North Carolina House Bill 2

[Ben in LA]

Stop voting for the conservatives that make these insane laws, or if you do not vote, start.
Easy way to stop these stupid laws is to NOT vote for the people that pass them. Trying to defend this after its pass is a waste of your time, all you have posted here is correct, but will not change the law nor their mind. Voting,on the other hand will and voting for the people that do not believe in this kind of crap will stop it.
Go vote and pay attention to who you vote for.

I agree with the voting of course...but with gerrymandering, voter ID laws, the closing of polling places, and other obstructions, voting those assholes out isn't that easy anymore.

[sucka4chix]

Sucka4chix:
Charlotte "legislation"? I could easily be wrong, but I thought all this crazy was a reactionary response to a court decision. Maybe I missed something.
Anyway; this can no longer be consiered a superfluous topic since discriminatory & spiteful laws are being passed. They probably won't hold up, but it takes time, & damage will be done to some folks just because of who they are. I consider these attainders, & blatently illegal to start with, but I'm not a lawyer. (Thank the PTBs)

The universal moral code, irrespective of religious belief, is the ethic of resiprosity, also known as "the golden rule". That's where one needs to start when considering these kind of legal attacks on anyone. There's no more heinous act of immorality than to dehumanize another.

Charlotte city council decided to pass anti-discrimination laws, among which was a law saying people can choose the bathroom of the sex they identify with.
Yes the state law is reactionary, but getting mad at the state is like getting mad at the sore on your penis instead of the bitch who burned you! You can't have male & female bathrooms but say "use whichever one you feel like". That's called common sense. If you don't agree with that then we're done here. It is not discrimination to ask a male to use the male bathroom simply because they don't fell like a male. The system is made for male and female. If you want to go unisex--- fine, but that's not the discussion. The discussion is with the system we have, male & female bathrooms, how do we decide who's male & female. And the answer is. YOU CAN'T unless you go by sex organs. I said this was superfluous because this is not a topic that should have even been broached. Trams people use the bathroom everyday. Maybe there is inherent risk-- but if you look like Bill Laimbeer in a wig you knew that when you walked outside. You chose a challenging lifestyle, but according to the golden rule you shouldn't want to burden others just so you can feel comfortable

[runningdownthatdream]

...OK....what you said was..."There should be some process to change their birth certificate," ....WTF is the point of that and how are you going to know it's been changed if you don't have someone at the restroom door checking everyone before allowing them entrance, which would in turn require you to have it on you at all times....sorry, it's a Bullshit concept




...and WTF is the point of THAT? Look, 2 people are dining at separate tables in a restaurant and are dressed in a skirt, nylon stockings and high heels. Under the skirt, one person has a vagina, the other a penis. They both get up and walk into the women's restroom to use the facilities. They walk in, they enter adjoining stalls, close their respective stall doors and do their business. One stands up and one sits down. None of the other people in the restroom knows who did what, and guess what....NOBODY GIVES A SHIT. The sky doesn't fall...it's not the end of the world as we know it because somebody with a dick took a piss in a stall in the women's restroom no matter what kind of surgery they've had or what hormones they may or may not be taking. ....again, it's a Bullshit concept



....well, I guess that explains it...anyone who claims to be in favor of trans rights and yet cannot see this stupidity as discrimination obviously does not have his tray table secured and his seat back in the full upright position

THANK YOU for your common-sense, pragmatic answer. One of Humanity's most significant feature (aside from the opposable thumb!) is adaptability. Yet a segment of the population (those often labelling themselves conservative) persists in opposing change and prefer to cower in fear at the prospect of change rather than adapting as needed. I bet the conservative types can trace their roots back to that one ape up in the tree who remained long after the others had discovered legs were useful for more than scurrying up and down tree trunks.

Public restrooms are for a) pissing b) washing your hands c) taking a shit none of which are gender-specific activities.

[Bridgettaxo]

Im trans. and I blame Caitlyn Jenner. discuss..

[sucka4chix]

Public restrooms are for a) pissing b) washing your hands c) taking a shit none of which are gender-specific activities.

And yet we've had legally mandated separate bathrooms that no one was complaining about until now

[runningdownthatdream]

And yet we've had legally mandated separate bathrooms that no one was complaining about until now

indeed.......'we' also had apartheid in South Africa, segregation ( a more polite term for apartheid) in America, persecution of Jews in Europe, untouchables in India, genocide of native peoples around the world, etc etc etc.......those were also 'moral' ideals - and legal too - upheld for decades.

At some point within the last few hundred years some societies deemed it prudent to use separate facilities for our base needs. Many things have changed since including perceptions about gender.

Embrace the change. Stop cowering in fear when faced by the unknown.

[Stavros]

I did not know what this was until I looked it up, and cannot really comment on the details other than to offer a link below to a list-based survey of HB2 which covers more than just the LGBTQIAP provisions, and I also throw in the Fox news related website which offers a literal reading which results in this:

6. Does this bill mean transgender people will always have to use the restroom of the sex of their birth, even if they have undergone a sex change?
Answer: No. This law simply says people must use the bathroom of the sex listed on their birth certificate. Anyone who has undergone a sex change can change their sex on their birth certificate.
http://myfox8.com/2016/03/29/myths-v...crorys-office/

How disingenuous can one get? And as has been pointed out in other posts nobody is obliged to walk around with their Birth Certificate at all times. Not yet, anyway.

It seems to me that the issue here is the way in which individual states have the ability to chip away at liberal laws many of which date from or are related to Civil Rights legislation passed in the 1960s and 1970s. Voter registration is one obvious law which states have a lot of power to influence, as is also true of boundary demarcations in electoral districts, but I don't see how the Federal govt can over-ride some of these issues without eroding state's rights, and that has been a contentious issue in the US since the Civil War if not before.

For what it's worth, my experience of rest-rooms on both sides of the Atlantic is that the businesses or services providing them need lessons in basic hygiene and rest-room management. I have been ashamed to use so many I often make provision before I leave home so that I will only need to use a public rest room in an emergency. I know that in many cases it is 'other people' who turn these facilities into disease pools of disgusting liquids and suspicious trails of 'stuff' on the walls, on the floor and on the seat, and I have lost count of the number of times I have seen a man walk straight from the urinal to the door to leave without washing his hands, leaving minute traces of his urine on the handle, something which ought to be illegal.

Clubs with LGBTQIAP nights will strictly demarcate use the Male and Female toilets with attendants inside to monitor activity and keep the place clean, not to discriminate against LGBTQIAP but because in the past sexual activity (sometimes in exchange for money) used to take place in the Male toilets, the old WayOut in London c2003 used to be notorious for this (I think they changed their policy around 2004-05 and not just for legal reasons)-I don't know if this happens or happened in the US.
The toilets on the ground floor of Diva's in San Francisco last time I was there were a disgrace, the Lounge in Las Vegas not much better. I don't have a toilet phobia as such, but I am wary of using public rest-rooms for various reasons related mostly to hygiene and the absence of basic facilities -water, soap, paper etc. It must be a nightmare for so many LGBTQIAP as well as the rest of us, yet in our most modern cities and towns we can't seem to find a way to provide decent provisions for the bare necessities of life, and that must change, along with attitudes.

Another survey of HB2 is here:
http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2016/...-house-bill-2/

[sucka4chix]

indeed.......'we' also had apartheid in South Africa, segregation ( a more polite term for apartheid) in America, persecution of Jews in Europe, untouchables in India, genocide of native peoples around the world, etc etc etc.......those were also 'moral' ideals - and legal too - upheld for decades.

At some point within the last few hundred years some societies deemed it prudent to use separate facilities for our base needs. Many things have changed since including perceptions about gender.

Embrace the change. Stop cowering in fear when faced by the unknown.

Really dude? See that's why activism sucks-- people take little insignificant crap and compare it to monumentally important things. I guess the new catch word will be CHANGEOPHOBIC. Don't exaggerate your importance. No one is afraid. That's rhetoric for people who need to feel important. The change suggested by Charlotte is a bad change and unwarranted. My point was that no one was trying to champion men because the are "discriminated" against because they can't use the ladies room, but since it's trans we have to care??? When was the last time you went into a bathroom fuming "Dammit! These gender specific bathrooms!!"? (Btw, there not gender specific, they're Sex specific).Never gave it 2nd thought, did you? But now, conveniently you do.Your unilateral rights are unbecoming.

[runningdownthatdream]

Really dude? See that's why activism sucks-- people take little insignificant crap and compare it to monumentally important things. I guess the new catch word will be CHANGEOPHOBIC. Don't exaggerate your importance. No one is afraid. That's rhetoric for people who need to feel important. The change suggested by Charlotte is a bad change and unwarranted. My point was that no one was trying to champion men because the are "discriminated" against because they can't use the ladies room, but since it's trans we have to care??? When was the last time you went into a bathroom fuming "Dammit! These gender specific bathrooms!!"? (Btw, there not gender specific, they're Sex specific).Never gave it 2nd thought, did you? But now, conveniently you do.Your unilateral rights are unbecoming.

Little insignificant crap' to you is monumentally important to some. a proliferation of 'little insignificant crap' taken together becomes a program of discrimination. Usually the people who benefit the most from discrimination can't see how their actions affect others. They're too taken up with proclaiming that 'nobody' is complaining. Ironic really since the 'Nobody' they're referring to is made up of the majority. It's always the so-called minority that recognizes and acts because they most acutely feel the pain inflicted by 'nobody'.

I didn't say anything about gender-specific bathrooms. Read it again.

I'm not clear on what you're saying about championing men to use the ladies room: are you inferring that no-one ever championed men to use ladies rooms but suddenly we care if the man claims to be transgender? If that's your point I really don't have anything else to say to you.

[hippifried]

And yet we've had legally mandated separate bathrooms that no one was complaining about until now

Really? Where? Is this just another tidbit from the book of makinshitup? Sorry bud, but sexually segregated restrooms are & have been a courtesy by the providers. If there were already legal mandates, these new laws would never have been written.

So how is this a burdon on anybody? Hmmm... Maybe some woman has to wait an extra 2 minutes? Not an issue so much with men because of urinals. I've seen quite a few women use the stalls in the men's rooms at ballgames & other large crowded venues, just because nobody's invented a mass urinal system for women, & the lines can be ridiculous. Seen some sideways glances silly grins, but never heard a complaint. There's more & more unisex toilets nowadays too. Especially around the medical industry. All you have to do is lock the door for privacy. Knock before entry. It's just basic social politic. No need for laws if we'd all stop this nonsense of how much better it is to be rude rather than "politically correct". I just wish women would put the seat back up where it belongs.