Roy Exum
Several weeks ago N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory signed a “bathroom bill” that requires people to use gender-specific restrooms, which translates to what’s on one’s birth certificate. Since then the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual camp and their supporters have gotten all fiery, while companies like Pepsi, PayPal and Deutsche Bank have cancelled business plans with the state’s “red-neck sexists.” Some country singers ain’t doing any more concerts and – get this – a pornographic website refuses to push any more free smut into Tar Heel State; that’ll really show ‘em.
What is totally lost in the hullabaloo is that 99.07 percent of the people in the North Carolina – who know their restroom of preference -- could care less but are nonetheless furious that not one official they put in office will tell the rabble-rousers to sit back down.
A similar bill is on Tenn. Gov. Bill Haslam’s desk and he ought to sign it without pause, noting this foolishness that has gone too far. Tell them, “No! Now behave yourselves because we are going to leave such idiocy alone, once and for all. A person’s birth certificate is a legal document. We are sticking to what your momma agreed you to be when you were born. She’s the one who signed the birth certificate, not me. Take it up with her!”
Then our Governor should add, “The threat is this bill discriminates against a person’s sex and that all Title IX money will be cut off by the Feds. Well, let’s go … bring it … because by the time this hoodwink is over there will be other states that will have done same thing. We’ve got to take the best definition that we can prove in court – a birth certificate is a legal document and I believe the Supreme Court will uphold that.
“One more thing … if you take away federal money from states that adapt the birth-certificate method,” Haslam should say, “then be prepared to live the words of Mr. Thomas Jefferson – ‘When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.’ Now, in something of an aside, here in Tennessee we are kinda’ interested how you can prove somebody is, or is not, transgender. Might make for a dandy of an afternoon in Supreme Court …”
Let’s be realistic. I know and love a good number of gay people. We coexist real well because we choose to befriend one another. People all across America need to learn to do the same thing and when you get the hang of it, it becomes ridiculously simple. It’s the same way with black people, men versus women, the Catholics, the Jews, whatever. If you like people they’ll like you back. And if what appears to be a woman comes in some men’s room with me, professing to be transgender or transsexual, I could give a rip.
The truth is that none of the top experts are sure how many transgender people live in the United States. Seriously. The best guess by the Williams Institute is about 0.3 of the population. That’s 700,000 people, or an average of about 14,000 per state. Further, Dr. Norman Spack, M.D., who is the co-director of the Gender Management Clinic at the world-famous Boston Children’s Hospital, believes that in a high school with 2,000 students, there are probably two-to-four kids that could be considered transgender.
If one of those kids is a cross-dresser, all that person needs to do is see the vice principal and get a key to a one-at-a-time restroom. What’s that? Three or four keys at most high schools … works for me. Then somebody will complain they are being forced to walk too far. Then the vice principal would just as soon be driving a Mayfield’s milk truck.
I am totally convinced we cannot be all things to all people. I also believe the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia hit the nail on the head when he said, “Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.”
Courage! We also need it to start saying, “No, we are not going to do that.” The GLBT hasn’t yet figured out that if they will quit whining and squabbling over petty and ridiculous efforts in the name of gender equality, the 97 percent of the United States that isn’t GLBT will be much more apt to treat them as equals. All the great majority wants – on either side -- is to get along with one another.
What has happened in America – this from many sources -- is that too many of us, most especially politicians, have lost the ability to say “no.” The special needs group, the minorities, the disenfranchised … I love them all but, let’s be real honest, they need to tug on the same rope of understanding, too. Save time, energy and street-fighting for stuff that matters to all of us.
At Duke University there is a sit-in right now by students in the Vice President’s office with a list of “concerns,” declaring it their right to peacefully protest. That’s all fine and good but not at the expense of those who are unable to do their jobs. Somebody should have had the courage to say “not in my office … take your protest to the proper place and, by the way, it’s raining hard out there … “
You’ll love this: One demand at Duke was that the protesters would not be charged with trespassing in the administration building, this despite overwhelming physical evidence to the contrary; Duke readily agreed … what a bastion of further idiocy in North Carolina.
What the mighty-mites in Washington have yet to realize is how incensed this nation over how much time and energy we spend on … what? … stuff like finding bathrooms for .03 percent of people. Transgendered folks must learn what so many others with their own burdens already have – you gotta’ have coping skills. And, brother, everybody has some burdens a legislator or any number of politically-correct laws can’t fix.
There is something else we need to clear up while we are on the subject: Transgender, unlike transsexual, is a term for people whose identity, expression, behavior, or general sense of self does not conform to what is usually associated with the sex that they were born. It has often been said sex is a matter of the body, while gender occurs in the mind. Transsexual people are more apt to undergo surgeries, takes hormones and such.
So be who you are. Live life large. And always drink the good wine first … none of us knows how long life is going to last.
royexum@aol.com