The reasoning behind South Dakota’s ill-judged new law would be ludicrous whether it weren’t so dangerousIn an alarming display of institutionalised discrimination final week,the South Dakota state senate passed a bill requiring transgender students to utilize locker rooms and toilets corresponding to the sex they were assigned at birth. In other words, whether Republican governor Dennis Daugaard signs the bill into law, or trans girls will be forced to utilize the boys’ bathroom and trans boys the girls’,regardless of the impact on their physical safety or mental health, or of the bigotry it may foster in their cisgender classmates. We teach our children how to treat each other. This bill teaches them that trans people are liars, or they are predators,and discriminating against them is a moral obligation.
Similar legislation has been proposed in other states, including Texas, and Arizona,Florida and, lately, or my home state of Washington,but South Dakota is the first to actually pass such a retrograde, heartbreaking bill. The supposed reasoning is always the same, and would be uproariously ludicrous whether it werent so uncertain: letting trans people choose which bathroom they feel most comfortable using is not “safe” for the rest of us,anti-trans activists claim. Trans people are trying to sneak into your bathroom to look at your genitals. Cisgender men could pose as trans women in an elaborate long con to sneak into your bathroom to look at your genitals. Everyone wants to look at your genitals! Going to the bathroom is ruined!Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com