Re: Freedom of speech. A person cannot be compelled to have the license plate “Live Free or Die” on their car. A person cannot be compelled to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Compelled speech is unconstitutional. See the Washington Post Volokh legal blog (hardly a right wing media outlet).
2 more reports of bathroom harassment:
"A security guard at a Giant Food grocery store in Washington, D.C., has been charged with simple assault for allegedly pushing a transgender woman out of the store after trying to use the women’s restroom, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. "
http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Woman-mistaken-for-transgender-harassed-in-7471666.php
" Aimee Toms was washing her hands in the women’s bathroom at Walmart in Danbury Friday when a stranger approached her and said, “You’re disgusting!” and “You don’t belong here!”
After momentary confusion, she realized that the woman next to her thought - because of her pixie-style haircut and baseball cap - that she was transgender.
Toms believes the incident happened because of the national controversy sparked by a law that was passed in North Carolina attempting to force transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they were identified as at birth."
Guess I better start growing out my pixie.
These incidents are disgusting and inexcusable, but sadly not surprising. I’m glad criminal charges are being brought against the security guard and will very likely lose her job - if that hasn’t happened already.
I predict someone will end up being murdered by one of these nut jobs.
A family member of mine is very tall and big-boned. She’s been taken for transgender before. Guess she better not go to NC. Or go grocery shopping either–she lives in the DC area. 
Excellent series of posts, Donna. Thank you.
http://time.com/4324687/even-in-liberal-communities-transgender-bathroom-laws-worry-parents/
Real world example with attempts at practical accomodation. 18 girls used the one shower head family room because a male was using the women’s shower room. Parents proposed that no adults without a child with them be allowed to use the shower area one half hour after swim team practice.
^^ Well, at least where I live the business reversed this and the policy is transgenders use the family bathroom and are not disrupting the lives of biological females, particularly minor ones. It is more than a bit off for any adult to think that being nude in front of opposite sex minors is just fine.
@TatinG
The bearded individual cited in your example might well be a trans man. Due to these laws he must use the bathroom that corresponds to his birth certificate. This bearded trans man would be arrested if he used the men’s shower.
These laws will force more masculine bodies into women’s rooms than they will keep out.
“Real world example with attempts at practical accomodation. 18 girls used the one shower head family room because a male was using the women’s shower room. Parents proposed that no adults without a child with them be allowed to use the shower area one half hour after swim team practice.”
As long as they are referring to adults of both sexes not being allowed into shower’s in both the men’s and women’s shower room one half hour after swim practice, I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t see anything in the parents proposal which is excluding same sex adults from the rule. I’m sure no one would have a problem with that as its not discriminating against a certain gender.
Also, trans females and trans males would still be allowed to be in the shower room of the gender they identify with their child.
“The bearded individual cited in your example might well be a trans man. Due to these laws he must use the bathroom that corresponds to his birth certificate. This bearded trans man would be arrested if he used the men’s shower.”
Not in New York. He could legally use the men’s room. It’s only in states like NC where a trans man is forced to use the ladies room.
Nothing barring a trans male or trans female from using the bathroom/locker room etc of the sex they identify with makes any sense to me at all. We already have laws about voyerism and un wanted sexual advances and such on the books, so anyone of either gender - cis or trans - would be subject to those laws and the penalty of any crime they committed.
And who knows, maybe all the showers in the men’s locker room were being used and this guy checked out the ladies shower room and noticed it was empty and thought what they heck. He obviously wasn’t doing anything nefarious since there was no one in the shower room but him - until the girls came in.
TatinG, I can see that my imprecise language might result in some confusion: when I said that “repeated malicious refusal to use the correct pronouns for someone, amounting to harassment,” could result in fines; I was using that as a synonym for “repeated malicious misgendering, amounting to harassment.” I should have used the latter, because I think it would be very difficult to prove that simply refusing to use any pronouns at all for someone – as opposed to deliberately using the wrong pronouns, as in the examples I cited in my previous comment – amounts to malicious harassment. In other words – and I’m quite familiar with the guidelines issued by the City Commission on Human Rights under the Human Rights Law, because I interviewed for a position there some months ago – there’s no “compelled speech” involved here; the fines would be for actual speech amounting to malicious harassment. Volokh is being rather tendentious, I think, in assuming that the former is the case.
That said, the generalization about so-called “compelled speech” is overbroad. First, there are clearly cases in which failure to speak (when a duty to speak exists) can, in fact, be punished both civilly and criminally. An obvious example would be securities fraud cases, in which failure to disclose material facts can be fraudulent under the securities laws, and punishable, every bit as much as an affirmative misrepresentation of fact. It’s also not difficult to posit a hypothetical situation in which, for example, a supervisor has a duty to communicate instructions or guidance to a subordinate, but absolutely refuses to communicate with or address the subordinate in any way (let alone respectfully), because of the subordinate’s race or religion or, yes, sex (including gender identity), in violation of applicable anti-discrimination laws – never mind in violation of whatever internal rules a private company may have for its employees, which wouldn’t implicate the First Amendment in any event. I’d love to see that supervisor claim that’s it’s improper “compelled speech” to require him not to freeze out a particular employee by reason of racial or religious or other prohibited animus, and to punish him for that refusal.
“Are trans female 18 year olds exempt from registering for the draft?” Yes, they would be, currently the military considers trasngender people to be unfit to serve, so they would be excluded currently. The military is thinking of changing that, as well as making women part of a draft, if it occurs.
I cannot think of any examples in which a person is compelled to use SPECIFIC words or face fines. This is simply Orwellian. Maybe the words Mr. and Miss/Mrs. should simply be abolished and we just call everyone “Comrade”.
This is different than a civil lawsuit in which someone claims that use of certain words constituted employment discrimination or harassment. That is John Doe vs. XYZ Corporation. This is the government vs. John Doe. The government should not be punishing anyone for using the ‘wrong’ words.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t condone treating anyone badly and I don’t see why any business would want to put off customers by harassing them. But the First Amendment is the rock on which our liberties are founded and I don’t like any laws that would take away a person’s freedom to speak using any words they choose. (Yes, with the caveat about threats, fire in a crowded theater, etc.)
There are really no situations you can imagine in which repeatedly and maliciously calling someone the “n” word, or calling a woman the “c” word, would result in civil or criminal liability for harassment? Seriously? I can. Easily.
@awcntdb, are you referencing locker rooms or bathrooms? You say bathrooms in your post. I have been going to female bathrooms all my life, and have never seen nudity in the bathroom. So this is a non issue as far as anyone, minor children or not, being subjected to the naked body of any trans woman or any cis-woman in a public bathroom.
It wouldn’t seem wise to strip in a public restroom regardless of these laws, if only because it’s not unusual for moms to bring little boys into the ladies room as was pointed out above.
First of all, she isn’t being forced to be naked in locker rooms. I haven’t been in a locker room in years. She can choose gyms with more private dressing areas or change in the bathroom stall, etc.
Second, you are now talking about SEEING, which requires the brain to interpret, not the genitals. So your hypothetical woman prefers to be seen by someone who believes in their brain (and hormones) that they are a man.
As a cis woman, you can bet your bottom dollar that I can damn well control who sees my body.
As I’ve said before, even in locker rooms, I change in private because of scars all over my stomach that I’d prefer people not stare at (and trust me, they do).
Another ridiculous argument.
Looks like the same mentality of those from the '50s and '60s who loudly wished for segregation to be continued for the same reasons("Against my [religion/social beliefs/personal sensibilities/etc]) is still alive and well in the 21st century.
Just the marginalized groups being focused on front and center have changed.
Actually, Volokh’s legal blog is viewed by many lawyers I know as being quite right-wing leaning in causes/legal positions he espouses. This includes lawyers whose politics are right wing themselves…they tend to be some of Volokh’s biggest supporters.
473 - Civil yes, in the context of a civil employment discrimination or similar case the use of certain words would bolster the argument.
Criminally, as in being prosecuted by the state. No. Do you really think that American First Amendment principles allow the heavy hand of the government coming down on some citizen for using pronouns that are perfectly acceptable commonplace English pronouns?