The So-Called Restroom Debate. Guess what? It's NOT about trans-gender or boys or girls

[underahedgerow]

or any other humans OTHER than the people, the politicians, who put this out to the public to vote for.

This is some GOP scum getting people all riled up to drive them to the polls to vote a GOP ticket.

It's the excuse, it's not the actual issue. They're using the issue to generate GOP votes.

This happens in every major election cycle. Remember THE big issue in the last election cycle?

'Gay' Marriage.'

It's a maneuver that works very well for politicians.

Just sayin'.

What do you think?

[TreasonousBastard]

1. They can't solve your pay being cut while...

your expenses go up, so this distracts you from real problems.

[Hortensis]

23. Yup! And tells you how to vote. I just heard

American Family Radio's Bryan Fischer telling people that they shouldn't consider voting for ANY candidate who wasn't committed to keeping "sexual deviants" out of our daughters' bathrooms to protect their "sexual integrity." He repeated it several times.

So, folk: No need to think or read, certainly not about confusing economic or political corruption issues: Any candidate who is not fanatically committed to policing bathrooms for trangender transgressions is completely unfit for office.

When he recorded this in April, "out of 5 candidates for American president, only one, ONLY ONE!," met this standard.

(As for "sexual integrity," that's a new use of the term to me, but apparently if something about a person could cause a sexually pure woman to wonder what's under the skirt, her sexual integrity has been violated.)

Just by the way, from a couple days ago, Fischer feels Obama's directive on transgender rights in schools is going to force Texas to secede from the union: “So, again, I want to be clear, I’m not saying President Obama is the devil,” he said. “But is he doing the devil’s work? Yes. And he’s imitating the Enemy of our souls because he’s motivated by anger against America as founded, anger against the Judeo-Christian ideals that have founded and shaped this country, and he knows he’s running out of time.”

[whatthehey]

25. The constant focus on the women's bathroom seems misguided even for prudes

What the law will do is force people who have taken great pains to conform to a masculine identity, often with the most overt cues possible such as facial hair and exercised muscularity to overcome "traditional" feminine appearance, to use a women's bathroom because of their birth physiology, while keeping out those born male who have taken great pains to do the reverse and appear as feminine as possible. Exactly which is even hypothetically going to impact a small girl's confusion of her gender "integrity" more? It's not like there is even the tiny risk possible in men's bathrooms of actually seeing "mismatched" genitalia as, while no expert, I haven't heard of too many women's bathrooms without separate stalls. So essentially you have a greater chance of seeing a burly bearded birth female with this law rather than a far more "feminine" appearing birth male.

[Hortensis]

28. Good grief. :) The Bristol Press has an article on

the psychology of the "bathroom bills." Bathrooms are "riddled with anxiety and conflict;" interesting enough, but this part toward the end is more on point because I'm sure you are right about how this "issue" is being used to herd voters away from important economic and legal issues.

Of course, it’s possible Republican politicians are using these “bathroom bills” to wage a bigger battle against trans rights. If so, they’ve chosen a clever battleground, one that highlights our vulnerabilities and tweaks our belief that transgender people somehow unsettle the natural biological restroom divide.

Notably, now that "anti-government" and "anti-regulation" nose rings are slipping, we'll likely be seeing even more harnessing of bigotry and basic fears and anxieties to direct people. Just what America needs.

[Eleanors38]

34. I think the Grand Old Potty is more turned on by bathroom odors.

[Initech]

2. I've been saying this for a while now.

It's a wedge issue. They're trying to pull what they did in 2000 by launching a fearmongering smear campaign against transgender individuals and I think that it's going to backfire on them big time.

[Hortensis]

29. Let's hope so. I know conservatives who have small

tolerance for this stuff, including devout Christians (this is the Bible Belt), but nevertheless vote as strong conservatives.

[femmocrat]

3. They are taking a page from Rove's playbook.

Conventional wisdom, at least in some circles, has it that Rove masterminded gay marriage as an issue in the 2004 White House race in a bid to get conservative evangelicals — a key base for the Republican Party, especially during the Bush years — to the polls. There were ballot initiatives in about a dozen states that year to ban gay marriage (or, supporters of such measures would argue, to defend traditional marriage). Many political commentators have said such tactics are in keeping with the “Rovian” strategy of ginning up the base to clinch narrow victories.

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2010/03/10/karl-rove-says-did-not-ask-for-gay-marriage-fight/

[thomservo]

4. It also helps corporatist dems...

... who get to look more liberal for opposing it.

[Arkansas Granny]

5. What's really sad is that the restroom debate isn't the worst of the bill.

It prevents towns and cities from passing anti-discrimination legislation and requires them to follow the state guidelines which do not protect the LGBT community from discrimination in jobs, housing etc.

You are exactly right. The bathroom issue is just a smokescreen to get people up in arms.

[TexasBushwhacker]

9. In the NC bill it forbids cities and counties from setting

their own minimum wage.

[Moostache]

11. The NC bill is a huge deal in that regards...

And in regards to forbidding local municipalities from passing their own ordinances for the issue as well.

The "small" government people once again championing an idea that is ludicrously difficult to enforce without ENORMOUS governement intrusion into the private lives of citizens.

So...guns? No regulation or oversight AT ALL or its Armageddon!!!!
Pregnancies? We must ensure that women are 'punished' appropriately and carry every fetus to term without exception!!!

Corporate regulation of waste dumping? Too onerous and burdensome for business owners, government strangling innovation...
Bathroom usage? HOLY SHIT!!! We need to have police stationed in front of EVERY public facility across the nation!!!

If its good for everyone, we don't want ANYONE watching or looking...
If it literally affects one or two people though, we want EVERYONE to look, watch and know!!!

Fuck these retards already...can't we pass a law that would make it completely legal to slap them in the mouth every time they offer up some inane bullshit reason to fob off their religious nuttery on the population???

[Saviolo]

12. It was my understanding

That in addition to the minimum wage portion, it also reduces protection against child labour and lots of other ugly things like that. But there are crazy portions of the bill that state if portions of the bill are struck down, the others can remain.

... so really, they're not going to die on the hill of trans washrooms. If they have to give that up (after an intense fight) they will, in order to protect the corporate welfare that the rest of the bill represents. Ugly ugly ugly.

[world wide wally]

6. Everything Republicans do is aimed at winning elections.

Then they are in a position to protect their cronies or enrich them. Can anybody name one thing they have ever done in the interest of average Americans?

[mopinko]

7. like gay marriage, the point is to create a fog that conceals

election theft.

[ReRe]

8. It's a wedge issue...

... they use it to take your attention or distract you before an election. It's a way to pump up their closed-minded Evangelical base to get them out to vote.

[libodem]

10. Absolutely

You put it in a nutshell.

[lame54]

13. it's about the minimum wage...

The fact that transgenders are being abused is a bonus for them

[Scuba]

14. If they're offended by transgender people in the restroom, they should look the other way ...

.... like they do for war, corruption and homelessness.











.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

15. Don't take this the wrong way, but

how many people know, or would even recognize a trans-gender person?

[Gman]

16. Lt. Guv Dan Patrick in TX is fundraising off of it

http://www.danpatrick.org/donate-keep-men-out-of-womens-restrooms/

[BadgerKid]

17. More stuff to stir evango-conservatives.

As does the headline "Clarence Thomas: Don't Hide Your Faith in a 'World That Seems to Have Gone Mad with Political Correctness'"

[zeemike]

18. Well it is about it but not the reason for it.

The reason is what you said...a wedge issue...and it will work,
The amazing thing is that Obama helped them out by telling schools to adopt it...now parents who are conservative will be outraged and rush to the polls to vote for Trump.

I smell a game...and we usually lose when we play the game.

[Doremus]

19. It's a 'wedge issue' straight out of the RNC playbook

It worked very well in Ohio in 2004 when homophobes of all stripes ran to the polls to outlaw gay marriage. Along with closing half the voting places and other traditional disenfranchisement techniques they are known for.

[d_legendary1]

20. You're right. This is nothing but a big red herring

to get Republicans to the polls. The whole red/blue shtick is working as before so they appeal to people's bigotry to get them to vote right wingers into office. Its working for Trump so why not use it to their advantage?

[Separation]

21. 100% totaly agree with you

Ive said this a couple of times here. Its not that I have talked to EVERY transgendered person who is affected by this. Its that I have talked to some, and I also have a gut feeling about it as well.

[Democrats_win]

22. Used to kill the Equal Right's Amendment too

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment

"It was suggested that single-sex bathrooms would be eliminated if the amendment were passed as well"
from the mid-1970s.

Bathroom fear is an oldie but a goodie for the GOP. Once it worked in the recent LGBT rights election in Houston, it became ubiquitous.

[alarimer]

24. It is actually about hiding a lot of other reprehensible stuff.

Also in that bill (and getting almost no discussion) are provisions that bar a person from suing when they are discriminated against in the workplace. It also bars cities from setting their own minimum wage about the state minimum wage. The bathroom thing was what they used to get assholes to support the entire bill.

[WhiteTara]

27. My thought is that they are using this as a smoke screen to

cover up something else that is big that they want to distract from.

[Act_of_Reparation]

30. I think it doesn't matter one iota what the politicians' motivations are.

The people actually showing up at the ballots to hate on trans people or gay people do so because they hate trans people and gay people. You can complain about politicians taking advantage of bigoted asshats, but that concern seems secondary to the fact that there are bigoted asshats to take advantage of in the first place.

[Rex]

32. Their motivations are to brainwash people into relying on their emotions and not critical thinking.

It matters, since it is the reason the people actually show up to hate on trans people. I guess it is far easier to say the GOP is an enabler along with the media in shaping peoples minds into doing things they normally would not do. Maybe there are just too many gullible people that will vote and not enough critical thinkers.

[Act_of_Reparation]

35. Brainwashing?

If this were 2001, I might have bought that. But after having fifteen years to take a good long look at the right, I have to confess I think you've got everything completely reversed. The GOP hasn't tricked, bamboozled, or otherwise conned the American public into believing anything. Half of the American public is legitimately bonkers, and that's the half the GOP elected to represent.

[Rex]

31. Republicans like to control our bodies and LOVE Big Brother style government.

Their talk about small government and freedom of the individual always been lip service. Just like their strong love of the military - yeah they love the money and power...foot soldiers? Never met one.

It is about GOP control freaks...kinda their policy.