Opinion

Are You More Transphobic Than A 5th Grade Girl?

Scott Greer Contributor
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The cultural Left was dealt a stunning defeat in Houston on Tuesday night.

The Texas megalopolis put up its proposed “Equal Rights Ordinance” on the ballot this past Election Day and voters rejected it by a wide margin. (RELATED: Houston Voters CRUSHINGLY Reject Law Allowing Cross-Dressing Men To Use Women’s Bathrooms)

The ordinance, touted by its supporters as an “expansion” of civil rights protections, was quashed in large part due to its opponents campaigning against the bill which would allow men who identify as female to enter women’s bathrooms. That’s a scary thought primarily because it could give a pass to predators to follow little girls into those same restrooms.

Naturally, the Left was all in a tizzy over this rejection. Salon’s Amanda Marcotte — without any hint of self-awareness — lambasted Houston’s vote as a sign the crazies are taking over. Even though the ordinance would’ve allowed actual crazies to take over girls’ bathrooms.

The consensus on the Left is that Tuesday’s decision represents a setback for the cause of equality, particularly for LGBT rights. LGBT activists even threatened to launch an economic boycott against the city due to not liking how citizens voted. (RELATED: Good News! LGBT Activists Want To Cancel The Super Bowl)

The ordinance promised to ensure that the rights of all Houstonians — regardless of sex, race, gender or “genetic information” — were protected from discrimination. The problem is that minority groups are already pretty well protected by federal law and the measure seemed superfluous on the surface.

However, there was one group that was going to have its rights infringed upon by the ordinance — undermining the idea that it was all about equality.

That group, of course, were women and girls who didn’t want their privacy and security violated by cross-dressing men and sexual predators.

While women’s rights are much championed by the Left, they’re apparently taking a back seat to transgender rights at the moment. There’s a couple of eye-opening stories detailing women having unwanted interactions with trans-women in previously protected areas.

For example, the story of the woman using a Planet Fitness locker room who was perturbed to find an individual with a phallus dressing beside her. She complained to staff, and was kicked out of the gym for being intolerant. (RELATED: ‘Judgement Free’ Gym Being Sued By Woman Banned For Complaining About Transgender Woman In The Locker Room)

Under Houston’s proposal, that woman would have to accept the man in the women’s locker room, and if the business kicked him out out of the locker room, it would be hit with a $5,000 fine.

Transgender rights are also starting to infringe upon other left-wing causes. Just last week, two events illustrate how the T in LGBT is becoming the dominant social justice issue in a country that just legalized gay marriage nationwide.

A California university had to cancel a feminist event celebrating women’s genitalia because it promoted “transmisogyny.” The reason for the transmisogyny was due to the event claiming that penises are universally-accepted, which offended students who said that wasn’t true because “society is not comfortable with the image of a penis on a woman.” Others said the project was “violent” towards transgender folks. (RELATED: College’s ‘Project Vulva’ Attacked For ‘Transphobia’)

Speaking of fantasy violence against transsexuals, Colorado College has indefinitely delayed the showing of the gay rights film “Stonewall” in part because some student activists declared the movie “discursively violent” against transgendered people — all because it didn’t feature enough transgendered people. (RELATED: Students Demand Gay Activist Movie Be Cancelled For Being Too White, Gay)

To say this cause has now jumped the shark is a massive understatement.

Now this fringe movement that hates gay rights films and hates gender pronouns wants to invade your child’s restroom. Parents across the country have strongly opposed these measures, citing concerns of troubled individuals having access to children at their most vulnerable. (RELATED: Ohio Parents Protest Transgender Bathroom Rules)

But that’s just parents. How do they know what is best for their children when progressive bureaucrats say otherwise?

The overall problem with ordinances like Houston’s, is that it amounts to a social experiment that jeopardizes the safety, well-being and privacy of a large number of adults and children. It essentially undermines the common good on behalf of the very few confused individuals who think they were born in the wrong body.

It’s especially troubling to force children to accept something they see as frightening only because social justice warriors say it’s normal. We do not force kids to watch scary movies. There’s no reason they should have to suffer through a horror film when they go to the bathroom.

What’s even worse is if we punished any child who complained about the bathrooms — condemning them for expressing bigoted thoughts.

It would be one thing if there were a genuine problem of discrimination against the LGBT community in Houston that hurt their chances at employment and housing, prompting a pressing need for the HERO proposal. Except those problems don’t really exist in the city and the ordinance amounts to an institutionalized virtue signaling on the part of the mayor. The mayor, Annise Parker, was even trying to use the measure to impede on the constitutional rights of city churches before a state court overturned it earlier this year. (RELATED: Houston’s Mayor Endangers Civil Rights)

Besides empowering Parker’s desire to browbeat ideological opponents on behalf of equality, the measure would’ve also forced all citizens to place a delusion over the best interests of their children.

Namely, it amounted to a grand social experiment where kids would have served as guinea pigs.

Growing up, my elementary school assigned the book, “There’s A Boy In The Girl’s Bathroom!” The book’s title was a humorous allusion to how wrong and embarrassing it was for the protagonist to accidentally enter a ladies room.

If ordinances like HERO become the springboard for transgendered to enter any restroom as they please, that book is going to have to be changed to, “There’s A Perfectly Normal Woman With A Penis In The Girl’s Bathroom — And That’s Just Great!”

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