Susan Wright on the Right
Of all the issues that roiled the 2016 election the most, the “bathroom debate” likely commanded my attention, mainly because as a citizen of North Carolina, our then-governor, Pat McCrory’s strong stance on the issue became a really big thing in national media.
For those who aren’t so blessed as to have been born and raised as Tar Heels, here’s the brief history lesson:
Back in the early months of 2016, a liberal Charlotte City Council decided to enact sweeping “anti-discrimination” reforms, by throwing open the bathroom stalls of every public bathroom in the city, which would include restaurants, rest stops, businesses, and schools, making them anything-goes-access.
The citywide ordinance, meant to kick in on April 1, 2016 was meant as a protection for transgendered people, but was so broadly worded that the very real possibility existed for creeps with ill intent to just say, “I feel womanly today” and stroll into any bathroom they wanted, even if there were children inside.
Governor McCrory and the Republican-led North Carolina General Assembly [rightly] saw the potential for disaster and called an emergency session.
On March 23, 2016 the general assembly overwhelmingly passed House Bill 2 and rushed it to the desk of the governor, who signed the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act into state law.
The new law stated that public bathrooms were not subject to the social justice whims of liberal politicians, and that bathroom access was determined by the ironclad certainties of biology.
Liberals hate science. It’s a well-documented fact, at this point. It’s why they’re always trying to deny it.
There’s no such thing as a baby growing in a womb. It’s just a clump of cells… There’s no such thing as male or female. It’s whatever you feel like…
Other states fought the bathroom wars before North Carolina. Some state government would decide that there should be gender-separate bathrooms, liberal activists would go nuts, and the politicians would flinch.
What made North Carolina different was Pat McCrory.
McCrory was a first term governor, the first Republican governor for the state in several decades, and possibly the most successful governor in the history of the state.
He came into a state that was near rock bottom, in terms of job growth, was crippled by debt, and suffered with a stagnant economy.
McCrory tightened the belt, made needed changes to the tax policy, and within 3 years, not only had settled nearly $3 billion in unemployment debt, but created a healthy surplus.
He also set the state on an amazing upward trajectory, with economists suddenly touting North Carolina as the state to watch for economic growth.
North Carolina rivaled Texas in job growth and attractiveness for new businesses. The libertarian Cato Institute gave McCrory an “A” rating, ranking him the number 2 governor in the nation for his tax policies.
Maybe it was because of the success of his first term, or maybe it was because he was a noble man, supported by other noble men in the general assembly, but whatever the case, McCrory did not bend when the world outside of his state began to rain down on us because of the bathroom issue.
Boycotts and a daily deluge of name-calling may have made things uncomfortable, but the economy was still holding. In fact, for every business that made a big show of pulling out of North Carolina, two more would announce plans to locate in the state.
So organizations like the NCAA began to make threats.
State papers, like the Charlotte Observer featured insane, liberal op-eds, with one even saying the words that girls would have to “get used to seeing penises in their bathrooms” in the interest of civil rights.
I’m not kidding.
Then the Obama administration kicked in, threatening to withhold funds for education and law enforcement from the state. President Obama even waved his scepter and declared all school bathrooms and locker rooms across the nation to be open to whoever.
That didn’t take.
The Department of Justice, led by the despicable Loretta Lynch threatened to sue the state. McCrory answered the threat by suing them first.
GEEZ… He was an awesome governor!
Unfortunately, short-sighted, single issue Republican voters in Mecklenburg and New Hanover Counties aided liberals in ousting McCrory and installing a new, Democrat governor, in Roy Cooper (picking up where the last corrupt Democrat governor left off).
And no. It wasn’t the bathroom issue that cost McCrory. Polls showed his popularity actually took a bump up when the controversy began. It was toll roads and cuts to incentives for the movie industry, oddly enough, that cost him crucial Republican votes in a close contest.
Ultimately, another special session of the North Carolina General Assembly settled the bathroom issue.
In 2017, with a new governor and the same, Republican-led general assembly, they agreed to a repeal of the bathroom bill, in exchange for a return to things before the Charlotte City Council attempted to make their own rules about the safety of North Carolina citizens.
No bathroom bill, but if your birth certificate says “male,” you use the men’s room. If your birth certificate says “female,” you use the ladies room. That simple. The state hit “reset” on sanity.
The New Bathroom Battle
While North Carolina was the last, greatly publicized bathroom battle, the issue is still ongoing, around the nation. There are still people, just as there were before, who don’t get the privacy or safety issue.
They would risk the safety and comfort of you or your family, in order to score feel-good social justice points.
Now, let’s turn our gaze to California, and the case of Republican Jazmina Saavedra, who is running for a House seat in the state’s 44th District (Watts, Compton, San Pedro), against Rep. Nanette Barragan.
Saavedra is making waves for a recently posted video, as she takes the bathroom battle to a local Denny’s restaurant.
“I’m trying to use the ladies’ room and there is a man here claiming that he is a lady,” Saavedra said in the Facebook Live video, filming just outside the bathroom stall in a Denny’s restaurant.
“You’re invading my privacy,” the transgender woman said in response.
To be clear, when you see the term “transgender woman,” it’s a dude.
“You’re invading my privacy because I’m a woman and I deserve to use the woman, the ladies’ room,” Saavedra said.
Of course, Saavedra’s opponent seized on this as an opportunity to opine on the oozy insanity that often follows the pick-your-own-gender crowd.
“I was appalled by the treatment that this woman received for simply trying to use the restroom. Everyone has the right to their own identity, and the right not to be discriminated against for who they are,” Barragán said in a statement to the Daily Beast.
That’s not how science works. And unless you’re talking about Saavedra’s treatment for simply trying to use the bathroom without worrying that a strange man was in the next stall, then nothing you said makes sense.
In the video (that can be viewed here), Saavedra waits outside the bathroom door for the person to emerge, and it’s quite clear that this is a man. No one can see his “feelings,” as the anti-science left would have us believe. Even if his words said, “I’m a woman,” there should be more to go on, and there really wasn’t.
So was Saavedra in the wrong?
She had a selfie stick and walked around a Denny’s proclaiming that a guy was in the ladies room. It may have been a bit much.
That being said, she wasn’t wrong.
As we’ve seen over and over again, these “special” cases get a lot of attention and it’s all part of a culture war, where those things that are normal and healthy are deemed oppressive and wrong.
If we’re to believe that the concern is for people suffering with conditions such as gender dysphoria, does that mean no one else matters?
Frankly, I’m not for embarrassing anybody in such a public manner, and Saavedra’s methods may have inadvertently made her look like a bully, rather than someone with a legitimate point to make.
What we’ve seen, however, is that this isn’t about caring for the victims of the disorder. In the North Carolina case, a compromise was recommended: single-occupancy, unisex bathrooms.
For liberal activists, that was unacceptable.
Why?
Because it’s not about equality or tolerance. It’s about forced compliance to a worldview. It’s about making girls “get used to seeing penises in their bathrooms.”
It’s always the equality-and-tolerance crowd that’s absolutely the least tolerant of opposing views.
There have been multiple cases of criminals using lax bathroom laws to take advantage of easier access to their intended victims.
To be clear, these aren’t always transgendered individuals, but the laws liberals want passed to “protect” them are the same laws being manipulated by criminals.
And nobody wants to see transgendered individuals harmed. That’s another falsehood perpetuated by the special interest groups to make everyone else seem like bullies.
Ideally, more research should be undertaken to determine what breaks someone’s mind to the point that they create a false reality of being the exact opposite of who they are, just to cope.
We treat schizophrenics. We treat those with obsessive-compulsive disorders. We treat depression. We have counseling and drug therapies for every other mental/emotional condition.
Gender dysphoria is the only disorder where we say, “Why, sure, David… You’re a woman!”
It’s the equivalent of telling a schizophrenic that the government really is planting listening devices in the walls of their home.
And while the plastic surgeons are making a killing out of the mere cosmetic fixes for those suffering with gender dysphoria, they’re not making women into men or men into women.
They’re creating an illusion and putting a band-aid on the gaping wound that brought these people to their office, in the first place.
We’ll see if this controversy hurts Saavedra’s chances, or helps her. Were I part of California’s 44th District, I’d vote for her.
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