LGBT

Ted Cruz Supports Anti-Trans Bathroom Bills, Of Course

I can't imagine there was a great deal of doubt about where Ted Cruz would fall on this issue, but now we know for sure.

The GOP presidential candidate spoke at a town hall meeting in Buffalo, New York where he expressed support for North Carolina's anti-transgender "bathroom bill" HB2.

The law that eliminates civil rights and curbs a non-existent problem is "perfectly reasonable," Cruz says.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz says he supports the ability of North Carolina lawmakers to pass a law restricting bathroom access for gay and transgender people.

Cruz said Thursday during taping of a MSNBC town hall in Buffalo, New York, that states can pass such laws because "men should not be going to the bathroom with little girls." Cruz says, "That is a perfectly reasonable determination for the people to make."

I don't expect conservatives will give up the talking point that "men" are "going to the bathroom with little girls" easily. It's a dangerous and cynical talking point that implies that being transgender means being a deviant predator. It implies that being transgender is not even a legitimate status of being.

In some ways it's an extension of the anti-gay arguments that have been deployed in court rooms and defeated and I expect that's where this will eventually end up; in front of the Supreme Court. The idea that being an LGBTQ individual is synonymous with being a predator doesn't hold up very well in a federal court room where such claims have to be substantiated.

Transgender women are not men. Transgender men are not women. There isn't a single documented case of a transgender person assaulting anyone, young or old, in a bathroom. The possibility of being assaulted is an everyday threat for transgender people. They're the ones who need protection from everyone else.

What lawmakers in North Carolina have done is make them an even bigger target.

A transgender man in North Carolina who must now use the women's restroom shared his experience under the new law with Mother Jones which I recommend reading.