Politics

Transgender Bathroom Visits: Just Another Front in Chris Christie's War on Terror

Ask the governor about transgender issues, get a response about...

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Republican presidential wannabe Chris Christie may have just come up with the single weirdest argument I've heard about where transgender kids should go to the bathroom. CNN reports:

Claudia Reott, a California woman, asked Christie about a California law "which means that children from K-12 can use any bathroom that they choose, at the time, if they feel like they're a girl, if they feel like they're a boy."

Christie responded by joking that life is simpler in New Jersey, "Men go to men's rooms, women go to women's rooms and there really shouldn't be a whole lot of confusion about that—public accommodations. And I don't think we should be making life more confusing for our children."

He quickly pivoted to his bigger concern that terrorism is making growing up too confusing for children.

"Life is confusing enough right now for our children," Christie said. "Think about those kids in Los Angeles who last week had their entire district closed because of a threat. Think about what they felt like the next day when they went back to school. Did they feel completely comfortable, did they feel like they were safe? How did their mothers and fathers feel when they sent them to school that day? And now today the Nashua schools are closed, based on a threat as well. How are those kids going to feel when they go back to school?"

He then cited the San Bernardino attacks as proof that "every place in America is a potential target for terrorism" before coming back to his broader point that "children learn better, grow up better, mature better when they live in a safe and secure and loving environment."

"The fact though is that we want our kids not to have to decide which bathroom they get to go in. And not to be subject to peer pressure about which one to go in. And not to be subject to the embarrassment that could come with going in a bathroom where somebody maybe doesn't agree that they should be in there or not," Christie said.

So trans kids shouldn't get to pick which bathrooms they use because they might be embarrassed, and also TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM. Um…thanks for the thoughts, Governor.

Bonus link: "It's Always About the Bathrooms, Isn't It?"

[Via bOING bOING.]