<p>I don’t agree with this. Thoughts?</p>
<p>[FOXNews.com</a> - Maine Commission Moves to Ban Gender Specific Bathrooms, Sports Teams in Schools](<a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/08/maine-commission-moves-ban-gender-specific-school-bathrooms-teams/]FOXNews.com”>Maine Commission Moves to Ban Gender Specific Bathrooms, Sports Teams in Schools | Fox News)</p>
<p>That’s not what the proposal says at all; that’s just Fox News’s typically bigoted portrayal of it.</p>
<p>The headline is an absurd lie. </p>
<p>There would be no banning of gender-specific bathrooms at all.</p>
<p>All the proposal would do is set forth guidelines for protecting transgender students. Similar to those in place in cities and other municipalities that have laws protecting trans people in general against discrimination.</p>
<p>The article’s only actual quotation from the proposal itself says:</p>
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<p>In other words, the article is nothing but an example of the usual scare tactics employed by people who don’t want to see trans people protected against discrimination – whether it’s in schools, jobs, housing, or public accommodations.</p>
<p>A trans woman (or girl) using the women’s (or girl’s) room is not a man or boy in the wrong bathroom. She’s a woman or girl in the correct bathroom. Period.</p>
<p>Nobody should want or expect trans women to use the men’s room. </p>
<p>And nobody should want or expect trans guys to use the women’s room. (These same people would probably have a fit if they saw some burly, balding, bearded trans man in the ladies’ room. But that’s what would be required if they had their way.)</p>
<p>There’s never been a reported case in which any trans person did anything untoward in using the bathroom appropriate to their gender identity or expression.</p>
<p>They just want to pee in peace, believe me.</p>
<p>NYC’s law protecting trans people against discrimination has been in effect now since 2002. I believe there’s been one in Minneapolis-St. Paul since the 1970’s. They’re in effect in lots of other places now, too.</p>
<p>Have you heard of a rash of trans people (or people “pretending” to be trans people) committing crimes in bathrooms?</p>
<p>I didn’t think so.</p>
<p>And if some guy is intent on sneaking into a women’s bathroom and assaulting people, he doesn’t need to put on women’s clothing, or a law prohibiting discrimination against trans people, to do it.</p>
<p>Stuff like this really angers me. This is part of a deliberate campaign of lies by certain organizations (facilitated by the likes of Fox); it crops up anytime anyone tries to do anything to protect trans people against the rampant discrimination they suffer on a daily basis.</p>
<p>But if I say what I really think, this thread will be moved to the Election and Politics forum, which I hope doesn’t happen.</p>
<p>I would be very surprised if what the article claims the state commission is trying to do is really what the state commission is trying to do. </p>
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<p>If you read the “current proposal” that is linked to in the last sentence of the above quote, there is nothing in there about making all bathrooms or locker rooms unisex.
All it says is that the transgendered student must have access to the facilities of his or her gender or choice, and must not be made to use the facilities of his/her birth gender.
I agree with this.</p>
<p>I’m skeptical of this reporting. I think to say they want to “ban” gender specific bathrooms is incorrect. The proposal says nothing of the kind.</p>
<p>**I see Donna posted while I was typing. I agree with her post entirely.</p>
<p>I’m one of those who likes Fox news and look to it to get away from the (IMO) left wing biased perspectives and reporting of CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. but enough of politics.</p>
<p>However, I read this article and the actual proposal that was linked and I agree with DonnaL that the article’s title doesn’t reflect how I interpret the proposal but the proposal could also be better written. The proposal starts out with a definition of ‘who is protected’ and includes many sexual orientations but then later specifically refers to transgenders and the use of bathrooms/locker rooms by transgendered people - not by anyone of any sexual orientation. There’s a difference. Firstly, it’s not proposing to get rid of gender specific restrooms/locker rooms and it’s not proposing a free for all that some of the quoted people in the article seem to fear. There will still be gender segrgated bathrooms and there won’t be ‘men in the little girl’s room’ and similar situations. I think the ‘persons of concern’ going into the ladies room will identify as a female and likely dress and appear as a female and vice versa for the men’s room. </p>
<p>For any of those really concerned about transgendered people in the bathrooms they need to realize that they’ve likely already been in bathrooms with transgendered people and just didn’t know it and it didn’t harm them. I’ve yet to see a bathroom that has a medical person conduct an exam of the people before they’re allowed to use it.</p>
<p>This article illustrates why we need to look past the headlines and quick bites and check references if we want to know the whole story.</p>