Why Are the Feds Using the Civil Rights Act to Stop N.C.'s Transgender Bathroom Law?
A decision forbidding gender stereotyping gets stretched by court rulings.
The Department of Justice is attempting to intervene in North Carolina over the state's passage of a law that (among other things) requires transgender people to use restrooms in government buildings and schools that matches the sex listed on their birth certificates.
DOJ Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta has sent North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory a letter warning him that the recently passed HB2 violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying the state is "engaging in a pattern of practice of discrimination against transgender state employees."
It may seem a bit odd to try to claim North Carolina is violating the Civil Rights Act here. There is nothing in Title VII that directly offers protection on the basis of gender identity. Indeed, part of the push for the Equality Act is to add gender identity and sexual orientation to existing federal civil rights laws.
But there have been some court precedents that the Justice Dept. is attempting to bring into play here. The foundation is a Supreme Court decision from 1989, Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled, 5-3, that "gender stereotyping" in the workplace could be considered as grounds for a sex discrimination complaint (it also reduced the threshold of evidence necessary to prove discrimination). The case involved a woman who claimed she was denied promotions because she didn't behave femininely enough.
This, again, doesn't seem like it would necessarily have anything to do with transgender accommodations, but subsequent to this decision there have been a handful of federal level cases that have built on the idea that discrimination against transgender people is fundamentally discrimination on the basis of whether somebody complies with gender stereotypes. Julian Sanchez wrote about a couple of these cases at Reason back in 2005, and they're referenced in Gupta's letter to McCrory.
Agencies like the Department of Justice and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) have decided to push for this interpretation as the law. Note that thus far, the cases the Dept. of Justice refers to are all cases where government agencies are the ones accused of discrimination, everybody from the Library of Congress to the City of Cincinnati, to the Department of Justice itself under former Attorney General Eric Holder.
The Justice Dept. is attempting to force North Carolina to stand down by threatening federal funding, and giving the state until Monday to declare it won't implement the law (which strikes me as opening up a completely different can of legal worms) or face a lawsuit.
At the moment it doesn't appear that McCrory is going to fold, but pressure during an election year (he's being challenged by the state's Democratic attorney general, who is refusing to defend the law) can cause all sorts of things to happen.
It seems likely that, should the Justice Dept. and the EEOC keeping pushing the law the way they have been, this is going to have to end up before the Supreme Court. While it seems obvious that it was never the intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it was passed to protect transgender people, the differing opinions are begging for a high court interpretation.
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And then we act surprised that Trump is winning.
Because they can
I was on the can.
The ring came off my pudding can!
Those who can, ran.
Those who can, doo-doo.
Why Are the Feds Using the Civil Rights Act to Stop N.C.’s Transgender Bathroom Law?
Because they *can*. Next question.
And just think of the JOBS involved in changing all federal restroom signs to “Gender Neutral”.
Sports Illustrated jumps the shark
Jesus Christ.
I’m sorry, but this age of virtue signalling has to break at some point, right?
The one worry I have that I saw an article in Vox of all places attempting to explain the phenomenon, based on a study that just came out. It appears that being a moral scold is an evolutionary strategy that lets other human beings know you are trust worthy; this study’s finding was that we are more punitive punishing on behalf of others than punishing trangressions aginst ourselves.
Still, it is getting so exhausting and everyone seems to be getting weary of it.
I have a simpler answer. Identity politics are cancer, and four years of Obama’s critics being called racists on the Daily show helped to produce a generation of retards that make actual retards blush.
Jesus Christ.
I’m sorry, but this age of virtue signalling has to break at some point, right?
I actually feel this way about SI intrinsically. They haven’t been about sports since the football phone and 50 greatest touchdown video days. Since then, they’ve been a 2nd and lower tier swimsuit magazine in a world of increasingly available internet pornography. They haven’t jumped the shark, they’re pushing a dead horse over a shark that’s too busy eating another dead horse to notice. I fully expect nudes of big foot, batboy, and an as-yet-unnamed circus freak to grace their pages/covers within the next five years.
LEAVE BAT BOY ALONE!
*carefully re-shelves old Weekly World News collection*
OT and/or Threadjack:
Justice Roberts and the Rise of Trump
It’s true, the constitution and the law don’t matter, all that matters is whether your guy or their guy is in charge. So having your guy control the SCOTUS appointments is now tantamount to amending the Constitution, without having to actually go through the amendment process.
How can the pun be unintended if you put it in quotation marks?
I dread the notion of a Trump presidency. But the only one good thing that would come out of it is that we’d never have to hear again about HRC.
The only other good thing that could possibly come out of it is that people start to realize that maybe giving so much power to the President is a bad idea. I don’t have high hopes that it will sink in, given the prevailing worship of Top Men and the commie apologists always explaining that the wrong people were in charge.
She will hover in the background like a vampire around a women’s restroom trashcan until she dies.
This might be your worst offering yet.
…but thanks for trying to swerve the discussion back to the topic at hand.
GAH!?
*pounds head on desk, trying to inflict amnesiac concussion*
Great article.
I’m bookmarking it for when I need to explain why, although I won’t be voting for Trump, I can’t blame people who do.
Didn’t read the article. I’m assuming no one else has, either. That said, it’s a stupid fucking question. Because it’s an issue grabbing headlines right now, it’s the only thing left to appease the cake-eating progressive base. They know full fucking well they would never get a transgendered bathroom law or any civil rights carve outs for transgendered individuals through Congress. So, they quietly get one of their bureaucracies to reinterpret a law fifty years old.
The courts will allow it. Just as they allowed the commerce clause to become the ultimate FYTW line in the Constitution. Everyone was just too stupid to realize what the line meant for the century and a half prior to their reinterpretation.
Antidiscrimination clauses are akin to the commerce clause.
(I think I have food poisoning, so: sex trafficking.)
It was not so long ago that people seriously argued an attorney general refusing to defend a law was unpossible. I am intrigued.
I’m umtrigued.
If a righteous person is doing something for a good reason, then it must be okay.
I liked it better when it was about cake.
You can’t have your cake and not go to toilets.
Maybe it’s about urinal cakes.
“urinal cakes” What a crappy term.
restrooms in government buildings and schools
We’re arguing over which shithole to use IN a shithole?
Whoa! I never knew that trannies made it into the CRA.
Just wait until it’s reinterpreted down the road to include furries and otherkin.
Sure, men are more furry, so whoever discriminates on the basis of fur discriminates on the basis of sex.
If I ever get caught in a felony can I just tell the officers I identify as a Clinton?
Not quite. You have to match Clinton and felony.
Without the real-world political influence, I doubt it would help.
Julian Sanchez? Wasn’t he the bad guy in the first Warlock movie?
+1 Barn Hex
I once asked the question whether the provinces in Canada had more power than states where the Federal government is concerned. I think this case nudges me in the direction of the provinces. Ottawa is far more toothless than Washington sounds like. For example, Quebec can enact its own piece of crap Charter and Ottawa can but offer stern words. In the U.S., sounds like the Feds can really fuck states up if they so choose.
Also, it’s occurred to me (which means it’s probably already been thought of by someone), the nouveau-gatekeepers of the civil rights movement are just a bunch of posers with an inflated sense of what is equality and rights. Everything and anything seems to qualify as a ‘civil rights’ issue now.
Ottawa *could* threaten Quebec by cutting off transfer/equalization payments, but that could never happen. The system is too decentralized now and Ottawa are just too afraid of upsetting Quebec.
I think it was established, oh, I’d say around a hundred and fifty years ago, that the federal government couldn’t give two shits about upsetting the states.
I think its because there are more states, honestly, so each has less power. Like, even if california, our biggest state, gets pissed at the feds… so what? They can’t shut down west coast shipping the way buenos aires can eff over the rest of Argentina.
Seriously, if I could go back in time, I would start a movement to ammend state constitutions nationwide to restrict the kind and natutre of federal money they could accept, before this ball started rolling and they became so reliant on the feds for their budget.
That, and prevent WW1.
Simply repealing the 17A would do wonders for liberty. If the Senate was chosen by state governments, as opposed to by popular election, then it might block legislation that forces state governments to do things that they don’t want to do. As it is now, the states themselves have zero representation in the federal government, which allows the feds to steamroll over the states whenever they want.
17th or not, the states have sure enjoyed being steamrolled, have they not?
It’s the ability of the federal government to pad state budgets because states cannot issue debt as easily as the federal government. The feds have almost bottomless pockets with which to buy the state’s compliance.
I dunno. There’s a lot of states bitching about unfunded mandates and other stuff forced upon them by a government in which they are not represented.
Almost all of the extra-constitutional authority of the feds over the states has come in the form of funding. The feds aren’t allowed to control the drinking age, so they tie highway funds to the requirement. The feds aren’t allowed to control the educational system directly, so they tie funding to their requirements. And so on, and so on….
The unfunded mandates generally come in the areas where the feds perceive they have the legal authority to actually control the states; civil rights, environmental….
The states just can’t say no to those tasty, tasty federal dollars
They can bitch all they want as long as they do what they’re told.
Bingo the 17A was the last nail in the coffin of States Rights
Oh, so they kidnap ONE Prime Minister and suddenly your country wimps out?
It’ like your trying not to be taken seriously, Canada!
/I keed, I keed
Canada is like an economic union. Some of the members would really LIKE to be threatened so they can get out of the union with less hassle.
The notwithstanding clause for the win.
The biggest affront to civil liberties ever devised. The assholes actually patted themselves on the back on that.
Cop out democracy.
Everything and anything seems to qualify as a ‘civil rights’ issue now.
Well, when people suffering from a body dysmorphia-type delusion can use civil rights laws to force society to cater to their delusion, I would say nothing is off-limits.
Yup, that’s the issue. The basis behind a lot of these protected classes is that it’s based on immutable characteristics- race, sex, sexual orientation hinges a good deal of its argument and authority on the idea that being gay isn’t a choice, and I think religion is weakening because it is seen as a choice.
Same with disabilities and mental health stuff, but that is only to an extent. Like, I can’t buy guns for another 3 years in Cali becaude I went to a psych hospital once fpr suicidality (don’t ask me what happens if you own guns, don’t get me started on what I think of this law). So, suddenly, it legally kind of matters what being trans really is. Some accommodations must be made either way, because if its body dysmorphia it would still be something you couldn’t necessarily changr without a lot of help, but legally what society has to do to accomodate you is different.
And it’s a tricky line. I have heard that a trans persons brain looms like a brain of the opposite sex… but I guess that means men and women aren’t totally the same? I don’t see how this question resolves without a sacred ox getting gored.
I have heard that a trans persons brain looms like a brain of the opposite sex…
This is pseudo/anti-science bullshit and even nonsensical based on the other premises of the movement. It’s the same fuzzy ‘rationality of love’ that was used to promulgate the early stages of the gay marriage debate.
One side objectively disagrees that gender and gender identity is explicitly derived from the brain as the soul source and the other side requires there to be other sources besides the brain or their larger movement/premise falls apart. Moreover, gross morphology makes differentiating a male brain from a female brain easy/obvious. However, these gross morphologies don’t translate into, or dictate, gender identity (supposedly) any more than the presence/absence of a Y chromosome or penis/vagina do. You essentially end up with metaphysical discussions about the gender of a person’s soul.
If you can observe things like gender (identity) difference in the brain then you can certainly observe things like language development and, reading and writing. If that’s the case, then gender identity becomes something more like dyslexia where we encourage dymorphs to work harder at learning to use urinals rather than rewriting the English language to (not) accommodate them.
Honestly, the whole states rights thing has been dead since the commerce clause gave the feds pretty much limitless theoretical power. You add to it the other slightly post New Deal ruling that allowed the government to use its taxation powers however it wanted, even if it circumvented other restrictions placed on the federal government, and there’s no constitutional limit on federal powers besides the Bill of Rights. The BOR has been chipped away at, though, as well.
State rights don’t really exist anymore. I doubt there’s a single federal law you could propose that we couldn’t get around with the commerce clause or the ability to tax. Even if the ACA had been struck down, it would have only been on technicality with…*shivers*…the voters kicking the Dems out of Congress being the difference. In reality, the ACA could have been just slightly modified and would have been entirely within Supreme Court precedent.
So, cherish the Bill of Rights while it lasts, Americans, You have a few more years before the 1st/2nd are but dead letters.
Everyone knows that state’s rights is a racist dog whistle.
If you hear the dog whistle…
since the commerce clause was dishonestly “reinterpreted” to pretend it gave the feds pretty much limitless theoretical power.
FTFY
Everything and anything seems to qualify as a ‘civil rights’ issue now.
It’s because civil rights has been tightly intertwined with “goodies from the government”.
This has to go to the Supremes. At some point, a legal definition of sex and gender must be created. Also, what, if anything, are the limits here? Is having male and female bathrooms in the first place discrimination? Or is it that if my drivers license matches the bathroom but not my junk or appearance, I’m cool? Look, I’m all for trans folks using whatever bathroom, and I think the fear of perverts is overblown, but to ke interpreting the law here has bigger legal consequences if you extend the logic from this standard.
And I guess with that, honest question: where is the science at on transgenderism? Is there a genetic differences between the full transsexuals and the gender conforming (ie one camp wants to get an operation or would if the surgery were perfect, the other is the the xe/xir gender neutral to androgynous a gender identity beyond male amd female thing)?
Also, while they both fall under the new trans with a star umbrella, there is a difference between a butch, gender nonconforming queer vagina holder who ids as masculine of center and goes by they/them pronouns, and a chick who wants to get a dick and change her name to Ron. Like, one is going against a gender binary, the other just wants to move from one column in the ledger to another.
This has to go to the Supremes.
It’s a peniletax!
At some point, a legal definition of sex and gender must be created.
Akin to the legal definition of race and ethnicity?
It’s all a social construct! That must be accommodated because it’s all immutable! In spite of being a social construct!
I seriously wonder how proggies heads don’t explode with all the doublethink they must hold.
There already is. It is in the medical textbooks and in federal civil rights law. You can’t create a definition of “gender”. it would be absurd. How would you make it meaningful? What are you going to make people register with the state saying what “gender” they think they are? And if you did, what would be the requirements other than your word?
You could never have a sensible “trangender” legal regime. You would either have to just embrace the fantasy that there is no such thing as sex or gender and create all kinds of secord order effects or problems or draw some ridiculous and unjust line where some people get to be the gender they want and others don’t.
This entire thing is chaos.
“This has to go to the Supremes.”
What does Diana Ross have to do with this?
Stop! In the name of rights, before you break that law. Think it o-over…
*narrows gaze*
Why doesn’t the state just outright ignore the feds? What are they going to do, send the marines in to enforce bathroom laws?
Pull federal funding as they’ve already threatened to do. Obama doesn’t have the balls to send in the military, but he sure as shit will make use of the purse strings. It’s a very libertarian concept. Any government (in this case, a particular level) large enough to give you anything you want can take it away just as easily.
They may send in sailors to clean up the poop deck.
The darkest day in Irish’s life.
Best part of that story: Governor Orval Faubus.
The Little Rock 9?
Irish hates all that is dark.
You know what’s funny about this whole bathroom controversy? The national media seems to be on the side of opening up the restrooms to everyone. Let’s ignore the “by force” component for a brief moment.
The argument goes, (in direct opposition to those that want to keep the restrooms closed to the ‘wrong’ sex) that chaos will not ensue, and it’ll be no big deal.
But at the same time, I’ll bet they can’t fucking WAIT for some redneck to beat the crap out of some transgender person who wandered into the ‘wrong restroom’ so they can finally have another Matthew Shepard story.
The Boys Don’t Cry dude is their Matt Shepard.
Actually, if the feminist internet is to be believed, there have been like 8 trans women of color murdered this year. Which is… a lot? Of course, the way they announce it, it always seems to imply that their deaths are because they were trans (or were maybe trans because this shit is always done through social media and anyway…) and it’s like, “well, or they were poor, black, and lived on the south side of chicago and that’s sadly bad odds right there…”
But yeah, I get the point. Wasn’t there that lesbian who faked a hate crime a few years back? I could see a similar thing happening here
Even if that is true, that doesn’t mean what they claim. Who says all or any of them were murdered because they were transvestites? When some person gets murdered because they welshed on a debt to their drug dealer or some nut wanted to rob them, their murder, while tragic, doesn’t say anything about the country’s attitude towards transgendered. It just says that you should pay your drug debts and probably own a gun for home protection.
The national media seems to be on the side of opening up the restrooms to everyone.
Except senators cruising for gay sex.
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I await Nick’s disingenuous and retarded article defending this as a libertarian victory when the Supreme Court rules on it two years from now.
It will be a further expansion of federal powers. A landmark.
And because I haven’t said it yet today – fuck you, NIck.
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that Title IX bars discrimination based on gender identity, and its jurisdiction covers North Carolina, so this isn’t exactly on shaky legal ground.
Let’s see if the 4th Circuit enforces its ruling. If you are the governor, are you going to cave? The opinion itself does rest upon shaky lawful grounds as there is the text of the Civil Rights Act does not admit of any protections for transgendered freakazoids.
Pretending that Title IX even addresses gender identity at all rather than sex is actually very shaky legal ground. Pretending the Constitution gives the federal government the power to force accomodation of various “identities” is also very shaky.
You or I might consider it wrong, but it’s clearly the law in the 4th Circuit (and the Civil Rights Act is solid law nationwide). There are lots of good responses to courts issuing bad rulings, but pretending it never happened — for instance, writing blog posts where you ask why the executive branch is doing exactly what the court said it could — is just dumb.
That just poves what I said previously – the actual law doesn’t matter, all that matters is having your guys in charge to “interpret” it to pretend it says anything they want.
Who is pretending that the court did not rule as it did. However, let us not pretend that there is some merit to the court’s opinion.
I’m not going to pretend anything, but I want to see a cite to the case.
G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board, decided April 19.
Just as I knew it would be, the majority’s ratiocination sucks premised as it is upon Chevron and Auer deference.
Just as I knew it would be, the majority’s ratiocination sucks premised as it is upon Chevron and Auer deference.
Meh, that’s to be expected. I bet the District Court’s decision had lots of deference in it, too.
The more noteworthy thing to me is how the Circuit Court can make repeated use of “gender identity” and “transgender” yet find the word “sex” to be ambiguous.
The State of North Carolina is not an educational institution and so is not subject to Title IX nor to the Department of Education’s OCR memo.
Okay, I see your point about not being surprised that deference was the basis of the decision.
Did you read how the court summarily concluded that bathrooms are part of “an aid or service” of an educational institution and therefore subject to Title IX? Without going back to the opinion, I do not think they cited another case in support of that position.
The state law bans letting boys use the girls room, but does not prevent schools from other forms of accommodation such as single person restrooms.
SEPARATE BUT EQUAL
The state of North Carolina operates several universities and helps fund grade schools, which are administered by local governments that fall under HB2
Shackleford wrote an entire post questioning why DOJ would try to claim a no-trannies bathroom bill violates the Civil Rights Act bar on sex discrimination, without mentioning that the federal court that covers North Carolina ruled that bathroom bills violate the Civil Rights Act bar on sex discrimination more recently than his last haircut.
You might as well ask why HHS is continuing to run Obamacare exchanges when the law is so clearly illegal — the court said they could! Insist they were wrong, sure, but at least accept that the case happened.
“subsequent to this decision there have been a handful of federal level cases that have built on the idea that discrimination against transgender people is fundamentally discrimination on the basis of whether somebody complies with gender stereotypes”
Next sentence: “Julian Sanchez wrote about a couple of these cases at Reason back in 2005, and they’re referenced in Gupta’s letter to McCrory.”
Unless Julian had a time machine, that’s not referring to a two-week-old decision.
You’re really kind of reaching here. I am not ignoring recent decisions and there’s nothing in the piece that suggests that I am simply on the basis of me pointing out how far back it started. In fact, that there’s a ten-year-old foundation for this interpretation is arguably more relevant.
Bullshit it isn’t. Courts rule for political reasons. Gender and sexuality are two different words in the dictionary for a reason, and it’s not because of the genital-smashing kind. No one wrote the Civil Rights Act with the transgendered on their mind, and no one interpreted it that way for half a century.
The left and transgendered activists explicitly argue that sex and gender are not the same. It is the entire basis of the transgendered rights movement. Without it, they have to resort to the idea that they are defending crazies.
The left and transgendered activists explicitly argue that sex and gender are not the same. It is the entire basis of the transgendered rights movement. Without it, they have to resort to the idea that they are defending crazies.
Good point, but cognitive dissonance has never mattered to the left before. Doublethink is a real thing.
Title IX governs educational institutions.
I’d like to see a link to the ruling.
The Justice dept is threatening to withold funding to SC if the state doesnt back down?
Dont they have proscribed methods for dealing with states through the courts? If all they have to do is threaten to or actually withhold funds every time a state doesnt do what the JD likes, whats the point of having courts?
I am starting to wonder about the conspiracy theories that say the Democrats want Trump to win this fall so he will get blamed for the reckoning that is coming for Obama’s economic policies. Of all the stupid shit to do in an election year and of all the things that is going to piss off the majority of the country and get them to vote for Trump, this is second only to the retards who keep waiving Mexican flags and destroying shit outside of Trump rallies.
You want stupid shit and retard? How about that MS-13 gang banger who died from attempting to gold plate his Pelotas?
If not that, there’s always Cyto.
this is second only to the retards who keep waiving Mexican flags and destroying shit outside of Trump rallies.
Which the MSM dutifully blames on Trump and his supporters.
People believe their lying eyes. They try to do that but it isn’t going to work.
I think that is a part of the reason for Trump’s popularity, actually. People are sick of being lied to and lectured to about who is responsible for violence and racism in this country, and Trump is the backlash.
Nah, people like being lied to. They’re just sick of the same old lies, they’d like some new ones for a CHANGE.
Hmm…a public body commits a civil rights violation when it engages in gender sterotyping.
That would mean that any public university that adopts and enforces rules premised on “rape culture” theories that imply that men believe that they are “entitled” to rape is committing a civil rights violation by stereotyping men.
I expect the Justice Department to be consistent in its reading of the law and to commence enforcement actions against the offending universities immediately.
This rule would also mean that the university supporting any kind of special interest or advocacy group for women on campus would be a violation of Title IX. You could probably make a good case that having a Women’s Study program also violates this.
The left has finally gone full on barking mad.
No, no, anti-discrimination law can’t apply to designated victim groups, it can only apply to designated oppressor groups!
Then wouldn’t that violate the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment?
I expect the Justice Department to be consistent in its reading of the law and to commence enforcement actions against the offending universities immediately.
Holy shit, that’s funny!
You laugh but they are trying to kick Marx out of colleges because he was a white male. Don’t put it past these people to go after women’s studies and such in the name of Transgenderism. They have lost their minds. Nothing would surprise me at this point.
Nothing would surprise me at this point.
We make jokes about SJW rank/org charts. I have no doubts that there are people out there who think they’re a good idea.
Under that theory, how can you have women’s sports in college? The transgender issue is going to cause a tremendous cognitive dissonance in Title IX, as I do not think you can have a logical set of rules that allows gender to override sex where sex is the difference that matters.
Well yeah, if M-F transgenders must be considered women, then they can’t be barred from competing on women’s sports teams. Which of course will be the end of women’s sports teams, since women cannot compete physically with men.
Title IX is also interpreted to require balance between male and female participation in sports, but you cannot do that if male and female have no objective meaning.
I think the excuse is that women are allowed to compete on men’s teams.
Except that they want equality of result in participation numbers.
What’s funny is, they are attempting redefine “sex” to mean “gender”, when the whole point of transgendering is that sex and gender are completely different.
But I have no doubt, none, that the courts will allow this. Our three branches of governance are now:
(1) The Imperial Executive
(2) The Rubber Stamp (appointed by the Imperial Executive)
(3) A Debating Society and Social Club
It’s Hamilton’s curse. He cursed this nation just before Burr’s bullet finished its deed.
+1 and + 1 Prof. DiLorenzo.
The decision to pursue the action against the North Carolina rule would have to be based on the absurd notion that a person can suddenly become part of a protected group by simply changing his mind. If the Justice Department continues with this process it would make a mockery of the Civil Rights Act and render its intentions totally meaningless.
That’s going to be interesting. The question will be – protect them from what? Theirs is not a case where a feature of their humanity over which they possess no control is being used to punish them or deny them of their rights, because Transgenderism is by its very nature a personal choice. The courts now have to contend with the question whether a person is to gain special rights on the basis of what he or she calls himself or herself. What would stop any man from donning a dress and ask for Title IX exemption?
What would stop any man from donning a dress and ask for Title IX exemption?
Not a damn thing.
Hell, you wouldn’t even have to don a dress. Women walk around in jeans and t-shirts, too.
I identify as oppressed.
“While it seems obvious that it was never the intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it was passed to protect transgender people”
I’ll go even further than that.
Imagine that Stennis or Ervin or any of the other Southern Senators who opposed the Civil Rights Act had gotten up and said, “if this bill passes, men who think they’re women will be able to use the men’s room and vice versa.”
Imagine the indignant headlines! Imagine the scolding editorials in the New York Times! “The Southern racists have grown so desperate in their attacks on the civil rights bill that they are simply inventing fantastic scenarios that would never happen. Shame on these Senators for their bald-faced lies!”
But keep your eye on the ball – the key provision of HB 2 (not that you’d know it from the rhetoric of either side) is the part that limits the power of local governments. Under the bill, private businesses which comply with the state and federal laws are exempt from any additional “civil rights” or labor regulations under any county or city ordinance.
Get rid of HB2, and say hello to municipal “civil rights” acts, compulsory gay cakes, city minimum wage laws, etc.
There are 3 possible options.
1) The current way which is that if they pass as the other sex or no one looks, they can use the other bathroom, but not the showers. Men are not allowed in the ladies rooms and the ladies can call for help if they are.
2) You create certificates of trans status so they can use the opposite bathroom, but then how do you prove trans status, who checks them and how do you issue them to people who just “feel” like the other sex but haven’t had surgery?
3) You allow anyone to use any bathroom (since asking for “proof” of trans status is discriminatory), which is to pretend that men in the ladies room wouldn’t upset the ladies and that naked men in the ladies showers at the YMCA or beach shower house is just find and dandy.
Option 1 has been working since forever. Option 2 seems impossible. Option 3 seems to be what activists want but they don’t want to say so openly. Posters are often observed telling the ladies to “get over it” but I would like to see a poll taken of women to see how they feel about men hanging around and showering with them.
HB2 had option 4. If someone has completed a transition (which would presumably involve surgery) they can have their birth certificate and then their state issued ID changed to reflect their new gender, and can using the facilities that match their new gender
Just amend the law and change the wording from gender to sex. Sex is anatomical, Male/Female.
Under the Charlotte law, a man could choose to be in the ladies room without “abusing children”–merely being there would have been legal. Real men, not just closeted trannies. Are you also ok with this? That men in the ladies room can’t be kicked out?
The government owns the government bathrooms, so I accept their role in controlling it’s use. HB2 prevented the state or any local government from controlling any privately owned public accommodations (ones not owned by the government)
Allowing the owners of the facilities to decide how those facilities are used sounds like a libertarian approach to me.
No, because I presume Shawn Stinson has a new birth certificate and state issued ID to show the gender change. HB2 recognizes that.