Bill on transgendered restroom use draws heated, emotional debate (with a poll)

[Maine-ah]

http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/04/12/politics/bill-on-transgendered-restroom-use-draws-heated-emotional-debate/

AUGUSTA, Maine — A bill concerning transgendered people’s right to choose which restroom they use generated heated debate at a public hearing Tuesday.

Dozens of people gave impassioned, emotional testimony on LD 1046, which would allow the operator of a restroom or shower facility to decide who can use which gender’s restroom.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Kenneth Fredette, R-Newport, served on the Maine Human Rights Commission when it decided that Orono schools and an Auburn Denny’s Restaurant discriminated against transgendered females by not allowing them to use women’s restrooms. Fredette vocalized his dissent against the ruling then and again at Tuesday’s meeting of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee.

A transgendered person generally is considered someone of one biological sex who identifies himself or herself as belonging to the opposite gender.

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comments section, I will warn you are pretty bad. The poll at the link: Should the operator of a restroom be the one to decide which bathrooms transgender people may use? yes or no. DU it.

[Uben]

1. Okay cartoonists.....

..let's see three bathroom doors, one for men, one for women, and one for "all others".

[Lefta Dissenter]

2. give me a stall door

that doesn't have a three-inch gap around it, and I don't care WHO is in the next stall. And if I can put my mascara on while I'm driving my car (ha, little joke just to stir people up), I can certainly do it in a restroom alongside people of any gender, who also may or may not be applying makeup.

I'm really sorry for the continuing personal pain that our society inflicts upon transgendered individuals. :(

[Autumn Colors]

4. +1 re the 3" door gap! (nt)

[Autumn Colors]

3. Voted, K&R .. and

No, the restroom owner should NOT be the one.

How idiotic. About 20 years ago, I worked in an office building that had one restroom on each floor - gender alternating every other floor. The restrooms for women had 2 stalls (no idea what the male ones had). There was a transgender person who would use the women's restroom. No idea what stage of the process this person was at in transitioning, but obviously identified as female and was obviously transgender ... and I had no problem with this at all.

[Bill McBlueState]

5. the "think of the children" argument is made, and it's as dumb as usual

What situation do we put young children in when they go into a private place and then what they perceive to be the person of the opposite sex comes into that bathroom?

When I'm out with my four-year-old daughter and she has to use the restroom, I take her into the men's room. She doesn't care that men keep coming in and out. Kids have to be taught to worry about this sort of thing.

[MineralMan]

6. Personally, I just use the restroom and pay no attention to the

others who are also in there. I don't see the problem, frankly. I don't really care who else uses the public restrooms. I'll still go in, do my business, wash my hands, and leave. :shrug:

[blondeatlast]

10. Exactly. Considering the state of most publ;ic restrooms, I want to spend

as little time as possible in them.

[MineralMan]

7. Taken to its extreme, we would have to install numerous

public restrooms everywhere.

Gay Males
Straight Males
Transgendered Male Identifiers
Lesbians
Straight Women
Transgendered Female Identifiers
Families
Male Children Only
Female Children Only
All Others


There would be no room for the other functions of public places.

Just go in, do what you need to do, wash your hands, and leave. Problem solved.

[Blue Meany]

8. My daughter goes to the school where the "bathroom" issue arose

and was friends with the child in question. The problem was not caused by the transgendered child, nor by the other children (who didn't care), nor by the teachers or administrators. It was all stirred up by the "Christian Civic League." The grandson of one of the CCL's members, at his grandfather's urging, insisted on being able to go into the girl's bathroom, if the transgendered child was allowed to. He did this repeatedly, all as a publicity stunt, and was repeatedly disciplined for it. In the face of this publicity, the administrators worked out an alternate bathroom "arrangement" for the child that could not have offended anyone. But by then so much attention had been drawn to this child that she began to be harassed and even beaten by high school kids, and the family moved away to protect her from this.

[Lefta Dissenter]

9. WOW,

sad story. :cry: Thank you to her family for sacrificing greatly in order to protect her. :pals:

Solidarity