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Sorry for the double post! thread revival attempt #128753 There's been quite a bit of talk around another one of those 'bathroom bills' that would legally require transgender individuals to use the public restroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate. (How they would enforce this, I haven't the slightest clue) Mississippi passed one of these not too long ago, though it's not in effect yet, but it's North Carolina that's currently getting all the attention. (That's probably because the law also prevents cities from passing anti-discrimnation ordinances that would protect LGBT+ people) A few artists that were set to perform concerts in NC have cancelled those stops, Paypal was going to build an expansion in Charlotte, but has since changed their minds, a 2017 NBA All-Star game might also get moved out of NC, the UK has issued a travel warning to its citizens that Mississippi and North Carolina have recently passed these anti-LGBT+ laws; it's a bit of a mess. It's a mess that only gets hairier as time goes on too. Donald Trump has (surprisingly) also come out against the law. Fellow presidential candidate, and Ohio governor, John Kasich has said he would probably not sign a similar bill into law. Target, while not directly referring to either NC or MS, released a statement saying transgender customers are free to use whichever restroom/fitting room they feel most comfortable with. But also, recently fired ESPN baseball analyst Curt Schilling, shared a tasteless, transphobic meme on facebook and added "A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don't care what they are, who they sleep with, the men's room was designed for the penis, the women's not so much." Though I could not find the exact post myself and could only find descriptions of it (granted I didn't look very hard), I presume this caused a problem because he shared it on his public facebook, rather than his private one for personal use. The aim of these bills is to protect mainly women and children from predators that may exploit any laws that allow people to use whichever restroom they are most comfortable with and/or best fits their gender identity. Sounds alright in theory right? There are undoubtedly horrible people out there who do want to harm others and want to do so when they're vulnerable and most likely alone, but the issue lies in just how much of problem assaults in public restrooms is. I wasn't able to find reports of any transgender individuals, or someone pretending to be a transgender person, assaulting anyone in a public restroom; so it appears to be a virtually nonexistent problem. However, I did come across two cases which are related, though neither occurred in public restrooms. One was a man claiming to be transgender to get into a women's shelter, with the intent of sexually assaulting women staying there. (He was a known sexual predator long before this incident though) And the other was a man who walked into the women's locker room at a pool and began undressing in front of patrons saying the "transgender law" allowed it. In short, it has happened, but it's a rare problem. Exploited or not, assault is still illegal too, so there's no added threat because no loophole is created. In fact, transgender people themselves are the ones who report having frequent problems regarding public restroom use. In Washington DC, 70% of transgender people polled reported that they had experienced some degree of negative reaction/ when using public restrooms. 9% of that 70% reported that they had experienced a physical confrontation/assault when trying to use one of those public restrooms. John Oliver on Last Week Tonight actually did a nice segment on this is one of his videos last June. (If you aren't familiar with LWT, it can be nsfw at times, but overall the content is informative) It's not perfect, and covers more than just bathroom bills, but it does explain it quite a bit better than I probably could. Overall, these bathroom bills being passed does more harm than good. It only adds to the stigma transgender people already face, and also makes people unnecessarily fearful. If the worry at the heart of the problem is that dangerous people, primarily men, will exploit these laws, the fix is going after these predators, and taking them into custody so they can't hurt anyone else, not faulting the entire transgender population and forcing them into potentially dangerous situations. Obviously tracking down all sexual predators is no easy, or even really possible, task, but the way to prevent sex crimes, especially ones that rarely happen, isn't by unjustly pushing the blame onto an undeserving, often misunderstood group. sources: x x x x x x x x x x (sorry if I forget any) Sorry for any mistakes too, it's almost 5am, so there's bound to be an error or two somewhere in there. Hopefully it's not too incoherent though.

LGBT+ couples can now adopt in all 50 states! A federal judge in Mississippi just overturned a ban that prevented LGBT+ from legally adopting children! Ironically and unfortunately, around the same time the ban was lifted, a bill was passed that would allow businesses to deny service to LGBT+ persons for religious reasons. The bill could also allow clerks to not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples for religious reasons and not face legal repercussions. The bill being passed has unsurprisingly sparked backlash. One step forward and one step back, huh, Mississippi? x x