Anti-Transgender Bathroom Bills are Unconstitutional

[Ayla]

As state legislatures reconvene for 2016, a rash of bills have been proposed that would exclude transgender people from using the restrooms that align with their gender identity and outward gender expression. In other words, the bills seek to prevent a transgender woman—who looks and presents as a woman—from using the women’s restroom. Instead, she would be forced to use a men’s restroom where she would stand out like a sore thumb. These “papers to pee” or “genital check” bills violate constitutional privacy protections. ..

Courts have begun to recognize that such indirect outing of trans people violates a constitutional right to privacy. For example, a court in Alaska held that the DMV’s failure to have a policy permitting transgender people to change the gender marker on their driver’s license violated the state constitution because a transgender person was outed every time they presented an ID that did not comport with their gender expression. In November, a federal court in Michigan reached a similar decision, concluding that Michigan’s restrictive policy for changing the gender marker on a driver’s license indirectly outed trans people.

Not only are trans individuals “outed” by such laws, potentially subjecting them to harassment and abuse; these bills are likely to cause more of a disturbance to others using the restroom because trans people will now be forced to use bathrooms that do not match their outward appearance. Moreover, even if a person were relegated to a single-stall, “unisex” bathroom by such bills, they would still be outed and made conspicuous by their repeated avoidance of a shared public restroom.

Courts have already established that the government may not publicly disseminate sensitive, intimate information absent a compelling government interest. The bills being considered by state legislatures flatly violate this constitutional norm by outing transgender people every time they attempt to use the restroom. Lawmakers should reject these bills and permit everyone the ability to pee in peace.  


www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/02/11/anti_transgender_bathroom_bills_are_clearly_unconstitutional.html   

[Deleted]

Sounds like a good argument to me. This article touches on the reason why I wouldn't use a "trans loo" even if one were available: doing that outs you.

[Shan]

That and several other similar bills are so pathetic and transparently biased against basic human rights, they aren't going to go anywhere!

[Deleted]

There's no doubt that lots of people who aren't naturally bigoted and hateful are hearing the bigots and realizing how disgusting they are. The bigots are doing their bit, in a backwards way, to bring people over to our side. It's a pity they do so much harm in the process.

One of my favorites was from Geno Auriemma, long-time coach of the women's basketball team at the U. of Connecticut. Referring to all that business in Indiana when the legislature had passed, on the grounds of religious freedom, that bill that was so bigoted, he said, "Hiding behind that religious crap! I've never heard of anything so cowardly!"