The Minnesota GOP is just as backward and ignorant as the GOP in any southern state. They recently tried to pass one of those awful bathroom bill that are the hot new fad among regressives; it got killed, fortunately. But we still got to listen to some prudish whining about safety (because transgender people are dangerous) and privacy (because peering at crotches is standard behavior in the bathroom), and lots of accusations that transgender people are the real bullies here. Watch the parade of bigots here:
They got their dreams of slapping down transgender men and women crushed, so the 35 Republican Minnesotans wrote a letter to McCrory of North Carolina telling him how much they liked him and wanted to follow his ideas.
Not gonna happen, Republicans. You’re all just terrible cowards and bigots, including you locals, Bill Ingebrigtsen and Torrey Westrom.
Disgusting. McCrory has already been forced to back down a teensy bit – it’s not much, but I expect he’ll have to keep amending the great hate bill.
So many of them don’t care one bit about their state losing jobs, or a fucktonne of money. Turning their fear, hatred and bigotry into law is that bloody important to them. *spits*
It’s very telling that the election year wedge issues that Republicans pick always include bullying minority groups whether it is LGBT people or Hispanics or poor people in general. They have zero empathy for people who don’t look or act like them.
I’m just amazed they were able to find 35 of those people capable of signing their own names.
Privacy?
“All people have a right to privacy”. I guess that leaves trans people out of the set ” People”, huh? Since the privacy of trans people (not to have to tell the whole world you’re trans, which can be very unsafe for us) appears to be left out of this important privacy protection bill.
This fits very nicely with the usual transphobic dehumanisation: calling us “it” or “that”. It’s a reminder that we can’t expect to be treated like other human beings, with rights and such, just things to be beaten and murdered and forgotten.
These bathroom bills will – WILL – get someone killef, probably a trans woman of colour. Take it from someone who’s fought for her life before, someone will end up dead from one of these bills.
the attacks on “bathroom issues” sounds, to this unqualified psychologist, symptomatic of paranoia. Aside from that armchair diagnosis, it is totally unreasonable to be afraid of preverts [sic] getting their rocks off by invading the wrong bathrooms.
If the motivation is all about protection, make the action ( of molestation) criminal, not simple presence in the “wrong” bathroom. We already have such laws, so why over protect superfluously, other than to harass LGBTs, out of bigotry.
I wish I could believe that these bills that are being vetoed and failing to be voted in because so many people are decent human beings and think that trans people deserve respect. However, the cynic in me insists that business interests are most likely objecting to it over costs to implement, and it’s really being defeated on those grounds instead.
you will often witness the fundamentalist christians and other anti-islamic bigots railing on about Sharia and how horrible it is. From where I’m sitting I see very little difference between the two of them they both deserve the same fate as the folks at the “Serious Cybernetics corp.”
uncle frogy
Presumably the vast majority of Minnesotans are either blissfully ignorant* or baffled and confused. “They’re doing what now? How did this become a major issue all over the country?”
*”If I don’t look at politics I won’t have to despair over it.”
ck
“…the cynic in me insists that business interests are most likely objecting to it over costs…”
At least that’s not an illogical reason.
Today I learned that Minnesota has a state senator whose signature is just his first name, with three uppercase letters and one lowercase.
The phrase “The Real McCoy” has come to mean something that is authentic and genuine. Hopefully a variant “The Real McCrory” will now take off, meaning something authentically awful and genuinely regressive.
Totes courageous to punch down at a group of people who weren’t actually known for doing any of the ludicrous fucking things they’re in fear of. The only crime is being different. And to call the current assault on those who lack power as “common sense” is sour cream icing on the shit cake. Common sense in their mouths is a total fucking cop-out for not finding anything wrong with current policies and there being absolutely no need to pass these draconian invasive useless unenforceable laws.
かわいそう。
I’m still confused here…the stated “goal” is to keep, for example, a man dressed as a woman from going into the women’s bathroom (because naturally they are all perverts just waiting to flash and rape the women, like all trans people. Wow how can they think such idiocy???). So this law forces the “guy” to go to the men’s room…in a dress and makeup and 100% externally a woman. (vice-versa on the genders too of course)
Apparently this accomplishes something meaningful? Dunno…but here’s where it gets even more odd.
If you are a transSEXUAL, as an post-op example, you were born a woman but are now 100% a man. Unless I’m mistaken, the law would force you (as a fully functioning man) to use the WOMEN’S bathroom now (you were born one) and hope you don’t show your penis to someone accidently when leaving the stall I guess, and suddenly they have CREATED the very scenario they are trying to stop, right? The man WANTS to use the men’s room, but the law forces him to go to the women’s room, and therefore be assumed to be a pervert when even HE didn’t want to do it! (again, reverse genders count too, the logic is the same)
Do they have ANY idea what they are proposing? Or why we should even care? Just go in a private stall and do what you need to do and who cares WHAT it comes out of already!!!
These moronic bigot’s really have to go! The fact they actually CARE about people going to the bathroom at all is telling!
Safety and privacy.
Safety and privacy.
Privacy.
Privacy and safety.
Why are they using these words when they are so eager to strip safety and privacy from anyone who uses a bathroom outside of their own home?
Have they even considered the absurd lengths they’d have to go to to ensure no women are accidentally allowed access to the women’s bathrooms? Or that no women are accidentally kept out? You can’t just decide based on appearance, surely? Or are feminine trans women considered acceptable risk, and masculine cis women considered acceptable losses? Have they considered that, in their campaign to keep their bathrooms free of the wrong kind of women, if it’s applied remotely evenly, they’re forcing men in?
What is it with right wing hate legislation and the total and obvious lack of thought that goes into it?
I only know one transsexual, and I imagine that they only thing she thinks about when she enters a toilette is ‘can I have a shit in peace.’
Exactly. The GOP is looking ahead to a disastrous presidential campaign season with either Trump or Cruz. So they need to stir up some other reason for their base to get out and vote. And the only products they have to sell are fear and hatred.
Athywren @ 15:
Siobahn has an excellent post dealing with the exclusion of trans people who don’t successfully pass the cis normal bar, and how allies are hurting, not helping in this case:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/frontier/2016/04/14/bathroom-bill-selfie-protests-still-make-their-point-at-the-expense-of-trans-folk/
Now I admit I find the whole “gender” thing somewhat suspicitios, but, WTF, a dressing room with individual stalls is teh evul, too? How does it work in shops where you buy clothes? Don’t tell me that in america you have separate rooms for men and women in those stores, too.
Page 2, right column: Rep. Josh Heintzman and Rep. Eric Lucero have the same signature.
@19
In theory, yes we do. In practice, no, because they are often in different parts of the store, and there are too few of both customers and staffers to bother with going back and forth between them. Your typical American Eagle store has men’s changing rooms on one end and women’s on the other. However, since 3 out of the 5 staffers are busy with the register and reshelving merchandise, they just have all the customers go to one end, so I’m usually trying on jeans in a stall next to a woman.
It doesn’t matter, though, because there is a full wall between us and the stall doors lock.
I would really like the republiclowns who write these bills to answer some simple questions about trying to criminalize transgender people in bathrooms.
1) Many transgender women (myself included) are heterosexual and attracted to men. How are we a “threat to women and girls” in a women’s washroom?
2) Many transgender men are heterosexual and attracted to women. How are they a “threat to men and boys” in a men’s washroom?
3) How are lesbian transgender women a “threat” in women’s washrooms while cisgender lesbian women are not?
4) How are gay transgender men a “threat” in men’s washrooms while cisgender gay men are not?
5) re: 3 and 4, Is it the rightwing’s intent to first criminalize and ostracize transgender people to later justify re-targeting cisgender gay and lesbian people for discrimination?
And Soforth#20
Now, that’s funny.
Me @ 18:
That should be Siobhan.
And there’s at least one non-passing trans person on this site that finds their argument silly.
At this point, it seems that even trying to figure out the reasoning of these bills is indulging the bigots.
No, they (most of them, at least) don’t care about women. That’s just excuses.
No, I don’t believe that they (most of them, at least) are really worried or scared of trans people. That’s just excuses for their bigotry.
The reasoning? It’s hate. It’s the need to feel superior to other people. It’s hateful little minds not even trying to accept that some people don’t fall into those nice little boxes they cut out for themselves.
I mean, trying to figure out the loopholes the size of trucks that exist in their stated reasons isn’t completely useless – we’re all ignorant about gender (to a point) and we are all prone to showing some degree of transphobia. So, these discussions have a value, mostly for our own benefit or figuring these things out.
@And Soforth #20:
That’s just standard voter fraud. ;-)
Page 3, bottom of left hand column: Sean doesn’t even know his own surname. Or maybe he thinks he’s signing a work colleague’s birthday card.
… and Torrey Westrom.
We can only hope that this person sponsors all future legislation on this topic, so that professional newsreaders can prove their skills by telling their listeners about “wiggle room in Westrom restroom regulations”.
One of the scariest moments of my life happened in a public restroom. I was in the middle of transition, recently started HRT and, that day, I thought that I was in guy mode. One man loudly asks me if I was sure if I was in the right room. At that point, a couple of dozen faces turn my way. (It was a large room.)
I am having a hard time trying to explain just how intimidated I felt. It would have done no good to explain myself. Besides, I was feeling to scared to speak. I just smiled and walked backwards out of the room. I waited until I was in an other building with smaller rooms and did my business. I stopped using the men’s restroom that day.
Pat McCrory and those Minnesota Republicans want people like me to have to go through this everyday.
Am I bitter? Take a guess.
I’m on business in the McCrory state right now. My first experience upon landing: the passenger in the seat next to me tells me a racist joke. Oy.
I wish my company were notable enough (and financially secure enough) to be able to boycott meaningfully.
To make up for the passenger, the first booth at the conference had anti-HB2 literature and the trade paper had an editorial very nicely calling the bigots out as dinosaurs who will lose.