If gay people can safely be teachers, then trans people can safely use bathrooms
The transgender bathroom debate has nothing to do with threats against women and children, and everything about some people’s desperate need to protect old-fashioned and sexist views of sex and gender identity.
They mistakenly believe that if people are allowed to explore their own gender, their whole culture will collapse.
There is nothing new in this. Conservative traditionalist used the exact same tactic vis-a-vis gay and lesbian people, and not that long ago. They lost that battle. Homosexuality is no longer considered a sin or a mental illness, at least not by the majority.
And do you know what? Men still fall in love with women, marry and have kids. Sex offenders are much more likely to be cis and straight than gay or trans.
The homophobes used lies, bad science and false statistics to “prove” that gay men was a threat to children, and that they could turn young boys and girls into homosexuals just by being with them.
These days the same kind of people use lies, bad science and false statistics to “prove” that transgender people are a threat to women and children.
And this is where it becomes most obvious the way the anti-transgender activists of 2017 are relying on the exact same scare tactic that anti-gay activists used in 1978. Conservatives in California tried that year to pass Proposition 6, which would have banned gays, lesbians, and any of their allies from teaching in California’s public schools. It was called the Briggs Initiative, named for state Sen. John Briggs, who championed it.
Briggs’ primary argument against gay teachers was his belief that gay people were more likely to be child molesters. Often, Briggs insisted that gay people could only perpetuate their existence by “recruiting” young people, the implication being that molestation was how that recruitment functioned. “Safety” was the primary argument then as it is in anti-trans campaigns now.
Here is gay pioneer activist Harvey Milk challenging Senator Briggs back in 1978. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Harvey Milk protesting the Briggs law.
Homophobic ads insinuated that gay men and lesbian women were sexual perverts who could make children gay.
The defenders of gay rights won the battle against the bigots. The law was defeated. Here’s one of the pro-LGBT campaign flyers.
See also: We’ve been here before: child molesters & the political right
