Aunt Kelly
07-16-2017, 04:44 PM
I had the good fortune to attend a dinner event last night, where the featured speaker was Phyllis Frye (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/us/transgender-judge-phyllis-fryes-early-transformative-journey.html). You'll want to read the article behind that link, but the 30 second blurb is that Phyllis has been out since way before it was cool, let alone safe or legal. She was the first openly transgender judge in the U.S., and one of the first accomplishments of her legal career (she has a successful practice here in Houston) was to have removed a city ordinance that had been used to prosecute cross dressers and transwomen. It was an honor to have Judge Fry join our group for dinner and to hear her speak.
Her message last night was one of education and not surpisingly, activism. She is urging everyone in Texas who is at all sympathetic to TG issues to contact their state representative and state senator and let them know that SB6, the "bathroom bill" that will be taken up in the special legislative session that begins this week, is as unnecessary as it is unfair. Despite the fact that there has never, in the entire United States, ever been an issue of a cross-dresser or MtF transsexual assaulting or otherwise creating a problem for females in women's restrooms, and despite the fact that there are already multiple statutes on the books that allow prosecution of these imaginary offenses, political grandstanding on the part of certain state officials is threatening to demonize and criminalize the simple act of using the restroom. Judge Frye points out that Houston Ordinance Sec. 28-20 would be an acceptable state law: "It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly and intentionally enter any public restroom designated for the exclusive use of the sex opposite to such person's sex without the permission of the owner, tenant, manager, lessee or other person in charge of the premises in a manner calculated to cause a disturbance." Assault is a disturbance. Stalking is a disturbance. Trans men using the ladies room is most certainly going to cause a disturbance. Please, fellow Texans, call your state rep. and senator this week and let them know there is a better alternative than the foolish language in SB6.
Her message last night was one of education and not surpisingly, activism. She is urging everyone in Texas who is at all sympathetic to TG issues to contact their state representative and state senator and let them know that SB6, the "bathroom bill" that will be taken up in the special legislative session that begins this week, is as unnecessary as it is unfair. Despite the fact that there has never, in the entire United States, ever been an issue of a cross-dresser or MtF transsexual assaulting or otherwise creating a problem for females in women's restrooms, and despite the fact that there are already multiple statutes on the books that allow prosecution of these imaginary offenses, political grandstanding on the part of certain state officials is threatening to demonize and criminalize the simple act of using the restroom. Judge Frye points out that Houston Ordinance Sec. 28-20 would be an acceptable state law: "It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly and intentionally enter any public restroom designated for the exclusive use of the sex opposite to such person's sex without the permission of the owner, tenant, manager, lessee or other person in charge of the premises in a manner calculated to cause a disturbance." Assault is a disturbance. Stalking is a disturbance. Trans men using the ladies room is most certainly going to cause a disturbance. Please, fellow Texans, call your state rep. and senator this week and let them know there is a better alternative than the foolish language in SB6.