The Ugly

The conservative Republicans seem to have an unhealthy fixation on bathrooms. With something like 49 anti-LGBT bills introduced in state legislatures this year and many of them to deny us the right to use the bathroom.

In Massachusetts there is H.1320 “An Act relative to privacy and safety in public accommodations“ which prohibit trans people from using the bathroom of their gender identity.

Bill H.1320 
An Act relative to privacy and safety in public accommodations
By Miss Garry of Dracut, a petition (accompanied by bill, House, No. 1320) of Colleen M. Garry and others relative to the definition of gender identity as it applies to lawfully segregated facilities.

The bill simply states,

SECTION 1. Section 7 of chapter 4 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2012 Official Edition, is hereby amended by adding the following clause:-

Fifty-ninth, The meaning of “gender identity” shall be distinct from that of “sex” and “sexual orientation.” Access to lawfully sex-segregated facilities, accommodations, resorts, and amusements, as well as educational, athletic, and therapeutic activities and programs, shall be controlled by an individual’s anatomical sex of male or female, regardless of that individual’s gender identity.

Of course the bill totally ignores intersex people. They are trying to put into boxes what nature doesn’t.

Why all this obsession with bathrooms, well they in an interesting article in “The Nation”

The Ugly Fantasy at the Heart of Anti–Trans Bathroom Bills
Do supporters of so-called “bathroom bills” want trans people to cease to exist altogether?
By Tobias Barrington Wolff
March 25, 2016

 North Carolina has now jumped to the front of the line of states pushing “bathroom bills”—laws that prohibit transgender people from using the facilities that are right for them. Here is my question for the lawmakers who enact these laws: Which facilities do you want trans people to use? Because I don’t think you have thought this through. Or let’s start with a more basic question: Are you trying to eradicate transgender people altogether? Trans people exist. They are human beings. They have just as much right to exist as you do. They are not going to disappear, and if what you really want is to make them disappear, then you are hoping for genocide. Good people don’t hope for genocide.
[…]
 All of that leads to the genocide point. That’s an inflammatory word, but it is an important word, because it forces us to confront what is really going on here. The only way these “bathroom bills” make any sense is to imagine that they will make trans people cease to exist altogether. Supporters of these laws don’t want trans dudes to use the ladies’ room or trans women in men’s rooms. They want to exile trans people, exclude them from the public square, cast them out to some faraway place. Some of them may imagine that trans people can be eradicated. Casting out innocent people is cruel. Imagining that people can be legislated out of existence is an ugly genocidal fantasy.

If you are worried about privacy in restrooms, let’s address privacy in restrooms, not demonize trans people. If you are concerned about rape and sexual assault, let’s do something real about rape and sexual assault, but that terrible affront to human dignity has nothing to do with the bathrooms that trans people use. And if what you really want is for trans people to cease to exist, then you need to realize that is never going to happen—and it is not something you should ever wish for.

I believe that for many conservative Republicans the world is moving too fast for them, they long for the good ol’ fifties when life was simple. The woman stayed home and took care of the two kids and the dog while the father was the breadwinner. There were no gays, or lesbians, or trans people, we knew the corner grocer, we knew who the enemy was, and we saw everyone at church on Sundays.

But now life it too complicated for them.

In another article it is about how we went from winning to going on the defensive.

View from the left: How the LGBTQ movement went from winning to losing in nine months
The Daily Kos
By Kerry Eleveld
March 26, 2016

[…]
As I wrote Thursday, LGBTQ Americans are now the clear target of a nationwide campaign being waged by religious zealots to systematically lock in discrimination in every state that hasn't already enacted nondiscrimination protections. The effect could be very much like that of the 2004/2006 anti-gay marriage amendments. This could very well lead to a divided nation where most blue states outlaw discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation, while most red states explicitly give it their blessing.
[…]
What this means is that the equality movement went from an unimaginable mind-bending success in June 2015 to a crushing defeat that could have long-term implications in the span of nine months. An achievement that we have been working toward since the mid-1970s—explicit employment protections at the federal level—is now likely out of reach for the foreseeable future, taking public accommodations and housing protections down with it since they are now bundled together in a bill called the Equality Act. There’s just no path to getting Congress to pass legislation that either hasn’t been adopted, or worse, has been roundly rejected by far too many states.

We are now in a total defensive crouch—dodging anti-equality bullets month after month, year after year, as our entire agenda is effectively dictated by the right.

The thing is that we didn’t win, we lost.

Do you remember all the anti-LGBT laws and state constitutional laws that were passed in the seventies? Also only nineteen states and Washington D.C. have laws protecting LGBT people and three other states have laws protecting lesbian and gays (what I find disturbing is that the “LGBT” organizations list New York state as having protection for gender identity, no law has been passed to protect us, it is only a regulation. What one governor decrees another governor can take away.). We didn’t win many battles in state legislatures or on the ballot; most of our wins have been in the courts.