Fortune notes that businesses responded with far more vigor to, and threatened boycotts over, Georgia’s narrowly scoped religious liberty bill than to North Carolina’s sweeping invalidation of current and future LGBT anti-discrimination provisions.
The reason: fear of being seen as supporting men in women’s bathrooms. The campaign against transgender rights is so effective it’s cutting gay rights off at the knees.
As I wrote in February, “It’s also likely that drawing a line in the sand around locker room use in public (including schools) and private facilities is going to sink future LGBT anti-discrimination efforts, which used to be focused on employment.”
More. But wait, we were assured this would never happen….College Decides To Make ALL Bathrooms Gender-Neutral:
Instead of being classified as “men’s,” “women’s,” or single-occupancy restrooms, all facilities at the Cooper Union will carry descriptive signs describing exactly what lies within. Former men’s rooms, for instance, are now described as “urinals and stalls,” while former women’s rooms now carry the label “stalls only.” Regardless of their type, all bathrooms will be open to whomever wants to use them.
We were told bathrooms going gender-neutral was just rightwing scare-mongering aimed at the rubes.
6 Comments for “All They Can See is the “T””
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The reason: fear of being seen as supporting men in women’s bathrooms. The campaign against transgender rights is so effective it’s cutting gay rights off at the knees.
With all due respect, I think that conclusion is bullshit.
As the article you link notes, the NC law got one day’s worth of legislative attention — unveiled, debated, passed and signed into law in a single day, without hearings or consideration by legislative committees — in contrast to the long process usually involved in legislation affecting gays and lesbians.
Corporate reaction after the fact has been fierce and is getting stronger as each day passes.
As it should. You noted in an earlier post that “transgender rights [have] become the battering ram to obliterate gay rights”. That’s right, and that’s all it is. Don’t think for a New York minute that corporations aren’t coming to that conclusion very quickly.
posted by Houndentenor on
Preying on the fears and prejudices of low-information voters has long been effective. Remember Karl Rove’s anti-gay 2004 presidential campaign for W? It worked quite well until it didn’t. Gay rights groups and liberals in general suck at messaging. Of course it’s easy to push bigotry than it is to have a well-reasoned fact-based conversation.
posted by JohnInCA on
I know that “because it’s hard” is seen as an acceptable reason not to work for change for gay Republicans, but the rest of us are more willing to do hard work and change things.
So sure, we win some, we lose some. But we win more then we lose.
posted by Houndentenor on
Like it wasn’t hard getting support from Democrats 20-30 years ago.
posted by Wilberforce on
I know it’s not PC or fashionable, but I’m much less gung ho on T rights. I don’t think ‘we win some, we lose some’ comes close to describing how much we’ve lost because of T rights. We lost ENDA the last time around, and that was a huge loss, much more important than marriage. And the whole time, trans activists have been treating us with contempt. I think the least you all could do is to get the trans community to show us a minimum of respect.
posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on
I had quite a bit of respect from trsnsgender people. I have not met too many trans activists, but some may be upset that the gay community has not put foward the time and resources to advance gender identity legislation, and sees trans folk as little more than entertainment or a distraction.