Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Last week, Representative Kavanagh said all transgender people should be in jail. We won
that battle! This week he says we should just be degraded and humiliated when trying to
use a public restroom… Maybe next week he will actually get to know one of us and realize
that we are just people. I’m free for coffee!
Let’s get real here. This bill is unnecessary legislation as there is no existing problem
to solve. There are no cases of transgender people causing problems in "private" spaces.
There are, however, many cases of transgender and gender non-conforming people being bullied,
harassed and attacked in restrooms. Instead of the government protecting the most vulnerable,
this bill only encourages people to further harass them. It is bullying in the form of
a law, plain and simple.
By using the term “Gender Expression” the new wording of this bill creates a situation
that is completely open ended. Everyone has a gender expression, not just transgender
people. It is in the way you wear your hair, what clothes you wear, in your gestures and
the way you carry yourself. Short haired soccer mom wearing sweats? No loo for you! Long haired
hipster? No loo for you!
I am especially concerned about communities who already are part of a group with barriers
to face such as the Deaf, people with disabilities and their caretakers, cancer patients, people
of color, youth, those dealing with homelessness and anyone who looks different. If this bill
passes into law, people who are already targeted will be subjected to further discrimination.
As my friend Meg Sneed said, “It is bad enough to deal with chemo and a double mastectomy,
we breast cancer survivors do not need to struggle to find a restroom in public.”
This bill could be used by anyone at any time to discriminate based on the way you look
or their judgment of how you act. It in no way addresses physical anatomy, which is what
Kavanagh claims it is about. Instead it not only characterizes all transgender people
as deserving of discrimination, it sets up any people who have a difference as deserving
denial of access to all private places. It is legalized discrimination.
So please, call your legislators, especially those on the house appropriations committee,
and tell them no on SB 1045 or it will be, “I don’t like the cut of your gib, no
loo for you!” Sincerely,
Sean-Michael B. Gettys
Action Item: Please contact the representatives of the Appropriations committee who to hear
the new #NoLoo4U bill Wednesday, and let them know why you are against it: