Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyMay 17th, 2016
Yesterday, I noted that Alabama State Sen. Phil Williams (R-Rainbow City, ironically) filed a filed a bill requiring anyone that makes restrooms available to the public to do so “in a manner that ensures the privacy of each individual.” That bit of news came from a brief article I found posted by the Florence Times Daily. Details were sketchy, but they included:
Williams said that can be done in three ways. By having:
• restroom, bathroom or changing facilities that are designed to be used by one person at a time.
• restroom, bathroom or changing facilities that are designed to be used by multiple persons of the same biological gender.
• restroom, bathroom or changing facilities that are designed to be used by multiple persons at once, irrespective of their gender, that are “staffed by an attendant stationed at the door of each restroom to monitor the appropriate use of the restroom and answer any questions or concerns posed by users.”
A few hours after I posted it and while I was doing other things away from the computer, I thought more about this and realized that there was something strange about this bill. Or, perhaps more accurately, the paper’s description of the bill, since I haven’t been able to find the bill itself. (It’s not yet listed on the Alabama Senate web site.) This bill, as far as I can tell so far, seems to focus exclusively on those who provide public facilities, and not on those who use them.
In other words, it seems to target Target more so than trans men and women. And in that way, it seems to anticipate the possibility that North Carolina’s law may be struck down in court. The law is currently being challenged by the ACLU and Lambda Legal, and by the Obama Administration in a separate case.
I wish I knew about this yesterday, but I found an op-ed Williams wrote last week for Al.com where he confirmed this approach:
Sen. Phil Williams
As I write this, a big-box retailer with multiple outlets in this state has decided to make all of their multi-stall restrooms unisex, with a complete disregard for long-standing law, tradition and biology. More egregiously, this decision was made with no concern for the privacy and security concerns of their customers. In essence, Target has thrown out the rule in favor of the exception.
In North Carolina, the city of Charlotte passed an ordinance requiring public restrooms to allow persons to use bathrooms according to their own gender self-identification. … That law is being litigated even now and Alabama must be ready by the next legislative session to deal with the outcome.
…If North Carolina’s law is struck down then my legislation will become a backstop to say that if any person or entity provides public restrooms, bathrooms, or changing facilities then they will do so in one of three ways: a single user facility; facilities separated by the physical gender of the users; or, if facilities are provided in a unisex/transgender manner, an attendant for each facility must be onsite to address any concerns or questions of the general public. Failure to do so would result in civil penalties and provide a private right of action in court for those individuals who have been harmed or aggrieved.
Latest Posts
Featured Reports
In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.
When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.
In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.
On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.
Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"
At last, the truth can now be told.
Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!
And don‘t miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.
Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.
Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.
Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.
The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.
“Google” is a trademark of Google Inc.
© Box Turtle Bulletin. All Rights Reserved.
Posts 
Posts via daily email:
Ben in Oaklnd
May 17th, 2016
in other words, nothing changes at all, unless someone wants to install a potty patrol.
By allowing someone to sue who is “aggrieved”, rather than harmed, the proposed bill offers a rash of lawsuits for your amusement.
enough already
May 17th, 2016
At this point, I’m left with two impressions:
1) We should have let Dixie go. Still should.
2) Conservative Christians have chosen transgender people as their next victims.
Hunter
May 18th, 2016
enough already: I’ve been predicting your second point for a while: this is a group that needs an enemy. I don’t think it’s entirely coincidental that the demise of the Soviet Union coincided with the rise of the “Christian” right: the conservatives needed an enemy, and the shift in focus to gays and lesbians was a natural — another group that could be demonized with relative impunity. Well, ultimately, that didn’t work, so now it’s trans folk.
Al Raymond
May 19th, 2016
What’s to keep a predator who doesn’t even bother to dress or otherwise present as a woman, from falsely claiming to be a “woman” and demanding the right to invade the privacy of a women’s rest room or locker room? (And adding insult to injury, threatening to sue if he is denied access!)
Libria
May 19th, 2016
Al Raymond, I think sexual predators just walk to women’s rest room, there is no need to wear summer dress…
But think about this: Trans-man walks to ladies room. He is trans, but he has beard, he is big, regular man. You want this guy to use womens restrooms? Just because he was born a female? Now women will freak out. Oh, and trans-WOMAN in public men’s room, that is a great idea. Everybody freak out about creepy cisgender guys in women’s room, but what about trans-women? Not very safe for them in regular world, but men’s toilets are probably the worst place.
(I apologize for any mistakes in my English)
Priya Lynn
May 19th, 2016
“What’s to keep a predator who doesn’t even bother to dress or otherwise present as a woman, from falsely claiming to be a “woman” and demanding the right to invade the privacy of a women’s rest room or locker room? (And adding insult to injury, threatening to sue if he is denied access!)”.
A predator would be going into the women’s room to harass or assault women which remain against the law. If a predator didn’t intend to harass or assault women in the women’s room he wouldn’t have any desire to go in there in the first place. And cases of this have never happened in the jurisdictions that allow transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with so this is a non-issue.
A non-transgendered man can’t simply declare himself to be transgendered and get access to the women’s room. As in the case of gay refugees fleeing violence, he’d have to prove he was transgendered through the testimony of friends and family and mental health professionals and demonstrating a history of transgendered behavior which he wouldn’t be able to do.
Al, scenarios such as you have posited don’t happen in real life, they’re just used as an excuse to attempt to justify abusing trans women.
Richard Rush
May 20th, 2016
Al, it has been primarily religious fanatics, and politicians who pander to them, who have fraudulently and loudly fabricated a phony threat while silently creating a real threat of verbal and/or physical violence against transgender people.
They want laws to force transgender people to make a ‘Catch-22’ choice: If they use a restroom consistent with their transgender reality, they risk arrest and criminal charges, or if they use a restroom consistent with their birth certificate, they risk verbal and/or physical attack.
Ben in oakland
May 20th, 2016
Al Raymond,
Are you seriously suggesting that the only thing that keeps predators out of public restrooms is the lack of a law that allows them to go in? Are are you trying to say that heterosexual men can claim they are women in order to prey on women and girls, and that the issue of actual transgender people doing so is a complete fabrication?
Maybe the thing that keeps them out is the very real probability that they will be caught AS PREDATORS, and that is why there is no epidemic of that anywhere.
Eric Payne
May 21st, 2016
Somebody in Alabama is thinking long-term, and has found a way to get all those crack-addicted hoes off of the food stamps and welfare that’s paying for their lobster and Krystal… become a bathroom cop, and teach those public-assistance moochers the pride of earning a paycheck!
Leave A Comment