News hit on October 28, 2016, of The North
Carolina Values Coalition’s decision to recycle an attack ad used to
support discrimination against transgender people in regards to bathrooms. The advertisement
in question was originally created by the “Campaign for Houston” group in
October of 2015 to combat supporters of the Houston
Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO). The ordinance was defeated, so it makes
sense that residents of North Carolina who support HB2 would re-purpose this ad
to help them maintain their own agenda – keeping transgender people out of
public restrooms.
To give some details about the ad for people who don’t want
to watch it, the visuals of the Houston version and North Carolina version are
largely identical, aside from a few added text boxes in the NC video to make it
clear that Attorney General Roy Cooper is to blame for the looming threat of
sexual assault in bathrooms. The ad starts with a cisgender (identifying as the
sex assigned at birth) man entering a women’s restroom and washing his hands,
before hiding in a stall until a young cisgender girl comes in to use the
bathroom. Once the young girl enters a stall, the man exits his own and traps
her in hers by following her into it. The advertisement ends with the stall
door slamming shut. The audio varies: Houston’s video emphasizes the financial
repercussions proposed by HERO, while the NC video focuses on placing the
assumed future blame on Roy Cooper, who aims to repeal HB2. To watch the ads
side by side, you can go to this
website, which showcases the similarities.
Of course, these ads completely ignore the fact that
historically, there has been no
instance in the United States of a transgender person assaulting someone in
a bathroom. There have been more reports of trans men and trans women being harassed
and assaulted in bathrooms than there have been fabricated reports of
transgender people assaulting women and/or children disproven by Snopes. The NC
ad conveniently makes no mention of the $630.4M
in lost business, $197.4M in sports losses, and $109.2M lost when PayPal
froze expansion plans after the passing of the bill. So, while attempting to villianize
and discriminate against transgender people, the North Carolina Values
Coalition is simultaneously ignoring the current repercussions of the bill they
are trying to protect.
If I sound frustrated, it’s because I am. Transgender people are being subjected to unnecessary scrutiny, and
harassment once said scrutiny reveals that they do not fall under perceived
stereotypical appearances for males and females. Entering a bathroom – whether in
North Carolina or not – becomes a game of Russian Roulette for a transgender
person. Which person in the restroom is going to cause a scene? Will the
transgender person be thrown out, or won’t they? Before or after they can use
the toilet? What about their existence will be aggressively questioned today?
Continuing to equate transgender people to perverts and sexual harassers is hyperbolic and causes unnecessary fear that could be better focused on other serious dangers. For example, that convicted sex offender who Area Man was warned might sneak into the women’s restroom and assault his daughter is currently using a urinal next to his son. Maybe instead of worrying about innocent individuals who just want to pee, we could spend some more attention on threats we know are more prevalent. Just go back to using a bathroom buddy system and let people pee in the bathrooms they’re safest in.
Same old, same old. Used to be that gays were equated with perverts and sexual harassers. Society eventually outgrew that.
ReplyDeleteI do have to agree with Mr. Hommel in the sense that the blame went from colored people, to the gays, and since both have been (in some cases and not most) have been moved on from on. The hate has now been moved to the transgender community because there hasn't been a fire extinguisher of some sense for this. I hope that people will come to their senses and realize that they can't just discriminate against people who are different than themselves.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteNice post and certainly one with a measure and a half of kairotic value.
The fact is, however, that those who stand outside of the standard of authority on what is right or what looks proper in society have always received an enormous amount of hatred and discrimination. As the other commenters have noted, African Americans—a connection not lost on many but incomprehensible to others—have perhaps received some of the most deplorable treatment in this society at the hands of ruling class and financial elites from the founding of this country. Homosexuals too have been defined in perverse, ghoulish terms as well.
Of course, others have also been demonized, sexualized, or defined in some perverse way that allows for the acceptance of the inhuman treatment by the classes of sway. In other words, these definitions of the “other” also serves political and social purposes and allows for the continued enjoyment of dominance of the culture of sway in a society. But, the truth is we have been systematically addressing these inaccuracies and bizarre depictions of minority classes with evidence and persuasion for some time now.
This is working.
A piece of significant evidence for this assertion is the fact that no none a mere five or ten years ago would have ever imagined incredible measure of progress for the gay and trans communities. No one would have been able to believe the ground achieved in so little time: the legalization of gay marriage across the US, that our president affirmed the virtue of accepting these differences, and the constellation of surgical and medicinal therapies to help transsexual people live in a body more closely aligned with their brain gender are now included by law in some cases on many insurance policies, with the practice of routine discrimination in this area increasingly prohibited under the law.
These are some incredible feats over the last few years. And while there are still hold-outs who wish to proclaim the wrongness of LGBT people and their desire for inclusion, it is unequivocally obvious that these folks are on the wrong side of history and will be left in its dustbin to be sure.
"it is unequivocally obvious that these folks are on the wrong side of history"
ReplyDeleteThe ballots cast in the Presidential election beg to differ...