Land of the Free: Hardly. When did that change?

I was sitting in on a monthly meeting of a transgender support group in Florida. There were some twenty other transgender individuals in the room. The discussion was being led by three individuals just returned from the annual LBGT lobbying days in Tallahassee, the state capital.

Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. The term comes from the old habit of persons, often paid to represent groups or companies, would hang around in the hallways or lobbies of government buildings trying to attract the attention and get meetings with government officials, most often elected ones or members of regulatory commissions. Many industries now have professional associations whose job it is to ‘lobby’ their interests with government. In most instances it is a well-paying job. It is an effective job so that in many governments at all three levels in the United States and Canada require their professional lobbyists to be registered and for government officials to record when they meet with professional lobbyists.

The three who were addressing the TG support group did not appear to be part of a professional lobbying organization. Instead they had been part of another type of lobbying phenomenon. That is where the lawmakers will agree among themselves to set one or two days of the year aside where they will invite say the LGBT community to come to government and address their concerns to as many representatives as they can see in a day. The other 363 or 4 days of the year can then be ‘LGBT-free,’ for instance, around the halls of government.

Our three speakers told us that their lobbying efforts had been towards two pieces of legislation — in favor of a bill to incorporate gender expression and gender identity among the identities protected by labor and other legislation and against a so-called bathroom bill that would require persons, no matter how they appeared, to use the toilet facilities that match their official I.D.

Despite their opinion that while the bathroom bill had been approved by a certain committee it was going to get no further the majority of the discussion by the three presenters and the group centered on the bathroom bill. As a Canadian where similar proposed legislation was in play I sat there as an interested observer. It was not a short discussion. According to the big clock over the presenters’ heads the discussion went on for just over an increasingly painful hour.

At some point during the discussion a thought occurred to me: where and when did we Canadians and Americans go so off the rail? Our countries were both created and grown with individual freedom as an important value. Unlike the European oligarchies of previous centuries our countries were to allow our citizens individual freedom of religion, thought and action. Only a few authorities were to be given to government and those would be necessary for peace, order and good government. Over time more authority was granted to government when it became obvious that collective action was more efficient than individual action. That is why education and highways are controlled by governments rather than individuals having to teach their own kids or negotiate rights of passage across others’ land.

But when did it become so necessary for state and federal governments to pass laws about who goes to which restroom, bathroom, washroom or whatever you call your toilet area? When and why did governments who have a lot to do concerning national security, collective transportation, economic growth, regulation of banking, etc. find it so necessary to regulate individual choices about bowel and urinary actions?

Can they not trust the Linda Jensens of the world to make intelligent and respectful choices when nature calls? Can they not leave me and my ‘sisters’ to make those choices? Can they not leave it to the security services from WalMart to Dillard’s to deal with those issues if a problem should ever arise.

Back in the 1960s, some 50 years ago the Canadian government of the time decided to clear the criminal code of laws making sodomy and other acts of homosexual behavior illegal and those convicted possibly subject to imprisonment and a lifetime criminal record. The Minister of Justice of the time coined the phrase, “the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.” Probably most people at the time didn’t care for homosexual behavior or more accurately didn’t care one way or the other about homosexual behavior but it did resonate with them ‘why are we bothering to spend/ waste police and Court resources on private acts between consenting adults?’ This ‘cleansing’ of the criminal code was generally accepted by Canadians and overwhelmingly approved by our Parliament. The Minister of Justice shortly went on to be Prime Minister.

As I sat listening to the support group discussion on bathroom bills my mind flashed back to the Canada of 50 years ago. I asked myself; do the state of Florida, other states, the provinces and federal government of Canada, their counties and cities really want to be spending police and Court dollars ‘in the restrooms of the state’? Should the state really have a role in policing who has gone in to what restroom, locks themselves in a stall and does what is necessary in a private act?

It occurred to me that the way to win the hearts and minds of Florida legislators and those in charge elsewhere is to appeal to the public and to their sense of value for tax dollars and to American’s sense of freedom from government action.

I thought again to myself; is this such a different time from the 1960s? Then I shook my head. Damn, is it ever a different time! Back in the 1960s life seemed all about freeing ourselves from social restrictions. Young men took it upon themselves to burn their draft cards if they didn’t support the major government policy of war in Vietnam. Blacks of all ages were throwing off the shackles of segregation and the federal government was supporting them. Women were demanding equal pay and equal rights in legislation. It was only natural for gay rights to be included.

Now, it seems governments and businesses march to a different tune. Some still talk about rights and freedoms but generally that means the political Right talking about their freedoms. They are perfectly happy to support new laws that put restrictions on the freedoms of others. Hence the so-called ‘bathroom bills’ get serious consideration.

Why do these ideas for more laws get serious consideration? Generally it is because they get expressed in terms of improving personal security as if making it illegal for transgender individuals to use toilets not matching their birth or legal gender might somehow make life safer for the wives and daughters of the nation. That is a stacked deck. Arguing for the equal right of a person seeking gender reassignment to use the toilet of his/her choice doesn’t stand a chance against the potential risk of life of the wives and daughters of the nation. That is even more so when the TG person asking for the right, like one of our speakers, is large, looks as if she played defensive tackle on her high school football team and has a penchant for scratching her genital area while she talks.

I think it is time for the LGBT community of lobbyists to change their direction. I suggest that they put the rights argument aside and take up the question of the proper role of government and the inevitable cost of adding yet more statutes and regulations to the books. Turn back to the 1960s and ask ‘do the federal and state governments really have a role in the restrooms of America? How much time and resources of the police and courts are these governments willing to direct toward these toilet questions? Are there not better uses or higher priorities for the budgets of the police and the courts?

Perhaps when every drug dealer, rapist, child molester, serial killer, thief, drunk and/or distracted driver — and a gazillion other problems — are contained, then perhaps it might be something the courts could look at but in the meantime lets suggest to the law makers that they keep the legal statutes clear of laws governing non-problems.

That is what I should have said to the support group but just at that time my prostate issue told me I had to go use the Lady’s Room. By the time I returned the issue was closed.

Tags: featured, restroom wars

Category: Transgender Opinion