Tennessee State Representative Richard Floyd has introduced a bill that would make it a crime for people to be in a sex-specific bathroom or dressing room (i.e., one designated for men or women) that doesn’t match the sex given on their birth certificate.

Tennessee does not allow transgender people to have their birth certificates changed, so if the bill were passed, there would actually be no legal bathrooms for transgender men and women to use in any state government building. (It’s unclear to me whether this might also apply to other public restrooms in non-governmental buildings)

Practical people have noted other problems with this bill. It would be impossible to enforce, because there is no chance we’re going to set up checks outside of restrooms. It could hypothetically criminalize parents who need to take a child into a restroom, other caregivers in similar situations, maintenance workers, and others.

But let’s be clear – mom taking her male-appearing son into a women’s restroom is not the target of this bill. Transgender men and women are, because of the small-minded bigotry of Floyd and others like him.

To make that point perfectly clear, Floyd said this, clearly illustrating his bullshit fears and hatred of transgender women:

I believe if I was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there — I don’t care if he thinks he’s a woman and tries on clothes with them in there — I’d just try to stomp a mudhole in him and then stomp him dry.

You know, because transgender women are really all predators out to harm cis women, a belief Floyd emphasized by continuing, “Now if somebody thinks he’s a woman and he’s a man and wants to try on women’s clothes, let them him take them into the men’s bathroom or dressing room. Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk.”

This is not a secret email remark made by Floyd. It’s not a comment he thought was off-the-record, between friends. This is what he said on-the-record, for public consumption.

So, Chattanooga, who are you going to run against this asshole this year? And if this nonsense is not quickly withdrawn or defeated, who wants to go pee in the “wrong” bathrooms in the state capitol building with me?

[Note: it looks like the Senate version of the bill has already been withdrawn after public reaction began; it could potentially be reintroduced by someone else, and Floyd's House bill remains. Here's Floyd's contact information if you'd like to let him know what you think of him and his bill.]

PETITION: United States Department Of Justice: Prosecute Tennessee ...

SOURCE:http://womenshealthnews.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/tennessee-state-re...