Regarding the controversial 'transgender rights' bill currently roiling Beacon Hill, deemed a civil rights issue by proponents and a restroom-safety issue by opponents, Governor Patrick today had this to say (from the State House News Service): “Somehow or other we manage at home with bathrooms that don’t have men and women [signs] on them... I think we can probably figure that out in public spaces, too.”
How patronizing. The flaws in this dismissive argument are almost too obvious to bother pointing out - beginning with the fact that 'at home' we know and usually trust the people who use our bathrooms. We know their gender. Usually those bathrooms are used individually, in private. They are a secure environment, parts of our homes. The list could go on.
The bill at issue would extend the state's anti-discrimination laws to cover "gender identity"; making it unlawful to discriminate against someone on the basis of how he or she (can I use those terms?) "present" themselves, gender-wise. An incontrovertible result of the bill would be that public bathrooms would be rendered in effect gender-neutral, since it would henceforth be illegal for any unit of government to prevent, say, a man from using the ladies' room, so long as that man is "presenting" as a woman - whatever that means.
Yesterday, a coalition of so-called women's groups gathered at the State House to advocate for passage of the bill. In so doing, they trotted out a familiar and bizarre argument (again, from the State House News):
"We came here today to support all women," said Vicky Steinberg, co-president of the Massachusetts chapter of NOW. "No one deserves to be fired, refused work, denied housing, education or credit, or to live in fear of violence because of his or her gender....Saying that this measure will compromise women's safety in bathrooms is misleading. It's scare tactics." Toni Troop, a spokeswoman for Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, agreed. "Opposing this bill does nothing to benefit or protect women and children." She said the majority of sexual assaults aren't committed by strangers in bathrooms. "They are committed in the home, by relatives or acquaintances."Talk about a non-sequitur. Because "the majority of sexual assaults aren't committed by strangers in bathrooms," the public should not worry about opening public ladies' rooms - including those used by children - to any man who might want to put on a dress and use them. The "majority of sexual assaults aren't committed" in the hallways of the local sex offender halfway house either, but that does not mean I am going to send my daughter there for play time.
Opening public restrooms to whomever wants to use them will increase the chances of sexual assault in public restrooms. To deny that is to deny unfortunate reality: sex offenders exist, they are opportunistic, and some of them will take advantage of a new law allowing them unfettered - and legally-protected! - entry to heretofore semi-private spaces to which they were previously denied access. More, the semi-private spaces in question are, by their very nature, unmonitored. This notion that eradicating gender-based restrictions will not create dangerous situations is deliberately obtuse.
I characterized this odd and factually-counter intuitive argument as "familiar" above because it is very similar to an argument fronted by many of the same self-described advocates for women back in 2006, in response to gubernatorial candidate Kerry Healey's famous 'parking garage' ad. At the time, these groups claimed that 'stranger rape' is a "myth," and made some of the same non-sequitur arguments about "the majority of sexual assaults." After several parking garage assaults earlier this summer that were anything but mythical, attorney Wendy Murphy skewered these non-arguments (and pointed out why they are dangerous in themselves) better than I can here.
In fact, as these episodes so vividly illustrate, many of our state's 'advocates for women' are advocates for liberal social policy first, and advocates for 'women' a distant second.
But back to the issue at hand: I have considerable sympathy for a person who is so confused about his or her own identity that he or she feels compelled to use a gender-inappropriate restroom. But public policy is often about weighing and balancing the legitimate and sometimes conflicting concerns of differently-situated citizens, and making the best possible policy to address the underlying issue. It is eminently legitimate for parents to be concerned about the inevitable implications of the current bill for public restroom safety. If the choice is between safety and making a minuscule subset of the population a little bit more comfortable in the midst of personal identity crises, policy ought to come down on the side of safety every time.
In this state and elsewhere, liberal Democrats are continually trying to extend the definition of "civil rights" to encompass virtually anything that anyone might want to do in the public space. Indeed, just prior to making his ham-handed home bathroom analogy, Governor Patrick today called the pending legislation "a very straightforward question of human and civil rights." Elevation of an issue to that level is, of course, just another attempt to de-legitimize opposition. Who, after all, wants to be against 'human and civil rights'?
But it is not retrograde to insist that society maintain some bright lines. One need not be a neanderthal to object to the notion of a woman - or a girl - sharing a restroom with a gender-confused male. The law already protects transgendered people from violence and threats of violence, in restrooms and elsewhere, to exactly the same extent as it protects everyone else.
That is enough.
Governor Patrick's statements today are yet another reminder that for such a gifted political communicator, he is remarkably tone-deaf politically.
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