Bears and bathrooms
Published February 25, 2016
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, February 25, 2016.
Charlotte’s City Council adopted a progressive social policy this week despite the governor’s warning that state power will come down hard. In other words, it poked the bear.
Greensboro leaders are familiar with the phrase, which former Mayor Robbie Perkins used to counsel acquiescence to legislative dictates. The Greensboro City Council instead fought back against the effort to impose a new election system, winning the first round in court.
Charlotte is still wrestling in court to keep its airport, which the legislature tried to give to a regional authority. Now it may have to defend an ordinance its council approved by a 7-4 vote Monday. It extends protections against discrimination to gays, lesbians and transgendered persons. This provoked opposition from people worried about the use of public restrooms, including Gov. Pat McCrory.
“This shift in policy could also create major public safety issues by putting citizens in possible danger from deviant actions by individuals taking improper advantage of a bad policy,” McCrory wrote to two council members Sunday. “Also, this action of allowing a person with male anatomy, for example, to use a female restroom or locker room will most likely cause immediate State legislative intervention which I would support as governor.”
In an editorial Tuesday, The Charlotte Observer noted that last year, McCrory decried intervention by the U.S. Department of Justice in a Virginia case of a transgendered student’s desire to use a high school restroom. Such matters should be decided by local schools, he said then. Now he doesn’t want local officials to make such decisions.
It appears he really wants to score election-year political points. But this is a sensitive issue that requires reasoned conversation. Charlotte has been having such a conversation for more than a year, including during last fall’s city election campaign. Now it has made its own decision. If the new ordinance doesn’t work, the people can elect a new council or initiate a referendum to repeal it.
Transgendered people live in North Carolina, and they have restroom needs like anyone else. Accommodations must be made. It’s possible to disagree on the answers, but it’s not helpful for the governor to encourage legislators from all over the state, many of whom have amply demonstrated their disdain for North Carolina’s “liberal” big cities, to again override a local process.
Charlotte is not the first U.S. city to enact nondiscrimination policies like this. Maybe the governor could find out whether such ordinances have unleashed “deviant action” in other cities. He might be disappointed to find out his concerns are overblown and more likely to trigger fear, hostility and more discrimination against marginalized people. Maybe he can suggest how a city should police the anatomy of restroom users, anyway.
The Charlotte policy goes further than the ordinance enacted by Greensboro last year, which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, city employment and city services. Some restrooms in city facilities have been re-signed for families or single-occupant use. In new city buildings, some restrooms may be designed for general use.
It’s not easy to navigate societal changes, but doing so with as much understanding and mutual respect as possible is important. An angry bear won’t get it right.
February 25, 2016 at 7:53 am
Norm Kelly says:
' Maybe he can suggest how a city should police the anatomy of restroom users'. What an absolutely absurd statement. Editorial MUST have been written by a lib. I know nothing of the author. But this statement is very revealing.
You see, everything stands on the side of McCrory and AGAINST socialist libs who lack common sense. First, people are born with certain body parts. You are born either MALE or FEMALE. When any person who was born human approaches either a bathroom or shower, they have certain body parts they were born with. Is there any question about this? Even in the always confused, mixed-up mind of a lib? No. Second, there's either a label or picture attached to the outside of the room that human being is about to enter. It either says MALE or FEMALE or uses pictographs with pants or a dress to represent the sex of those supposed to use the facility. This is even plain enough for libs to understand. They simply CHOOSE to ignore common sense. Because, even identifying as a black female, I can't imagine anyone is so ignorant as to not know which sexual organs they were born with.
If you were born with MALE body parts, you use the pants facility.
If you were born with FEMALE body parts, you use the dress facility.
Until libs started confusing people with their 'feel good' antics, it was common sense which facility was used. Obviously, as others have pointed out, liberalism is a disease. A disease of the brain. And libs seem unable to be mentally challenged on their own - they insist that the rest of us go along for the journey. Some of us retain the ability to think, and see with our God-given eyes, and refuse to go on the trip to 'unthinkville' with libs!
There is no need for libs to claim it's McCrory's responsiblity to police anatomy at restrooms and showers. It's for libs to prove that this does not, will not, has not caused problems where it's already implemented. It's up to libs to PROVE that their idiocy is functional.
I promise any person that attempts to use the wrong gendered facility while my wife or granddaughter is using the same facility will face serious consequences! No doubt about it. If you got male parts, stay the he!! out of the ladies facility. When my female family members are done with the facility, use it to your mixed-up, confused, outrageous, selfish minds' content. But just because you are confused, mixed-up, selfish, outrageous, and lack both common sense and the ability to attempt to live with your fellow humans, do not expect thinkers to go along with you. In the old days, people who were this mixed up in the head were dealt with medically. These days, libs force us to accommodate them. Is this because so many libs are the ones needing medical treatment? I thought Obamacancer was supposed to help deal with the mentally challenged! Now we find that Obamacancer was meant to allow more mentally challenged people to hold elected office. Or serve on editorial boards!
(identifying as a black female now, none of what i've typed can be construed as a threat or demeaning to anyone. this black-female-privilege is addicting!)
