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Trans

Worst Bathroom Bill Ever: Alabama Law Would Mandate Attendants in Public Restrooms

Because limited government means having someone around when you're using the toilet.

Nick Gillespie | 1.9.2017 3:05 PM

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Talk about a race to the bottom.

Legislators in the great state of Alabama are moving swiftly to protect the safety of people using public restrooms.

Senator Phil Williams will introduce the Alabama Privacy Act, according to our news partners at AL.com.

The bill will require bathrooms and changing rooms to either be exclusive to one gender or open to all genders. Bathrooms that are open to all genders must be staffed by an attendant at all times.

According to the bill, any public institution the leaves bathrooms unattended could be hit with fines ranging from $2,000 to $3,500 and face potential lawsuits.

So it's not just a hysterical reaction to the nonexistent threat of men dressing up as women to gain entry to bathrooms because, come on, perversion, right? It's also a jobs program! Needless to say, State Sen. Phil Williams defines himself as a "conservative Republican."

Read the full text of the proposed legislation here.

The Daily Caller notes that it's not just Alabama (and before it, North Carolina) that's wrangling with bathroom bills. Texas' Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, writes Amber Randall, is dropping knowledge like he just had lunch at What-A-Burger:

"If laws are passed by cities and counties and school districts allow men to go into a bathroom because of the way they feel, we will not be able to stop sexual predators from taking advantage of that law, like sexual predators take advantage of the internet," Patrick explained."

Virginia, too, is prepping a bathroom bill, because it's important to deal with non-issues rather than, say, balance state budgets or rein in public pensions.

Because we don't actually live in a completely post-fact world yet, it's worth underscoring that non-discrimination ordinances (NDOs) have been in place for years in various jurisdictions and led to no uptick in bathroom crimes.

HT: The Twitter feed of former Reasoner and current Wash Poster Radley Balko.

Note on image: Curt Schilling was an excellent baseball pitcher and a generally terrible human being and game designer who cost Rhode Island taxpayers on the order of $50 million.

Related video: How To Share a Bathroom with a Trans Person in 4 Easy Steps.

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NEXT: Let's Be Clear About Who Drained the Meaning from the Phrase 'Fake News'

Nick Gillespie is an editor at large at Reason and host of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie.

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  1. Fist of Etiquette   8 years ago

    IT'S BEEN MONTHS AND YET STILL NO MOVEMENT (hehehe) ON PROTECTING ME FROM URINATING NEXT TO CLOWNS.

    1. thrakkorzog   8 years ago

      Some people pay good money for that.

      1. Cynical Asshole   8 years ago

        He said NEXT TO CLOWNS, not ON CLOWNS.

  2. BakedPenguin   8 years ago

    It's also a jobs program!

    Because jobs where you have to smell other people's waste are in such demand.

    1. Kurmudgeonly Kristen   8 years ago

      When was the last time you were in a venue with one of these guys? I gotta say it has to have been about 20 years ago for me.

      1. Rational Exuberance   8 years ago

        Geez, don't you know anything? That's not the toilet guy, that's a bisexual guy looking for a quick blowjob.

      2. BakedPenguin   8 years ago

        Either even longer for me, or I have a worse memory than you.

      3. KDN   8 years ago

        Once a month. They are frustratingly popular around here. They are also the only service people I refuse to tip.

      4. Crusty Juggler   8 years ago

        They are in casinos and sadly venues I have been at in Manhattan.

      5. thrakkorzog   8 years ago

        They also have them in the local strip clubs around here.

      6. Mansplainer   8 years ago

        --"When was the last time you were in a venue with one of these guys?"

        *hangs head in shame*

        /Last night

        1. Scarecrow Repair & Chippering   8 years ago

          * a venue* not *in love*

  3. (((Renegade)))   8 years ago

    Whew, I was worried that we'd go a whole day without a trans toilet post, which is easily the most pressing issue facing our nation.

    1. albo   8 years ago

      I often pause and think about the halcyon days of yore, when people just went to the restroom and nobody seemed to give a good damn whether they had the appropriate body parts.

      But then I sigh and think, what about the wedge issues? Wedge issues are people, too. Let's not live a life without stupid wedge issues.

    2. Crusty Juggler   8 years ago

      I've never like to go a day without experiencing a trans toilet post, if you know what I mean.

  4. timbo   8 years ago

    Seems to me that this fake bathroom crisis should and could be dealt with the old fashioned way.

    Since americans are paralyzed by the fear of a few cross dressing freaks possibly trying to use the wrong restroom, I think Alabamans could best solve this by beating the shit out of that guy that is so obviously creeping.

    If you cannot tell he is creeping, just let it slide.

    If Hillary is headed in to take a standup piss, please beat the shit out of her criminal ass too.

  5. commodious just wasting time   8 years ago

    I hate toilet guys!

    My brother met Chris O'Dowd at a spa near Santa Fe this weekend. Probably in town for this.

  6. Juice   8 years ago

    Listen up, you dumb hicks. If you want me to move to your little shithole of a town you'd better straighten up and fly right.

    So if you want jobs, clean up your act and make your town a place that people like us want to live in. Add fiber internet. Make it a point to elect a progressive city council and commit to not being bigots.

    She'll bring her set of custom fart-sniffing wine glasses and she might let you use one.

    1. Rational Exuberance   8 years ago

      Think of it positively: she tells you all the ways in which you can keep white trash like her out of your town.

    2. Kurmudgeonly Kristen   8 years ago

      I'd rather live in a shithole town than this befrigged hellhole where all the $$ are. Still holding out for that 100% telework job where I can pick where I live.

  7. The Fusionist   8 years ago

    Apparently the bill applies to "Any person or entity that makes rest room[s], bathroom[s], or changing facilities available to the public"

    So we *finally* found an example of a socon bill which would tell private businesses what they can or cannot do with their privately-owned restrooms.

    As opposed to saying that a private business's decisions on who can use their bathrooms supersede any "gay rights" or "trans rights" ordinance passed by the local government.

    Or regulating the use of government-owned bathrooms.

    Now here's a clear example of the soconz bossing private businesses around...

    1. Rational Exuberance   8 years ago

      Now here's a clear example of the soconz bossing private businesses around...

      Socons are authoritarians you say? I am SHOCKED.

      1. The Fusionist   8 years ago

        *Some* are, when did I say otherwise?

        What I say is that being socon doesn't infect you automatically with some authoritarian virus.

        1. The Fusionist   8 years ago

          The progs went straight* to imposing restrictions on private business, at first the socon response involved limiting what the government could do.

          Now some socons in Alabama belatedly want to regulate the private sector - I don't think this establishes moral equivalence.

          *but not narrow!

  8. Acosmist   8 years ago

    Reason chooses the weirdest hills to die on.

    Weld/Clinton 2020!

    1. albo   8 years ago

      I agree! But weld her to what? A huge anchor? A broken earthmover?

      1. OBJ FRANKELSON   8 years ago

        The RFS Kursk.

  9. Rational Exuberance   8 years ago

    I advocate self-policing: every bathroom user should have the right to inspect the reproductive organs of other bathroom user. As a gay man, I just don't feel safe if persons with vaginas could just stroll into the men's room! I think that's a policy both conservatives ("bathroom use based on biological sex") and liberals ("safe spaces for minorities") should be able to support, right?

    1. timbo   8 years ago

      I think tasers could solve these potential problems better than a law.

    2. commodious just wasting time   8 years ago

      [Francine walks by nude]

      Terry: Ugh! I saw it again.

      Greg: You know she has one, why do you keep staring at it?

      Terry: I just don't trust it. I don't want to turn my back on it.

  10. Uncle Jay   8 years ago

    RE: HIT & RUN BLOG
    Worst Bathroom Bill Ever: Alabama Law Would Mandate Attendants in Public Restrooms
    Because limited government means having someone around when you're using the toilet.

    Well, on the other hand, at least you'll have someone there in case "you can't hold your own" in times of bladder or bowel trouble.

  11. Fuck You - Cut Spending   8 years ago

    Honey Bucket police

  12. Lee Genes   8 years ago

    The toilet attendants in Shanghai have an unfortunate habit of sneaking up behind you and rubbing your shoulders when you try to take a leak. I don't know if they do it to get a tip or so that you'll pay them to go away, but it works.

    1. KDN   8 years ago

      ChiCom spies trying to get westerners thrown in jail as a way to enable the state to torture them and steal their trade secrets without causing an international incident.

      "We arrested the perpetrator for assault and we treated him like we do all our prisoners."

    2. pan fried wylie   8 years ago

      Yet somehow toilet attendants in Shanghai do not have an unfortunate habit of getting knocked the fuck out?

      1. Lee Genes   8 years ago

        I watched the bouncers go kung fu on an unruly guest. Threw him thru a plate glass window and rolled him down stone stairs into the street where the cops picked him up.

        I was quite courteous in my refusal of the shoulder rubs.

        1. pan fried wylie   8 years ago

          Foreigners.

    3. albo   8 years ago

      Why don't you turn around when they do this and give them a trouser full of piss?

    4. Mansplainer   8 years ago

      God, the Man Code violation. I can't even...

  13. albo   8 years ago

    Begun, the Toilet Wars have.

    1. MikeP   8 years ago

      You fought with my transgendered mother in the Toilet Wars?

    2. The Fusionist   8 years ago

      At least this isn't as bad as the prequels.

    3. Mansplainer   8 years ago

      A long time ago,
      In a bathroom far far away...

  14. Homple   8 years ago

    The proposed law is stupid, really stupid.

    The suddenly-penumberated right of mentally ill people with dicks to use women's bathrooms is also really stupid.

    I don't mind if the lunatics get to run the asylum; I balk at their trying to tell the sane people how to live.

  15. pan fried wylie   8 years ago

    I needs to checks ya aysehole.

  16. Hyperion   8 years ago

    "Worst Bathroom Bill Ever: Alabama Law Would Mandate Attendants in Public Restrooms"

    Who would want that job? Talk about shitty jobs.

  17. mad.casual   8 years ago

    If laws are passed by cities and counties and school districts allow men to go into a bathroom because of the way they feel, we will not be able to stop sexual predators from taking advantage of that law, like sexual predators take advantage of the internet,

    Are we talking about guys peeing on the internet? Isn't the internet of legal age?

    /confused

  18. R C Dean   8 years ago

    So are we opposed now to the government dictating bathroom policy to private organizations?

    Because when this came up before, I was reading (a) how dare the state stop local governments from dictating bathroom policy and (b) welp, we've already got laws protecting some people from being discriminated against on bathroom policy, so what's one more?

    Or are we chill with the government micro-managing bathrooms, and we just don't like this particular version?

    1. mad.casual   8 years ago

      Worst Bathroom Bill Ever: Alabama Law Would Mandate Attendants in Public Restrooms

      Unless you're 100% sold on transgender people having the right to pee and shit wherever they feel like it and despite anyone's opposition, it's really a brilliantly crafted piece of legislation. Not as good, but along the lines of States getting out of the Marriage licensing business because they don't want to issue licenses to homosexuals.

      Private employers are free to maintain M/F status quo (which is probably more in line with local zoning ordinances anyway) at zero cost. Otherwise, the bathroom police are there to enforce order.

      Not saying I like the law, but it's the direct foreseeable consequence that probably 3/4 of the forum called the first time anyone typed the words "transgender bathroom panic". I think it was maybe only Gillespie and Shackford who didn't think this was gonna end with (officially) policed restrooms one way or another.

  19. ant1sthenes   8 years ago

    Alabama Privacy Act

    Bathrooms that are open to all genders must be staffed by an attendant at all times.

    Hmmm... To ensure privacy in the bathroom, we must make sure that there is someone there watching you.

  20. The Late P Brooks   8 years ago

    JOBS, motherfuckers!

    1. The Fusionist   8 years ago

      I suspect the "bathroom attendant clause" is meant as a deterrent - "they won't want to pay for an attendant, so they'll have to have separate men's and women's bathrooms."

      1. The Fusionist   8 years ago

        Oh, look, John commented on the same subject below.

        But I think the deterrent purpose is quite out in the open, based on the plain text of the law.

  21. John   8 years ago

    It is not a stupid bill. It is a dishonest bill. The point is to make gender neutral bathrooms and changing rooms impossibly expensive to maintain. You may not agree with that end but you can't call this a stupid means for obtaining it, it is just a dishonest one.

  22. John   8 years ago

    It is not a stupid bill. It is a dishonest bill. The point is to make gender neutral bathrooms and changing rooms impossibly expensive to maintain. You may not agree with that end but you can't call this a stupid means for obtaining it, it is just a dishonest one.

  23. Texasmotiv   8 years ago

    What's to keep the perverts from getting a job as an attendant?

    1. Eman   8 years ago

      Well I obviously got it backwards and read the article but not the comments before posting.

  24. Eman   8 years ago

    Um, more like the BEST bathroom bill ever. Creates a ton of jobs (assuming anywhere wants to have pangendered bathroomz). Also, (sarcasm off) I would be very, very not surprised if the bathroom attendants end up being the ones doing anything to kids.

  25. It's pronounced Mo-BEEL.   8 years ago

    Who's gonna pay for it?

    Which road doesn't get repaved?

    Whose kids go without new textbooks?

    How many more days does the driver's license office get shut down in your town, if you even still have one there?

    Anyone?

    Find the money to do this, to say nothing of the money for private businesses to pay for an unfunded mandate, and THEN we'll talk. Until then, how about we work on reopening the ALDPS office in St. Clair County, Mr. Williams' home, which doesn't even have a driver's license office anymore?

  26. Mickey Rat   8 years ago

    "Virginia, too, is prepping a bathroom bill, because it's important to deal with non-issues rather than, say, balance state budgets or rein in public pensions."

    Is not Virginia the source of the case coming before SCOTUS on this matter? If it is a non-issue, should not Gillespie be complaining about why it is before the courts?

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