fear and hate. Cover Girl recently featured their first male model, James Charles.

When 17-year-old James Charles was named the first male ambassador for CoverGirl this month, the company’s message was simple: “All of our CoverGirls are role models and boundary-breakers, fearlessly expressing themselves, standing up for what they believe and redefining what it means to be beautiful,” the makeup brand said in a press release. “James Charles is no exception.”

Mr. Charles is gorgeous, and no doubt has quite the career in front of him. There always has to be someone though, who just has to have a near heart attack about it all. In this case, a mother of a six year old, who wrote a long, hand-wringing screed on the awful at Homeschool Base. Outside of a bible thumper or two, the comments were filled with people who made one excellent point after another, many of them pointing out that answering the question of “why doesn’t daddy wear make-up?” being the easiest ever: “because he doesn’t want to.” Generally speaking, most children don’t have trouble happily accepting such things, and then they won’t be concerned about who wears cosmetics, because some people like to, and some people don’t. Of course, that wasn’t the problem troubled mom was worried about. It’s danced all around, but of course, the main worry is “oh god, what if my 6 year old son wants to try make-up?” To which, my answer would be “let him.” On with the screed!

Mommy, why doesn’t daddy wear makeup?

This is the question my 6-year-old asked me on Friday afternoon. We were watching Countdown to Christmas on ABC, and a commercial came up in between watching Toy Story.

A commercial for mascara.

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McCrory, Please, Just Leave.

Credit: Youtube.

Credit: Youtube.

Pat McCrory has been hanging onto his office like grim death, refusing to believe that voters want his sorry arse out of office and gone. It’s voter fraud! It’s every conspiracy in the world! I won’t leave! I’m afraid his toddler act is beyond tiresome at this point, and it’s quite clear it’s tiresome to everyone else, too.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections Monday issued an order dismissing keys election protests from Gov. Pat McCrory’s campaign, dealing a harsh blow to the incumbent governor’s hope for reelection.

ABC 11 reports the decision affects 52 counties where Republicans filed protests alleging people were ineligible to vote. The board of elections instructed those counties to dismiss any protest that “merely disputes the eligibility of a voter.”

McCrory’s challenger Roy Cooper called the decision a “devastating blow” to the incumbent governor’s campaign. Cooper currently leads McCrory by over 9,000 votes.

So, McCrory, get the bloody message already, please. Exhibit a bit of maturity for a change. No one wants a governor, not even a former governor who does nothing but have one juvenile tantrum after another. Via Raw Story.

Temper, Temper! (Continuation 10).

racist-teacher

That lovely screed was written by a pre-Kindergarten teacher. Make that former pre-kindergarten teacher.

The Democrat & Chronicle reports that the Children’s School of Rochester has fired substitute teacher Cassandra Elizabeth Sutton after discovering that she wrote on Facebook that she “caught a n*gger” who was allegedly “armed and hiding behind the shed in my neighbor’s back yard.”

[…]

“She was immediately terminated as soon as we saw the posting,” Children’s School of Rochester Principal Jay Piper told the Democrat & Chronicle. “We pride ourselves on our diversity. They were very offensive and hurtful remarks.”

TES Staffing, a staffing agency that connected Sutton with the school, also said that it would no longer employ Sutton after her racist rant.

[Read more…]

A Line in the Snow.

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No DAPL: Drawing a Line in the Snow.

And because I was at the Oceti Sakowin camp last Thursday, this year’s Thankstealing:

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Oh, Just Deduct Those Millions of People.

The liar continues to lie. For people who are interested in the truth, Think Progress has the full story.

Donald Trump presented no evidence to support his outlandish claim, and that’s because none exists. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in this or any presidential election, and certainly not on the order of “millions of people.” One of the only documented cases of actual voter fraud in this election came when a Trump supporter tried to vote for him twice.

Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote has grown significantly since Election Day as large states like California continue to tally their votes. Her margin of victory now stands at more than two million votes, by far the largest gap by a presidential candidate who lost the election.

Trump supporters have pointed to fake news websites like InfoWars, which claimed that Clinton’s popular vote win was the result of three million illegal votes by undocumented immigrants and dead people. During the campaign, Trump himself repeatedly tweeted memes and fake stories from white supremacist websites as fact.

My previous posts on fake news, especially on facebook: one, two, three. A recent post on the Facebook Fake News problem.

South Dakota: Ramping Up the Transgender Hate.

Trans man Terri Bruce helping deliver petitions against the anti-transgender bill back in February. CREDIT: AP Photo/James Nord.

Trans man Terri Bruce helping deliver petitions against the anti-transgender bill back in February. CREDIT: AP Photo/James Nord.

Earlier this year, Gov. Dennis Daugaard vetoed a hateful anti-trans bill after meeting with some transgender people. In that case, face time worked, and it worked well. Unfortunately, bigots are never content to give up on their irrational hatred and fear, and insist on a foundation of outright lies.

After North Carolina stole the spotlight last year with its passage of HB2, it’s easy to forget that 2016 started with a fierce debate about transgender rights in South Dakota. Though a bill to require discrimination ultimately lost to a veto, the state clearly isn’t done trying to ban trans students from the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

Jack Heyd, a Republican man living in Box Elder, South Dakota, has filed a ballot initiative that is almost an exact copy of the bill that failed to become law this past year. It dictates that all public schools would have to define sex as “the physical condition of being male or female as determined by a person’s chromosomes and anatomy as identified at birth.” Trans students would not be allowed to use facilities that match their gender identity; the only accommodations that would be allowed would be to segregate them to single-occupancy restrooms, unisex restrooms, or facilities to which faculty members hold a key.

Heyd, who founded the Committee to Ensure Student Privacy to support his efforts, explained that he thinks allowing trans students to use facilities with other students is unsafe and “opens privacy up beyond any reasonable measure.” He worries about people going into restrooms for “nefarious” reasons.

Oh, those nefarious reasons! Christ, I am so tired of the obfuscation, bullshit, and outright lies, and that’s nothing compared to what transgender persons are feeling or going through at any given moment. I’m also tired of pointing this out, but once again: ever since public lavs were segregated, which was not that long ago, there’s been absolutely nothing stopping anyone from going into one, whether their gender appeared to match the sign on the door or not. I’ve been in both, more than once, it’s a bloody lav, who cares? (When you’re having a long thirsty night at your local gay bar, really, no one much cares where you go, as long as you make an effort to actually get to a toilet first.) I might add that no one has been particularly concerned about that, for decade upon decade upon decade, and no, transgender people aren’t a brand new thing. People I know who are transgender are just like other people, well, decent people anyway, and just want to be able to do all the things people do, including being able to go into a public lav to conduct private business without finding themselves in fear of their lives. All this hate legislation is, is a call to make transgender people live in fear every single day of their lives, just in order to make a bunch of assholes, usually so-called Christians, happy and smug in their “godly” hate.

There is zero truth to the idea that transgender people put anyone at risk in public lavs. Don’t want to read? Then listen:

A rapist will rape, and generally speaking, rapists take the path of least resistance. You aren’t going to find rapists leaping out of the proverbial bushes, spending a ton of money on wardrobe, cosmetic procedures, and figuring out how to do their make up just so, in order to waltz into a public lav and do harm. Why in the fuck would they? All they have to do is walk right in. I’ll also point out that public lavs are not popular places for rape or sexual assault. It’s always interesting that the hate brigade focuses on people who might have penises going into the womens’ lav. No one much seems to care about transgender men in mens’ lav. If you really really want to be safe, your best bet is to bar heterosexual men from all public lavs forever. Funny how that legislation never comes up.

As someone who is often in genderfluid dress, I’m not comfortable with some smug asshole deciding what gender I am, or what I may or may not be packing under my clothes. That’s my business, and when I’m in a public lav, I go into a stall, conduct my business, and leave. Why in the hell anyone else thinks they have a right to go poking about, I don’t know. People come in all shapes, sizes, looks, and we all dress in different ways. Seriously, there’s just no way to be sure – so how about everyone has to strip naked in front of all public lavs from now on? Or maybe everyone has to have a karyotype card, and you better hope you aren’t one of the ones with an interesting chromosomal arrangement, because those happen a lot, and you might find yourself a decidedly different gender than you thought you were, and no, of course it won’t matter if you insist you’re a specific gender. How on earth would you know that, after all, it’s down to your chromosomes, right? Oh, and you smug haters get to pay for all the karyotype analyses which will be required.

Or maybe all those smug, hateful assholes could just stop. Stop spreading filthy lies, stop hating, stop being in love with irrational fears. Maybe we could all get some serious good lavatory design going on, go completely inclusive – stalls for everyone! Along with basic societal politeness, which would dictate you don’t get overly nosy about people who are in a public lav for the same reasons you are.

All you sDakotans with good sense, gear up for the fight, it’s on again. Let’s not let the assholes win, okay?

Full story at Think Progress.