US transgender bathroom battle heats up
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A heated national debate over access to bathrooms by transgenders is sweeping the United States, with schools and businesses grappling with the issue that has become a hot topic in the presidential campaign.
The so-called “bathroom battle” erupted after North Carolina in March became the first US state to require transgender people to use restrooms in public buildings that match the sex on their birth certificate, rather than the gender by which they identify. Mississippi followed suit in April and a number of other conservative states and cities are mulling or have passed similar legislation.
Proponents of the controversial bills argue that they are needed to protect women from sexual predators. But civil rights groups say the laws are irrational, unenforceable and actually endanger trans people.
“I think opponents of same-sex marriage have realized that they’ve lost the legal battle to prohibit same-sex couples from marrying and they have shifted their strategies toward transgender people,” said Katherine Franke, director of Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. “They think they can get some traction with discriminatory rules around who can use what bathroom.”
The controversial laws have met with a national outcry from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, rights organizations, and several major companies and entertainers have denounced the measures.
The online payments company PayPal last month scrapped plans to open an operations center in North Carolina that would have employed 400 people and several musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, have canceled concerts.
The retailer Target, for its part, hit back with a statement that said customers and staff could use “the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.”
The statement sparked a backlash, with more than 1 million people signing a petition by the American Family Association — a conservative Christian group — to boycott the retail chain.
“Clearly, Target’s new policy poses a danger to wives and daughters,” the AFA said in a statement. “Target’s policy is exactly how sexual predators get access to their victims.”
The government has warned that the transgender bathroom bills violate the constitution and on Wednesday ordered North Carolina to rescind its bill or risk federal funding cuts.
The city of Oxford, Alabama, on Wednesday repealed a similar ordinance a little more than a week after it was passed.
The controversial issue has also entered the US presidential campaign.
Donald Trump, who is not known to hold back on sensitive topics, said last week that transgender people should be able to use whatever bathroom they want. His comments were in stark contrast to his Republican opponent Ted Cruz who, before dropping out of the race, tweeted: “We shouldn’t be facilitating putting little girls alone in a bathroom w/grown men. That’s just a bad, bad idea.”
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