Coming to a toilet near you? "Papers, please"
Get ready. If a recently filed proposition makes it onto the California ballot, and is passed by the voters, you might find yourself having to prove you have the legal right to use the toilet.
On April 17, 2015, Jack Hibbs and Gina Gleason, through the law offices of Kevin T. Snyder, Chief Counsel for the Pacific Justice Institute - Center for Public Policy, filed with the California Attorney General's office a "Request for Title and Summary for Proposed Initiative" titled "PERSONAL PRIVACY PROTECTION ACT".
Hibbs is pastor at the fundamentalist Calvary Baptist Church in Chino, California. He is staunchly against transgender (not to mention LGB, as well) rights. Gleason is the director of the Watchmen Ministry, another right-wing organization. Both have fought laws to protect transgender individuals.
The proposed law would require persons use the restroom facilities labeled with the user's "biological sex". There is a minimum $4,000 fine, plus attorney's fees, if convicted, for violations.
In the past ten years, or so, positive changes in the laws regarding marriage equality (and overall LGBTQ civil rights) have spread like wildfire across the country. Next week, the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) will hear oral arguments that many expect will result in "gay marriage" bans being ruled unconstitutional across the nation. The anti-gay forces, especially in filings with SCOTUS on the current case, have become shrill and somewhat deranged in their last-gasp battles against an inevitable outcome. Many have already shifted their culture-war battle-front (since they always need an enemy at the gates) to the transgender community.
The biggest concern seems to be that 14 and 15 year old boys will dress as girls, claim to be transwomen, and go into the women's bathroom to watch girls "do their business". The anti-trans contingent also seems to worry that grown men will do the same, and somehow harass or assault women. They are remarkably silent about transmen using the men's toilet. They must believe women are victims, and men are oblivious.
Maybe times have changed. It's been a long time since I was in high school here in Visalia, but I don't recall any guys in my school who would have gone to the trouble of dressing up in girls clothing, announcing they're really women, and sauntering into the ladies room to catch a glimpse. Assuming the stalls don't have doors on them (most high school mens's rooms didn't when I had occasion to use them, back in the dark ages), that is. Stall doors would defeat their clever schemes, wouldn't they?
The anti-LGBT (the T stands for transgender, the targets of this proposal) crowd lied about Proposition 8, they lie about the gay community targeting and "recruiting" children, lie about our sex lives, our life expectancy, our relationships, and, the greatest lie of all, that we somehow chose to be gay. Now, they're lying about transgender people, and are trying to prevent them going to the toilet.
Check out the hashtag "WEJUSTWANTTOPEE on Instagram and Twitter for some great pictures of what the proponents of this misguided proposition are trying to accomplish. A transman is a man, and he should not be in the ladies room. A transwoman is a woman, and she should not be in the mens room. The pictures speak volumes.
I doubt this filing will gather the needed signatures to put it on the ballot, but if it does, I hope California doesn't again fall victim to the liars and haters like it did for Proposition 8.
Nobody needs to walk up to the toilet, and be told "papers, please".