To add to this: if bathrooms are instead segregated by self-identified gender, we’re back to:
That’s the system that was informally in place before, with only the occasional brutal vigilante violence to suggest otherwise. A return to that system seems to allow segregation.
More than just those specific transgender people, too. If they follow the NC law and a F-to-M transgender big, hairy bulldozer driver wearing his overalls & construction boots* walks into the Womens rest room, it’s going to be very upsetting to the ladies in there!
*I know someone like this. The name on his birth certificate is “Maria”.
The Attorney General is also a Democrat who is running against the Republican Governor. Not that I disagree with his stance.
This is true, but the implication that he’s doing this for purely partisan purposes may not be true. Since at least 2014, when he’s seen a conflict between state and federal/constitutional laws, he’s erred on the side of not defending laws he sees as unconstitutional.
Certainly there may be some partisanship behind his decision, but I think it runs in the opposite direction at least as much: he’s so disgusted at McCrory’s surrender to the anti-civil-liberties state legislature that he wants to be the change, wants to be the governor so he can block some of their nonsense.
I’m aware of that, but I also believe he wouldn’t abandon his responsibility to defend if he felt the state had a legal leg to stand on. It’s his job, after all. Sometimes you have to do that even if you find it personally distasteful.
I’m certainly no lawyer, but there are plenty of folks who are who also agree with his assessment and if you look at the bill as a whole, I agree with their arguments, for whatever it’s worth. The Atlantic article linked upthread is a good example.
Haven’t there already been a number of publicly-staged “restroom protests” of this nature? Big burly bearded transmen making a point of using “ladies’ rooms” for highly publicized photo-ops?
It’s a case of people not thinking through all the consequences of their legislation. People are very diverse, and you can’t pigeonhole or shoehorn us all into simple categories. Worse, it’s damn foolish even to try. It just makes the “anti” side look like their obsessional about urination.
Was the text of the complaint ever cited in this thread? I thought it was, but skimming the thread I’m not seeing it, so here it is.
Yes, there have been a good number of state AGs who have refused to defend laws they believed were indefensible in the last few years, most of them centering around gay marriage. This isn’t a new thing, and seems to me to be much more of a ‘this is a really stupid law that is going to get destroyed in higher court’ than ‘this is a political opponent’s law, I’m not going to defend it to make them look bad’.
The law causes no harm? Have you seen the videosand stories of women who look masculine getting kicked out of bathrooms?
Yes, there have been no prosecutions for failure to register, but a male is ineligible for student loans if he does not/did not register. I went back to school in my early 30s. If I had not registered for Selective Service, there was no way I could remedy the situation, and I would have been screwed if I wanted any loans.
Under the new scheme, could I simply have declared that during ages 18-26, I identified as a female, therefore I did not need to register?
And let’s just assume that this new idea holds water. Does it follow that evidentiary requirements are allowed? Could the feds require that I produce witnesses that will testify that, “Yes, when he was 24, Ultravires told me he identified as female” or must they accept my word?
Will they accept a “change” in gender identification? Suppose when I applied for the loans at age 32, I then identified as my birth gender: male. But I pinky-promise that when I was 18-26, I identified as female. Does that change things?
Suppose that I admit that for a period of one month when I was 22, I identified as male again. Does that change things?
I am not suggesting that transgendered folks are engaging in this sort of fraud. I am asking if the state of the law (one simply has to declare one’s gender) will permit those like me from committing this sort of fraud.
It depends on which law we are talking about. Some do require “sincere” gender identity, which can be factually challenged.
The language used is often the same as when religious affiliation is used to avoid generally applicable requirements, so I imagine the proofs are the same (perhaps to the discomfort of people on both sides of the debate).
How about the woman who is a woman, identifies as a woman and is followed into the women’s restroom by a man who thought she was a man.
C’mon. Do you really think that would work? Or do you think they’d require action on your part to raise the issue ahead of time?
I seem to recall your raising similar silly situations as a rear-guard action against SSM. The legal system is not so easily stymied, in my experience.
Raise what issue? When I (the hypo I) turned 18, I already self-identified as female. Therefore, I was female, and did not need to register for selective service. Are you suggesting a different standard for those who are born female and those who identify as female?
Does the same thing apply to the use of restrooms? Does it “require action” on my part prior to entering a women’s restroom? A form? A sworn statement? An oral declaration in the town square?
I was under the impression that (1) the sexual segregation before this issue was not a law and thus (2) the discrimination calculation was different. Is there a difference in sexual discrimination under force of law and via what amounts to custom?
I assume voluntary segregation is okay, but could you be kicked out for trespassing if you were the “wrong” sex–or could a valid suit come from that alone (again, prior to this law)?
OH NO THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IS GOING TO FALL APART!!!
or maybe it won’t.
Cases like this are going to be extremely rare. Almost certainly the justice system can handle them. Here are three totally reasonable ways to handle them:
Gee, I dunno, does it?
Hint: it generally requires that a person has shown ongoing determination to live as the gender to which they’ve transitioned. People are rightly skeptical of someone whose first declaration of their new gender identity is running into the women’s locker room. Since that’s happened about once so far, and since the person engaging in that activity was (shocker!) not actually interested in transitioning according to all evidence, that’s not where we should be focusing our attentions.
Sex based discrimination usually is subject to intermediate scrutiny:
If we are strictly honest with ourselves sex segregated restrooms and locker rooms should be unconstitutional. Where is the important government interest here? Like with transgendered people, the danger of mixed locker rooms is imaginary. It all comes down to culture based fear and discomfort.
Is “meeting the desires of most of its citizens, without imposing a real burden on anyone” not an important government interest?
This may have something to do with standing. Who would have standing to challenge bathrooms separated by gender identity?
If it isn’t a real burden to share a locker room with someone with a penis, then no real burden is imposed on transwomen who have to share a locker room with someone with a penis. And I realize that this is IMHO, but do you have any indication that “most (US) citizens” desire to allow penises in the ladies room?
Regards,
Shodan