Transgender Bathroom Debate

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Overview

The Transgender Bathroom Debate refers to the controversial LGBT topic of discussion on whether transgender people should be legally entitled to access public bathrooms that correspond to their respective gender identities, rather than their biological sex.

Background

Iowa Civil Rights Act

In April 2007, the Iowa General Assembly passed an amendment^[7] to the Iowa Civil Rights Act of 1965 which outlawed any discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, public accommodations, credit, housing and education. In October 2013, two Iowan transwomen won Iowa Civil Rights Commission cases that granted them access to women's restrooms in public places. Also that month, Adminstrative Law Judge Jeffrey Farrel ruled against allowing Iowa resident Jessica Smalley to use women's bathrooms at a Burlington YMCA fitness center, stating that the Iowa Civil Rights Act "cannot be interpreted so broadly to give a biological male, albeit one who identifies herself as a female, the right to change clothes with and shower in a female locker room."^[1]

Notable Developments

Doe v. Region School Unit 26

In 2009, Wayne and Kelly Maines sued the Orono school district in Maine for preventing their transgender daughter from using the girls bathroom. In 2012, a Maine Superior Court Justice William Anderson ruled that the school district did not violate any laws. In January 2014, the Maine Supreme Court ruled in a 5-1 decision that the Orono school district's denial of "appropriate bathroom" access was an act of "sexual orientation discrimination."^[6] On January 30th, Nicole Maines posted a tweet^[2] celebrating the case victory (shown below).

Planet Fitness Changing Room

In March 2015, a Planet Fitness fitness center cancelled the membership of Michigan resident Yvette Cormier after she complained about seeing the transgender woman Carlotta Sklodowska in the changing room, claiming that she did not appear to be a woman and was wearing men's clothing. Planet Fitness cited the company's "no judgement" non-discrimination policy, which allows people to use facilities based on their self-reported gender identity. On March 9th, the gender identity politics blog Gender Identity Watch^[4] published an article accusing Sklodowska of being a "male crossdresser" and highlighted several screenshots of sexually explicit posts taken from Sklodowska's Facebook page (shown below).

On March 18th, conservative YouTuber StevenCrowder posted a prank video in which he visits a Planet Fitness in women's apparel (shown below, left). On March 24th, the David Pakman Show YouTube channel posted an episode about the incident, which criticized Cormier's lawsuit as being frivolous (shown below, right).

Cormier subsequently sued Planet Fitness for damages, including "loss of use of gym facilities," "fear about using the gym facilities," "embarrassment and humiliation," "severe emotional distress" and "damage to reputation." In January 2016, the lawsuit was dismissed.^[3]

North Carolina’s Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act

On February 22nd, 2016, the city of Charlotte in North Carolina passed an ordinance prohibiting sexual orientation or preference-based discrimination in public accommodations (like bathrooms), passenger vehicles for hire and city contractors. A month later, on March 23rd, the North Carolina State Legislature passed the bill HB2, which banned people from using bathrooms of the gender not specified on their birth certificate. This legislation followed the November 2015 overturning of a non-discrimination ordinance in Houston which would have allowed people to use bathrooms that matched their gender identity. In the next few weeks, many companies, like IBM, Wells Fargo, Lowes, and American Airlines, issued statements publicly decrying the bill. Paypal cancelled plans to build an expansion in Charlotte and 5 states plus the District of Columbia issued non-essential travel bans to the state. Bernie Sanders was the first 2016 presidential candidate to speak out against the law, saying that it “did not belong in America,” but he was followed by Hillary Clinton and other public figures, including Caitlyn Jenner and musician Ringo Starr.

On Twitter, James Sheffield, a transgender man, tweeted a selfie to the governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, showing his very male-looking appearance with the text, "It's now the law for me to share a restroom with your wife," which received 8,506 retweets and 9,025 likes. Meanwhile, comedian Cameron Esposito tweeted the sentence "You've already shared a bathroom with a trans person. You were fine," which also went viral as an image macro.

On March 25th, trans rights activist Charlie Comero posted photographs of business cards addressed to women he may encounter in ladies rooms, urging them to oppose the bill HB2. On April 3rd, BuzzFeed^[8] highlighted made by trans activist Charlie Comero (shown below).

Curt Shilling Controversy

On April 19th, 2016, ESPN baseball analyst Curt Schilling shared an image macro on Facebook^[5] featuring an overweight man wearing a wig and women's clothing along with the sarcastic caption "Let him in! To the restroom with your daughter or else you're a narrow minded, judgmental, unloving, racist bigot who needs to die!" (shown below). The image was subsequently removed. That evening, Schilling published a post titled "The hunt to be offended…" on his personal blog,^[9] which claimed he "didn't post that ugly looking picture" but only commented on "the basic functionality of mens and womens restrooms." On April 20th, ESPN^[10] released a statement that Schilling had been terminated from the company and that "his conduct was unacceptable."