Teaching America Where to Pee

"The man behind the transgender bathroom bill, Terry Bean, was brought to trial for having sex with 15-year-old boy. Although the case is currently in limbo for technical reasons, Bean admitted to having sex with the boy and offered to pay his victim $225,000 if he dropped the charges."

​As a 61-year-old male, I have never seen a man dressed as a woman, or a woman dressed as a man, or any variation of the two in the wrong bathroom. I've never seen a gay person attacked or even so much as ridiculed because they didn't look like they belonged while taking a whiz in the men's room. A transgender person might have been present, but I was oblivious regarding their sex because they looked like they were, where they were supposed to be.

I live in Ft. Lauderdale which has one of the largest Gay populations in the country. I've seen lots of people who were very obviously transgender, long before the term was popular. In fact, my neighbors across the street would occasionally cross-dress and no one said anything about it. Live and let live was the working principal. That was 25 years ago. But, get the government involved and it quickly becomes a circus with threats of lawsuits and stories about peeping toms filling the news while the Feds wait for the right case so they can make a public fight about who pisses where.
Apparently, Americans are so dumb that we need the Feds to show us where to do our business.

Why is this being done? Because, if the government doesn't act, the brutalization of helpless transgender people will commence, unabated. That appears to be the logic. Even though, most of the violence committed against those suffering gender identity syndrome is by their partners. Not by gender-phobic heterosexuals.

Now, I have no doubt that you can easily find cases where transgender and Gay people were abused, which is unfortunate. And, these abuses should be treated as crimes. Not as a special category of crimes, but as criminal cases. Just as all assaults should be treated, regardless of who's involved. Such cases were and are rare and growing increasingly rarer by the day. This is, however, a nation of 316 million, diverse people. That there are some assholes in the mix should surprise no one.

No, what we have here is a case of politicians making a mountain out of a problematic molehill. Mostly for political gain, with a few genuine activists at work, as well. Some mean well. Others won't be happy until every inch given becomes a mile or more taken.

Do I think it will end there? Not a chance. There's too much power at stake. And that is what we're really talking about. Political power. Not more freedom. Not for anyone. Not even transgender people.

Mark Magula