Twenty-seven Tennessee senators have signed a letter calling on Governor Bill Haslam to oppose the U.S. government in the directive issued to accommodate transgender individuals in taxpayer-funded toilets and locker rooms to maintain Title IX funding for education.
Citing the public safety and privacy of citizens, the senators highlighted data by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation published in April documenting 2,732 cases of rape, forcible sodomy and sexual assault in Tennessee in 2015 without a new vehicle for those who commit such violent sex crimes to access potential victims. Further, the letter states, “While a microscopic group of individuals demands accommodation, the opportunism that is created for criminal predators (not within the said group receiving preference) to access their unwilling prey – women and children – is a certain consequence. The deviancy driving rapists and pedophiles has been dismissed and would most certainly impact and endanger a much larger segment of the public…”
“The safety of our women and children must always take priority over someone’s political agenda,” said Senator Mark Green who led the effort in petitioning the Governor to act. “The politics of Washington, D.C. are toxic and endangering our citizens. This has to stop.”
The decree espoused by the Obama Administration uses a "vastly expanded interpretation" of the 1964 Civil Rights Law which was amended in 1972 to include the prohibition of sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. The U.S. Department of Justice in its rejection of biology and science to define sex permits an individual’s personal “identity” to overrule current policy of public restroom/locker room use, said officials.
“Criminals find loopholes and exploit opportunities to access victims," said Senator Green. "The unintentional consequences of this accommodation will create opportunities that should never exist that endanger our children in schools and employees who work for local, state and federal governments." Senator Green is a practicing physician who serves as vice chairman of the Senate Commerce and as a member of the State and Local Government Committee.
North Carolina, responding to a municipal ordinance of Charlotte to mandate all restrooms/locker rooms accommodate the transgender population, estimated by the Williams Institute – a UCLA policy group devoted to sexual identity – to be about 0.3 percent of the U.S. population, passed legislation that prohibited the use of “public bathrooms that do not correspond with their biological sex.” The Obama Administration responded to this action and threatened legal action, including the loss of federal funding for schools. This generated the reciprocated lawsuit by North Carolina challenging inclusion of transgender identity in the legal determination of sex for the purposes of discrimination and policy. On Friday, the Obama Administration countered with the Executive Order.
“As a physician, the astounding activism seen to determine one’s gender or sex based on feeling rather than biology is reckless. I will continue to stand for reason in a time where our government is fighting its own citizens,” said Senator Green.