Your Right To Gender Confusion Ends At My Daughter’s Bathroom

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2018/11/06/your-right-to-gender-confusion-ends-at-my-daughters-bathroom/

Hear the one about the guy who walked into a spa, asks to be given a Brazilian wax job? Or the one about the woman who was videotaped by a man in a TJ Maxx restroom? These are no jokes. We are being pushed to the edges of privacy and personal safety by a state law. Bending over to accommodate transgender individuals against discrimination, Massachusetts has endangered its own citizens.  

Confused? We all are.  Somewhere on Planet Earth people are self-selecting their own gender. That is, you may not like being a man, so you “transition” to being a woman. Or vice versa.

Many colleges teach that gender is “fluid,” and that an individual can switch their gender any time he or she chooses. Any gender designation in utero and at birth are arbitrary, they say, and some combination of counseling followed by medicine followed by surgery can switch your identity; or even allow you to remain in sexual limbo for years. 

The Brazilian Wax man described above found a spa in Milton and called to ask for full waxing from eyebrows to toe as well as places in between. Delicacy prohibits further description. A salon employee said she might not feel comfortable performing a full Brazilian, a style of waxing that includes genitalia. When the spa later cancelled an appointment, the would-be customer said he would talk to his lawyer. He filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office. While he later withdrew it, he can refile it any time under current law.

Legal protections for transgender people in Massachusetts have greatly expanded: they are already protected from discrimination in housing, employment, education, lending, and credit. So why public bathrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms? Governor Charlie Baker signed a bill into law that makes gender identity a protected class in public accommodations, in addition to the other areas already protected since 2012. What does it entail?

Let’s say you are waiting for your daughter outside a public bathroom. A male enters the same bathroom and you try to stop him, pointing out that this one is for women.  Official complaints to government agencies spring forth. Legal and criminal penalties abound — of up to a year in jail or fines up to $50,000 for serial offenders can occur if individuals or businesses try to deny access to women’s bathrooms to biological males who identify as females. What has happened to privacy and safety for women and girls? 

Once the Catholic Church stood strong against bizarre trends, like the bathroom bill.  When the church took a stand on issues involving movies, dress codes, acceptable language, and coed dorms, we followed its advice.  What has happened?

Once a major facilitator of adoption, the church has been ruled out of this work due to our state’s demand that homosexuals be allowed to adopt children. However, the church leadership in Boston didn’t really fight the adoption pressure from advocacy groups at the time. Why not? No doubt the moral voice of the Church has been muted due to its own sex scandals. But if the Church weren’t dealing with such a mess of its own, would it be speaking out on this issue? And if not, why not?

The current law does not make exception for convicted sex offenders, thus giving creepy criminals access to women’s spaces. Should all parents now accompany their children (especially girls) to the locker room or dressing room after a soccer game? And would they be endangered of being sued?

The current movement to redefine public spaces at the expense of the general public is part of a larger effort. Transgender politics is gaining ground through medical centers and local schools among other areas. Not long ago the teen crisis was often about girls’ anorexia. Girls who wanted to be accepted by the “in” group deemed themselves too fat, despite their shrinking image in front of a mirror. That was before the new fixation on gender identity. Currently the transgender movement wants to define sex as “assigned at birth,” allowing wiggle room for a future transition. At some point a child can determine his or her own gender, perhaps with a little help from his friends. 

Widely used teaching materials and visuals showed a Genderbread Person. However, that cutsie illustration didn’t last long because the Genderbread Person looked too much like a man. Now the poster used in schools is a Gender Unicorn. In this diagram you are led to believe your God-given biological sex is in your mind. So instead of just choosing a favorite singer or sport’s team, why not your gender? As if young people didn’t have enough on their minds.

Centers for Child and Adolescent Gender Care have been springing up around the country since 2015. In these so-called child-centered places hormonal therapy and even sex change surgeries are conducted. Their medical practices claim to correct “sexual dysphoria,” defined as strong, persistent feelings of identification with the opposite gender and discomfort with one’s own assigned sex that results in significant distress or impairment. Or, more simply, a person biological, anatomically, and chromosomally a boy may feel and act like a girl.

In some cases, research on sex change operations and therapy has been suppressed.  But reliable research shows that after sex-reassignment (which is what the surgeries are formally called) there is a disproportionately higher rate of suicide. In Sweden where sex change operations are popular, a study found there is 19 times higher rate of death by suicide by those receiving the treatment.  

How did we get here? Follow the legislation.  When North Carolina passed a bathroom bill protecting men and women from switching bathrooms, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch sued the state. Why? Because the movement wants it understood that sex is biological, but gender is socially determined.  

Worried about your children or grandchildren? Talk to them about their anxieties. Is someone bullying them at school or online? They need to be listened to. If necessary, go to a therapist to talk over their problems.  And, most important, today, Tuesday, November 6, Vote NO on 3 to repeal the Bathroom and Locker Room Bill.         

For more information on the sex-gender movement read Ryan T. Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally.

 

Kevin Ryan is a Boston University emeritus professor and Marilyn Ryan is a political scientist and writer.  The Ryans live in Brookline. Read their past columns here.