Again, I say to all my trans sisters, DO NOT COMPLY. Use the bathroom that matches your gender, we should not be complying with unconstitutional and immoral laws. PERIOD
Agree. I teach at a public university in a red state that hasn't moved on this yet but I am expecting a ban will be proposed and passed in my state in the next legislative session. I have no intention of complying. It is neither safe nor moral to do so. I didn't struggle 39 years to embrace my gender identity to let a politician tell me how I should define myself. They can go to Hell.
Here in Texas, and I teach at a community college. They plan on passing a bathroom ban. Such blatant discrimination and bigotry. They can arrest me, but I will not comply with this.
It's easy for me to suggest the same, however, I'm not the target. I'd be hard pressed to tell someone to guarantee a run-in with police every time they have to pee.
Where are the Democrat cis congresswomen who will be working with Sarah McBride? Everyone of them should step forward to accompany McBride to the women's room to protect her from the likes of Mace and Taylor (the real threats in this story).
I have to admit I don't see how a bathroom sit-in by cis people would work. I'm a cis male. If I did it in a men's room, the response would be "What?" If I did it in a women's room it would be framed as "proving" that the "real purpose" of trans access is "men invading women's spaces." How do you envision this action?
Yep, we lack the numbers. Cis people should think it over if they want to live in a world where anybody can be a victim of scapegoating if the politicians decide to do so in order to keep their jobs and make money. They should opt to stop it and force politicians to care about actual issues like human rights, inflation, economy etc.
Yes, of course trans men exist. I get that it feels lousy to only ever be mentioned when it is used as a threat..."just wait until trans men..."
I do think when it comes to fascist attacks on trans people, the typical claim is that trans women aren't women and that we are actually predators using our presentation to gain access to cis women in vulnerable spaces. Talk about old ways of being viewed that are triggering.
We need to all stand together but to do that, we all need to be heard. And we all need to feel valued and seen.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I hope we can all be better people because you did so.
You would love the Hungarian trans activism scene I think. Here trans men are often more in the forefront than trans women. ;) They are often our best activists.
Thanks for speaking up. I have a couple friends who are also trans men. But I know you have a different perspective that is important. And many of these issues affect all of us.
Trans men exist and are welcome to be seen with and joining in with trans women and non-binary people but the narrative is heavily skewed one way. The media doesn’t pay any attention to what trans women say, there is never balance and even the highest profile trans woman in your country, Sarah McBride, gets drowned out by her aggressors. Trans women are the devil in this piece, sometimes literally and all the legislation is attacking them and their rights. Can trans men do better? Will newly acquired male privilege make trans men listened to?
There is a huge number of the population that probably don’t even know that trans men exist! It would wreck their tiny little minds to know that 50% of transgender people are trans men and wouldn’t know what to do with the knowledge. Because of this, the bathroom ban will bring trans men into the conversation and they will be propelled into the gunsights of the far right republicans.
I honestly don’t think that trans men want to be a part of this circus, I don’t hear trans men standing up against the laws being targeted at trans women, the sports bans are not being aimed at trans men-the people supporting these are not male and you know that Joe Public will never think that a trans woman can beat a cis man at any sport, regardless of the truth.
The ‘wait till a bearded person goes into the ladies’ trope is hackneyed, stereotyped and unrepresentative but what will happen when trans men are wholesale outed in the same way as trans women because of bathroom bans? How do they intend to play it? Are there trans men willing to stand up and shout?
I don’t blame anyone who is trans who can pass, go stealth or otherwise hide for not wanting to raise their head above the parapet, it’s fuggin dangerous, but every trans person needs to. We must, must show a united front because the law makers will come for you and you are going to want your brothers and sisters at your back. Mass action is the only way forward.
Nobody is ignoring trans men but these bathroom panic laws exist specifically because of their fear of trans women who are all being painted as sexual predators even though there are practically no cases of this ever happening.
I think the point Brianna was making was more about the motivations/intention behind these types of laws and (false) justifications for them based on "protecting women" (and similar bad faith arguments). They are/were motivated by transmisogyny, justified using bigoted, fear-mongering depictions of trans women as predators...
...But they target, and have a terrible impact on. all trans and nonbinary people (as well as cis people whose appearance doesn't adhere to gender norms). I'm very sorry about your experience with a flight delay at the Orlando airport (of all the places...), that must have been awful.
Nash, due to weird web page errors, I can't write a very long response. Just know that yes, FtM is valued, but doesn't get mentioned a lot by the right because you don't fit into their alarmist narrative (which doesn't stop them from ensnaring you in oppressive laws directed at MtF. Your taking a visible stand would be AWESOME, and I would be more grateful than you could know. However, it's not without risk, and I couldn't "ask" it of you. Whatever you decide, please be safe!! Love u guys!
This is an outrage. Everyone must email or write their federal and state congressional representatives to stop this witch hunt. And just wait until bearded trans men start using “female” restrooms. That may make these jerks rethink this strategy
Thank you for saying these anti-trans attacks are not just a distraction. They are a full on crusade against our right to exist and deserve to be treated as such.
I believe a provision in the law prevents this. Though that might have been a different backwater state.
Because cruelty is the point.
I fondly remember when NC gots its ass handed to it by major corporations for enacting a bathroom ban. Too bad corporations are run by heartless sociopaths that realized they don't need to give a fuck to make money.
Yeah, Erin mentioned Antioch and its predominantly queer student body and I had a smile imaging it making all bathrooms gender neutral except for a few single-stall ones labeled "Masculine" and "Feminine."
Frightening thought. Imagine a Trans Black Man walks into a women's bathroom. There's no way the police aren't being called, right? It's only a matter of time before we have a George Floyd level police murder over a bathroom.
I say private schools like Antioch or Oberlin simply do not even bother to enforce and announce that they will not. There is literally no way they can comply without utterly destroying morale on their campuses. The moment for defiance is clearly at hand.
"Knowingly permit" is legalese intended to protect the law against certain legal challenges. "Lack of criminal intent" - essentially, you honestly believed you were acting in accordance with the law - is a defense against some prosecutions. Here, if the institution tries to avoid the ban by claiming ignorance, the prosecution would argue, likely successfully, that the administration reasonably had to know that some of the student body is transgender and therefore was choosing to allow, "knowingly permitting," them to use the "wrong" bathroom.
OTOH, without the "knowingly" language, if it just said "you can't let it happen," the law could be challenged as unenforceable and potentially unreasonably penalizing the institution for a simple honest mistake. With it, the institution can be held to a "good faith effort" standard with the same intended effect of legally-enforced bigotry.
I’m a paramedic in an Ohio college town. I guess in 90 days I tell my chief that I can’t be assigned any special duty assignments on campus because using the restroom is now illegal for me. I’m sure that will go over well.
Russo and McBride said what needs to be said (but it must be amplified greatly, given the media overload of our society). The people who voted for the transmisic dictator and his allies because they thought it would make their personal finances better will soon find out how wrong they were. "Soon," however, is a year or two, and in the meantime they may consolidate power to the extent that getting rid of them is far, far harder.
I know the ACLU will support students who might run into legal problems with such laws, and I will give them all I can. It really seems to me that organized demonstrations from and with transgender men would be the best way to (openly and legally) create real chaos for the cretins, and I would contribute to that also.
This is Ohio we’re talking about, so no one should be surprised at this move. Very sad and disgraceful. But how is this going to be enforced? Any gender-nonconforming cis woman should be very concerned about this. Some of them may have more trouble than some trans women, in fact. Also, are there penalties for the bathroom users or just for the schools?
Historically, attacks on marginalized people are how fascist wannabe leaders force compliance by the general population. By persecuting the Uighurs, China showed dissenting people what could happen to them if they got to out of line. Imprisoning the Roma in Germany was Hitler's way of telling the rank and file what they could expect if they objected to his rounding up Jews and LGBTQ folks. In Russia there always people, seemingly at random, being sent to the prisons.
By deporting immigrants and attacking trans people the MAGA mob is sending the same signal to decent Americans ... "Keep silent or this could be you!"
This is one of the messages we need to be declaring loud and long, and we need to use the historical references...The three above, as well as the Inquisition, the witch trials in American and Europe, Apartheid, and the list goes on, add your own here
I welcome ALL women into whatever space I'm in ~ especially the bathroom!
Thank you Erin for keeping me informed ~ my trans daughter (I love her so much!) is the one who turned me on to you and I'm grateful ~ I'll be writing letters today and everyday until there is equality for ALL!
No matter how it goes these laws are sexist and impact women more than men. The republican meanest knows no boundaries and this is what makes it so scary.
Speaker Johnson cited WWJD for the capitol ban. Ya know, cus the guy that sat with lepers and decried the money people would totally be against trans women...
Again, I say to all my trans sisters, DO NOT COMPLY. Use the bathroom that matches your gender, we should not be complying with unconstitutional and immoral laws. PERIOD
Agree. I teach at a public university in a red state that hasn't moved on this yet but I am expecting a ban will be proposed and passed in my state in the next legislative session. I have no intention of complying. It is neither safe nor moral to do so. I didn't struggle 39 years to embrace my gender identity to let a politician tell me how I should define myself. They can go to Hell.
Here in Texas, and I teach at a community college. They plan on passing a bathroom ban. Such blatant discrimination and bigotry. They can arrest me, but I will not comply with this.
It's easy for me to suggest the same, however, I'm not the target. I'd be hard pressed to tell someone to guarantee a run-in with police every time they have to pee.
Where are the Democrat cis congresswomen who will be working with Sarah McBride? Everyone of them should step forward to accompany McBride to the women's room to protect her from the likes of Mace and Taylor (the real threats in this story).
I have to admit I don't see how a bathroom sit-in by cis people would work. I'm a cis male. If I did it in a men's room, the response would be "What?" If I did it in a women's room it would be framed as "proving" that the "real purpose" of trans access is "men invading women's spaces." How do you envision this action?
Yes, time for "allies" to show they actually mean it
I suggest that Dem/independent politicians set up genital checks outside bathrooms in congress to call attention to the absurdity of their actions.
Yep, we lack the numbers. Cis people should think it over if they want to live in a world where anybody can be a victim of scapegoating if the politicians decide to do so in order to keep their jobs and make money. They should opt to stop it and force politicians to care about actual issues like human rights, inflation, economy etc.
Yes, of course trans men exist. I get that it feels lousy to only ever be mentioned when it is used as a threat..."just wait until trans men..."
I do think when it comes to fascist attacks on trans people, the typical claim is that trans women aren't women and that we are actually predators using our presentation to gain access to cis women in vulnerable spaces. Talk about old ways of being viewed that are triggering.
We need to all stand together but to do that, we all need to be heard. And we all need to feel valued and seen.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I hope we can all be better people because you did so.
You would love the Hungarian trans activism scene I think. Here trans men are often more in the forefront than trans women. ;) They are often our best activists.
For example Balta Flóris, Worldless Alex and others:
https://youtu.be/ybs-VbhOMps?si=dpT0zEhuZCL-1Yqu
Thanks for speaking up. I have a couple friends who are also trans men. But I know you have a different perspective that is important. And many of these issues affect all of us.
Wishing you well!
Trans men exist and are welcome to be seen with and joining in with trans women and non-binary people but the narrative is heavily skewed one way. The media doesn’t pay any attention to what trans women say, there is never balance and even the highest profile trans woman in your country, Sarah McBride, gets drowned out by her aggressors. Trans women are the devil in this piece, sometimes literally and all the legislation is attacking them and their rights. Can trans men do better? Will newly acquired male privilege make trans men listened to?
There is a huge number of the population that probably don’t even know that trans men exist! It would wreck their tiny little minds to know that 50% of transgender people are trans men and wouldn’t know what to do with the knowledge. Because of this, the bathroom ban will bring trans men into the conversation and they will be propelled into the gunsights of the far right republicans.
I honestly don’t think that trans men want to be a part of this circus, I don’t hear trans men standing up against the laws being targeted at trans women, the sports bans are not being aimed at trans men-the people supporting these are not male and you know that Joe Public will never think that a trans woman can beat a cis man at any sport, regardless of the truth.
The ‘wait till a bearded person goes into the ladies’ trope is hackneyed, stereotyped and unrepresentative but what will happen when trans men are wholesale outed in the same way as trans women because of bathroom bans? How do they intend to play it? Are there trans men willing to stand up and shout?
I don’t blame anyone who is trans who can pass, go stealth or otherwise hide for not wanting to raise their head above the parapet, it’s fuggin dangerous, but every trans person needs to. We must, must show a united front because the law makers will come for you and you are going to want your brothers and sisters at your back. Mass action is the only way forward.
Nobody is ignoring trans men but these bathroom panic laws exist specifically because of their fear of trans women who are all being painted as sexual predators even though there are practically no cases of this ever happening.
I think the point Brianna was making was more about the motivations/intention behind these types of laws and (false) justifications for them based on "protecting women" (and similar bad faith arguments). They are/were motivated by transmisogyny, justified using bigoted, fear-mongering depictions of trans women as predators...
...But they target, and have a terrible impact on. all trans and nonbinary people (as well as cis people whose appearance doesn't adhere to gender norms). I'm very sorry about your experience with a flight delay at the Orlando airport (of all the places...), that must have been awful.
You seem to be intent on missing my point so I decline to engage with you further. Have a nice day.
Nash, due to weird web page errors, I can't write a very long response. Just know that yes, FtM is valued, but doesn't get mentioned a lot by the right because you don't fit into their alarmist narrative (which doesn't stop them from ensnaring you in oppressive laws directed at MtF. Your taking a visible stand would be AWESOME, and I would be more grateful than you could know. However, it's not without risk, and I couldn't "ask" it of you. Whatever you decide, please be safe!! Love u guys!
How are they going to enforce this law? I really want to know! It’s beyond insanity
If I a cis woman use an empty single stall men’s room am I breaking the law? Does the actual wording refer to trans men or women?
Can we just make gender neutral bathrooms the norm already!
This is an outrage. Everyone must email or write their federal and state congressional representatives to stop this witch hunt. And just wait until bearded trans men start using “female” restrooms. That may make these jerks rethink this strategy
My thoughts exactly! Thanks for speaking that truth!
Thank you for saying these anti-trans attacks are not just a distraction. They are a full on crusade against our right to exist and deserve to be treated as such.
Liberal institutions should just make all their bathrooms gender neutral
I believe a provision in the law prevents this. Though that might have been a different backwater state.
Because cruelty is the point.
I fondly remember when NC gots its ass handed to it by major corporations for enacting a bathroom ban. Too bad corporations are run by heartless sociopaths that realized they don't need to give a fuck to make money.
Yeah, Erin mentioned Antioch and its predominantly queer student body and I had a smile imaging it making all bathrooms gender neutral except for a few single-stall ones labeled "Masculine" and "Feminine."
Frightening thought. Imagine a Trans Black Man walks into a women's bathroom. There's no way the police aren't being called, right? It's only a matter of time before we have a George Floyd level police murder over a bathroom.
I say private schools like Antioch or Oberlin simply do not even bother to enforce and announce that they will not. There is literally no way they can comply without utterly destroying morale on their campuses. The moment for defiance is clearly at hand.
"Knowingly permit".
Institution: "we do not know of any trans people using our bathrooms".
"Knowingly permit" is legalese intended to protect the law against certain legal challenges. "Lack of criminal intent" - essentially, you honestly believed you were acting in accordance with the law - is a defense against some prosecutions. Here, if the institution tries to avoid the ban by claiming ignorance, the prosecution would argue, likely successfully, that the administration reasonably had to know that some of the student body is transgender and therefore was choosing to allow, "knowingly permitting," them to use the "wrong" bathroom.
OTOH, without the "knowingly" language, if it just said "you can't let it happen," the law could be challenged as unenforceable and potentially unreasonably penalizing the institution for a simple honest mistake. With it, the institution can be held to a "good faith effort" standard with the same intended effect of legally-enforced bigotry.
I’m a paramedic in an Ohio college town. I guess in 90 days I tell my chief that I can’t be assigned any special duty assignments on campus because using the restroom is now illegal for me. I’m sure that will go over well.
Russo and McBride said what needs to be said (but it must be amplified greatly, given the media overload of our society). The people who voted for the transmisic dictator and his allies because they thought it would make their personal finances better will soon find out how wrong they were. "Soon," however, is a year or two, and in the meantime they may consolidate power to the extent that getting rid of them is far, far harder.
I know the ACLU will support students who might run into legal problems with such laws, and I will give them all I can. It really seems to me that organized demonstrations from and with transgender men would be the best way to (openly and legally) create real chaos for the cretins, and I would contribute to that also.
This is Ohio we’re talking about, so no one should be surprised at this move. Very sad and disgraceful. But how is this going to be enforced? Any gender-nonconforming cis woman should be very concerned about this. Some of them may have more trouble than some trans women, in fact. Also, are there penalties for the bathroom users or just for the schools?
Guessing most schools will turn a blind eye until some bigot narcs on a single student using the bathroom.
The law states "knowingly".
Historically, attacks on marginalized people are how fascist wannabe leaders force compliance by the general population. By persecuting the Uighurs, China showed dissenting people what could happen to them if they got to out of line. Imprisoning the Roma in Germany was Hitler's way of telling the rank and file what they could expect if they objected to his rounding up Jews and LGBTQ folks. In Russia there always people, seemingly at random, being sent to the prisons.
By deporting immigrants and attacking trans people the MAGA mob is sending the same signal to decent Americans ... "Keep silent or this could be you!"
This is one of the messages we need to be declaring loud and long, and we need to use the historical references...The three above, as well as the Inquisition, the witch trials in American and Europe, Apartheid, and the list goes on, add your own here
I welcome ALL women into whatever space I'm in ~ especially the bathroom!
Thank you Erin for keeping me informed ~ my trans daughter (I love her so much!) is the one who turned me on to you and I'm grateful ~ I'll be writing letters today and everyday until there is equality for ALL!
No matter how it goes these laws are sexist and impact women more than men. The republican meanest knows no boundaries and this is what makes it so scary.
No hate like christian kindness.
Speaker Johnson cited WWJD for the capitol ban. Ya know, cus the guy that sat with lepers and decried the money people would totally be against trans women...
Shameful, evil, disgusting. And how will anyone know? Are they going to create a Genital Police Force?