National store chain Target has enacted a policy that transgender people can use whichever restroom or fitting room matches their identity as they define it. This allows people who identify as male to use the men's rooms, and people who identify as female to use the women's rooms. This is so seemingly obvious, that of course, Christian America threw a shit fit. Boycott!!! Courtesy of The Daily Beast:
"The American Family Association (AFA), a fundamentalist Christian nonprofit that is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), claims to have gathered more than 517,000 signatures on its petition."
“Target’s store policy endangers women and children by allowing men to frequent women’s facilities,” the boycott pledge reads. “Until Target makes the safety of women and children a priority, I will shop elsewhere.”
Yes. 517,000 people took time out of what I'm sure were very busy schedules to announce that they'd take their money elsewhere over people peeing in the potties presenting personal peacefulness. (Not the most eloquent sentence I've ever typed, but I got on a roll with the P's.) Because, truly, where people use the restroom has become America's number one public crisis.
These Christian do-gooders seem to spend an awful lot of time worrying about people's genitalia. Just saying. Personally, I don't obsess over that stuff. Our ShortBuses don't even have restrooms, because the brain-deads that I drive around town all day just tend to shit in the aisles anyway.
Let's unpack this a little. First off, the implication is that transgender people -- just by nature of the fact that they're transgender, apparently -- are somehow more likely to commit sexual assault. Hey, they're weirdos to begin with, so we can't be sure, right? And the petition also makes a specific point of mentioning children being at risk. An even BIGGER logic leap. Trans people are not only more likely to assault people, they have to be pedophiles as well. The same argument I've heard in the past about gay people, by the way.
Jesus Christ. Do we not have anything else to worry about around here? These people seem to think that trans people are just wandering around looking to rock the boat. They're just perverts waiting for opportunities to walk, unmonitored, into public restrooms so they can rape a nine-year-old girl (whose parents are so concerned about her safety that they're signing online petitions instead of actually going into the restroom with her). It can't possibly be about just being comfortable when answering the call of nature.
What these moral crusaders don't ever stop to consider is that unless you actually make a specific point of checking out someone's, well... cash and prizes... when they're IN the restroom, the overwhelming majority of the time, you wouldn't even blink at this. Here's a picture of Kaitlyn Jenner from Vanity Fair:
Wow. Part of me wants to do her, and I KNOW better. Uh, what? Nevermind; not the point, um... Forget for a moment that this is a celebrity, and we know all about her. Imagine that this was a complete stranger we knew zero about. Suppose you saw her walking around Target, and she headed for the restrooms. Which one do you think she should use?
According to the wingnuts who signed this petition, she should be using the men's room. Seriously -- what's more likely to cause a disturbance and make people in the restrooms more uncomfortable and make a scene? No woman is going to be uncomfortable seeing this person walking into the restroom with them -- unless they somehow had specific knowledge that this was actually "a man." And even then -- she would just be too busy trying to get in and out without making a scene to actually harass anybody.
Check out this picture:
Aydian Dowling. He was a front runner at one point to make the cover of Men's Health magazine last year as a fitness model in a contest they were running. (I don't think he won, but I can't confirm because I haven't actually been able to nail down a shot of the cover anywhere. You'd think you could just type "Men's Health November 2015" and find something, but apparently the Internet is too complex a place for that.) Guess what? Goober America would have him peeing in the ladies' room. You see, he was born a "she." How's that gonna work out for you girls, huh? Someone looking like this just casually follows you into the bathroom, and nothing to worry about, eh?
This is nothing more than fear. Unfounded fear. People who can't accept that society is becoming more tolerant and that the country is changing. The train has left the station, and it's not going to wait around for the people in the caboose to figure this shit out. The same way businesses are abandoning North Carolina in droves over their religious-freedom-WhateverTheFuckTheyCallItSoICanKeepHatingPeople law, businesses like Target aren't going to let other people's stupid fears from advancing society into the modern age.
But to address the cover story these people are telling -- the fib that covers their hate -- about how a creepy man who's completely straight can simply dress up like a woman and enter a women's restroom for the specific purpose of harassing or assaulting a woman, here's the inconvenient truth:
What was preventing that before?
Seriously. If someone's that deranged that raping someone in a public restroom is their thing, and they're determined enough that they're making themselves look like women in order to gain access -- not that this boogeyman even exists in the first place, except in extreme, rare cases -- chances are they were going into the women's room even BEFORE Target took a position on the matter. And by the way, sexual assault was, is, and always be will be illegal -- in a restroom or otherwise.
Not for nothing, please check out the article I linked to above, and here again from The Daily Beast. Take a look at all the other businesses that side with the transgender community. 517,000 people are going to have an awfully hard time being part of their communities if they stay consistent and boycott everyone. At a certain point, part of me wishes these businesses would remember the names of all 517,000 signatures on that hate-fest and just not accept any of their money, but I don't know if a computer program's been invented yet that rejects credit cards with certain names on it. I know it won't happen, but I just wish that since we can't go into public restrooms and piss ON these people, maybe we can't leave them a little bit pissed OFF.
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