Transgendered Restroom Use Bill Could Bankrupt System

We are not North Carolina and this has got to be a no if only because of the financial ramifications (but, of course it isn't only about money.)

From The Stranger:

Washington State could lose as much as $4.4575 billion annually in federal funding—and much of it for the state's public schools—if voters pass anti-trans bathroom initiative 1515, according to a new report.


"If I-1515 is passed, it would explicitly require that restrooms are gender segregated by biological sex, which is in direct contradiction with Title IX," Amira Hasenbush, one of the authors of the report, told The Stranger. "So that would be a direct conflict, and schools can be denied federal funding if they're in conflict with Title IX and Title VII."

Nine percent of Washington State's K-12 funding comes from the federal government. But a fiscal analysis of the proposed ballot measure from the Williams Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Law found that those school funds, roughly equivalent to $1 billion a year, would be in jeopardy if I-1515 passes the November ballot.

For a state already unconstitutionally underfunding its public schools, the loss of federal funding would be devastating. And report authors say their estimates are conservative.

No on I-1515.

Comments

Charlie Mas said…
Is there anyone would supports this initiative and can offer a cogent rationale for it?
Charlie Mas said…
The folks promoting this initiative, Just Want Privacy, are holding a public meeting in Seattle on Monday, March 9 at 7:00 pm. They will be at Grace Church, 10323 28th Avenue Southwest, Seattle.

There, they will inform and equip the community to "help keep men out of girls’ locker rooms."

At the meeting they will:

• Share their view of the petition- tell what they say is it does and doesn’t do
• Offer information about activities and how people can help them put I-1515 on the ballot
• Teach folks how to conduct a successful signature gathering effort
Anonymous said…
West Seattle High School just opened a bathroom for all genders.

HP
Anonymous said…
5 Reasons to Oppose the Locker Room Rule:
1. It’s Discriminatory​. In an attempt to include 3/10 of one percent of the
population, the regulation has effectively discriminated against the majority,
alienating people of every major faith tradition, sexual assault survivors, and
many others.
2. It’s Dangerous. ​Based on subjective standards, this is the Swiss Cheese of
all regulations, containing multiple loopholes for predators to exploit and zero
safeguards to penalize them when they do.
3. Locker Rooms. ​While proponents of the rule would have you believe this is
just about peeing in peace, they fail to acknowledge the reality that this
opens the state’s thousands of locker room doors to mixed sex nudity.
4. It Penalizes Free Speech. ​Section 162­32­040 prohibits not only
“unwelcome questions related to gender identity, but also the intentional
“misgendering” of someone. So now if you’re unsure about someone’s
expressed gender identity, you’re not allowed to ask for clarification, and
you’re in trouble if you get it wrong.
5. It Doesn’t Represent the People. ​The Human Rights Commission
circumnavigated both the people and the legislators who represent them.
They made a rule with dramatic implications for the 7 million residents of
Washington after including only 46 of them in the conversation. We need a
better option.

Women's Rights
Anonymous said…
This new rule in Washington effectively forces businesses and all public facilities to let anyone use any bathroom. A man can walk into a women's bathroom behind an unsuspecting little girl and nobody is allowed to question, report or stop him. All he would have to say is "I identify as a woman" and "I'm going to sue you for asking me why I'm here".

The same would be true for any locker room at any fitness center or pool. The 50-year-old man who went into the Green Lake women's locker room was within his rights, as he stated, under the new WA law.

I heard a compelling story from a sexual assault survivor about how this new rule triggers her PTSD, as it probably will for many of the women who have been sexually assaulted. Knowing that a man can walk into a shower facility or bathroom at any time, unimpeded, is a scary thought for me as a woman as well.

The concern related to the rule is not that transgendered people are
predators. The concern is that the subjective nature and ambiguous language
of the rule creates opportunities for those who are.


The Just Want Privacy Initiative does not require anyone to use the “wrong”
bathroom. It simply gives businesses the freedom to decide for themselves
what options best serve their customers, and it protects children from
premature exposure to opposite sex anatomy.

Women's Rights
Anonymous said…
I have used the women's restroom to escape men or boys in the past. Transgendered bathrooms could eliminate a relatively safe refuge for threatened women.
Hidden
Anonymous said…
Please watch this video to see the perspective of sexual assault survivors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg-MAMvkplE

Women's Rights
I can understand all sides (did you know Target Northgate has family dressing rooms so men can be in the women's area room and vice versa? It did come as a surprise to me.).

For me, the costs are one area that gives me a lot of pause and worry.
Josh Hayes said…
I'm going to say, Charlie, based on the first slew of comments, no.

I can't imagine how cruel, or fearful, one would have to be to make any of the trans kids at my school use the sex-appropriate, but gender-inappropriate, bathroom, knowing the bullying and worse that might occur.
Anonymous said…
Women's Rights - thanks for posting the talking points straight from the Just Want Privacy
website.

In response, here is an excerpt from Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch as she looks to Stop Discrimination Against Transgender Individuals.

"This action is about a great deal more than just bathrooms. This is about the dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens and the laws that we, as a people and as a country, have enacted to protect them – indeed, to protect all of us. And it’s about the founding ideals that have led this country – haltingly but inexorably – in the direction of fairness, inclusion and equality for all Americans.

This is not the first time that we have seen discriminatory responses to historic moments of progress for our nation. We saw it in the Jim Crow laws that followed the Emancipation Proclamation. We saw it in fierce and widespread resistance to Brown v. Board of Education. And we saw it in the proliferation of state bans on same-sex unions intended to stifle any hope that gay and lesbian Americans might one day be afforded the right to marry. That right, of course, is now recognized as a guarantee embedded in our Constitution, and in the wake of that historic triumph, we have seen bill after bill in state after state taking aim at the LGBT community. Some of these responses reflect a recognizably human fear of the unknown, and a discomfort with the uncertainty of change. But this is not a time to act out of fear. This is a time to summon our national virtues of inclusivity, diversity, compassion and open-mindedness. What we must not do – what we must never do – is turn on our neighbors, our family members, our fellow Americans, for something they cannot control, and deny what makes them human. This is why none of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something they are not, or invents a problem that doesn’t exist as a pretext for discrimination and harassment."

The full, prepared remarks can be found here https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-loretta-e-lynch-delivers-remarks-press-conference-announcing-complaint

Transgender people should be treated with dignity and respect like everyone else.

-Mark
Anonymous said…
This is also from the Just Want Privacy Facebook page:
"This evening we received the following message from Melissa about her experience today a 24 Hour Fitness in Seattle. This is not okay, folks.
"Today I went to the gym at lunch and when I went into the locker room to change, I saw a man... Completely naked. I quickly turned around in a panic thinking I had walked into the men's locker room instead of the women's. Nope, I was in fact in the women's locker room. With the change of policy I knew there was nothing I could do so I walked in, the man made eye contact and I walked past the first bay where he was into the second one (there were only two).
I was about to start changing and realized how uncomfortable I was. He could easily go one row over and see me. How could I know for sure if he was transgender or a creepy guy taking advantage of the system? All I knew was that he was DEFINITELY a guy now... Regardless of how he was born.
I ended up going in the back to the shower and toilet area where I found all the rest of the women in the locker room. We all had the same idea... To get changed in the bathroom stalls instead of in the open area for privacy.
None of us had the courage to speak to management about this either for the fear that we would be labeled something we are not. This has nothing to do about being for or against the LBGT community. It's the fact that we don't feel comfortable seeing a man in our dressing room and that we have no way to tell if he is going to take advantage of the new policy or us. It was extremely uncomfortable.
When I walked out, he had changed into slacks and a button up top. In all areas, he was a man... Looked and dressed like one. How is this ok?! What if there were little girls in there? I don't understand how this policy was ever allowed and that it hasn't been converted back yet!"

This current law has wide loopholes which allow men to intimidate and/or prey on women in their most vulnerable spaces. It's not right. Women and girls do deserve privacy.

Women's Rights
Anonymous said…
Women's Rights - I believe there is a general misconception about current law. The Washington State Human Rights Commission sent out a news release after the Green Lake incident and clarified that the actions of the man in that incident was not covered under the law. http://www.hum.wa.gov/media/dynamic/files/320_Press%20Release%20pool%20locker%20room.pdf

"Washington State Human Rights Commission Statement Regarding Seattle Locker Room Incident
When a man recently entered a women's locker room at a Seattle pool, his intent was obviously to make the women and girls in the restroom upset and uncomfortable, and to make some kind of misguided point about the Human Rights Commission's rules regarding equal access to gender-segregated facilities. His behavior is inexcusable and reprehensible. And it is absolutely not protected under the law. According to witnesses, the man never identified himself as transgender. He did not express a female gender identity through voice, dress, or mannerisms. He was a man, but in the wrong place. And even
worse, when he was asked to leave, he refused to do so.

Men cannot go into the women's locker room, as this man claimed he had the right to do. Only women, including transgender women, can go into the women's locker room. Persons who enter the wrong gender-segregated facility for nefarious purposes can be asked to leave in no uncertain terms. And they would have no recourse.

If a business has a reasonable belief that a person is in the wrong place, there is no rule that states that the person cannot be questioned and required to leave. If that person has entered a gender-segregated facility under false pretenses, and is asked to leave, then it is quite unlikely that the person will pursue a civil rights complaint. If they do, the subsequent investigation will uncover that the person is not protected under the law, and the complaint will be closed with no further action. If a business makes an honest mistake, and requires a protected person to leave a facility, and the wronged person files a civil
rights complaint, the Human Rights Commission will look upon this as an opportunity for education, not for punitive action. The Human Rights Commission cannot impose fines, cannot throw anybody in jail, and will not seek an outcome disproportionate to the action; rather it will seek a mutual resolution among the parties.

We all have a lot to learn about people who are different from ourselves, and can all work harder at practicing tolerance and acceptance. Working together toward these goals, we can make this a Washington that stands up for equal rights for all of its citizens."

-Mark

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