This page traces the bill’s history and gives the text at the bottom.
We’d still have all-white schools today if that kind of attitude had been allowed to prevail 60 years ago.
Universal K-12 education was once considered a “social experiment.”
I would say so, although perhaps we are foundering on “protection.” Protection means to shield, to guard. Each example guards rights for some citizens but not others.
I agree that creating a perception of integrity is reason enough.
But still, Voter ID laws should be subject to legislative pressure to change them to better accomplish this goal. For example, I have long favored the idea of replacing mandatory photo ID with a fingerprint. The whole point is to indisputably tie the registered person to the voter. Show up, ink your thumb, press it into the book. That should allay fears about integrity: everyone knows the thumbprint serves as an irrefutable proof that the person voted. If there are any subsequent questions, if a voter turns out to be voting illegally, he can be easily prosecuted.
And from the side of those opposed to cost: virtually all voters have fingerprints, supplied to them at no charge.
This is the kind of legislative change I would like to see.
So why isn’t the perception of safety reason enough in this case?
Is it just because Fox News hasn’t worked up a sufficient amount of frenzy over bathroom safety like they did over election integrity?
If I may play Bricker’s Advocate for a moment, I can see where he’s coming from here. Voter impersonation is a thing that can plausibly happen in states without voter ID laws. It’s rare, and I doubt it’s ever changed the outcome of an election, but someone could in good faith argue that ID laws are needed to prevent it from happening. (I would disagree with them on that point.)
The spectre that’s being used to oppose transgender anti-discrimination policies is that it will allow cisgender men to hang out in ladies’ rooms for prurient purposes. That is not a thing that can plausibly happen. It’s a phantom menace. No transgender anti-discrimination law legalizes harassing or peeping on people in the bathroom regardless of gender. It does not authorize a man who identifies as male to hang out in the ladies’ room. No act which it is currently illegal for a man to commit in a bathroom suddenly becomes legal by dint of his declaring “I identified as a woman on that particular day”. There is no problem which the SD bill exists to solve, because its existence is predicated on fiction.
Pointless legislation in response to a widely held but ultimately incorrect public perception is OK as long as the incorrect public perception is only demonstrably incorrect instead of laughably incorrect. Is that what I’m hearing?
Sounds like we’re splitting hairs, but whatever.
I’m sorry, but I still need more clarification. The fourteenth amendment requires equal protection of the law for all citizens. You seem to be saying that your examples violate this principle, but presumably are not declaring minimum voter age laws to be unconstitutional. Could you explain the apparent discrepancy in your position?
That kind of attitude prevails to this very day, have you not been listening to the current political discourse? Would you be shocked to learn that there are still all-white schools in the USA?
Remember, the SCOTUS ruling that lead to integrating our schools also had the far-reaching effect of integrating all public services. It wasn’t a social experiment so as much as it was implementing the 14[sup]th[/sup] Amendment. South Dakota should “integrate” all their bathrooms at once, not just try it in the schools and see what happens.
My personal views are I don’t care, I’m there to piss and generally ignore everyone else.
…and this seems like the type of thing that should be up to the parents.
Why on earth would anybody want to enable and encourage transgender children?
Because they aren’t pieces of shit?
Because it tends to be brutal to disable and discourage transgender children. We as a society must tolerate all transgender peoples, for the littlest to the oldest, and include them. 60 years ago they were the ones that were beat up on the school grounds, with the gym teacher saying they should “man-up”.
I would have agreed with this in the past. Past me was wrong.
Because the alternative is transgender children killing themselves when their parents refuse to accept them for who they are.
You people were never slapped or beaten for disobeying your parents?
How could children be emotionally/psychologically mature enough to know?
Did you know what your gender identity was when you were a child? I did. Thankfully, my identity and my biological gender are the same. Chances are, yours were as well.
But let’s say that no, even though you’re biologically male and you identify as male, your parents told you you were a girl, and you were therefore obliged to wear frilly dresses and play with dolls and have a girl’s name.
What effect do you think that would have on a young mind?
Well, I’m glad we can now discuss beating transgendered children instead of the merits of the bill.
Implying that the bill has merits.
The courts recognize that legislation cannot treat all citizens exactly the same way. Otherwise two year olds would be permitted to vote. So legislatures are entitled to treat similarly situated citizens differently based on some classifications. Age, for example. The courts have recognized that other classifications are inherently “suspect” because they have generally been applied specifically to disadvantage particular minorities. Race is the classic example. As a result, the courts apply varying levels of scrutiny to “unequal” laws based on the type of discrimination involved. Rational basis review, the lowest level, applies to most classifications including age, and is a low bar for the government to meet (actually the government doesn’t even have to meet it because under rational basis review the challenger is obligated to prove that the law is unconstitutional, rather than the other way around).
So legislation that discriminates against 17 year olds who want to vote is okay. Legislation that discriminates against Hispanic people who want to vote is not.
Meh. Personally, I support the right of the transgendered to be treated based on their gender identity rather than physiological gender, but I understand the motivations of the bill’s proponents.
This isn’t quite like, say, gay marriage, where it really doesn’t affect anyone else. Allowing biologically male children to use womens’ restrooms does affect other people, though only to a slight degree. It’s bound to upset people who don’t understand how the whole transgender thing works (which, based on the Jenner kerfuffle is most of them). That is not to say that they are right, just that their concerns are understandable.