Time for a change

There's a hot topic in the media that even a cynical person like me never thought would be an issue, bathrooms.  What was twenty years ago a throwaway gag on Ally McBeal is now the latest life and death issue for the wealthy, overeducated, urban white liberals setting policy for the Democrats.  The current focus is on North Carolina, where the city of Charlotte passed a law allowing anyone to use any bathroom, based on their identity, and the state legislature passed a law that overruled the local law.

The response is the typical one.  Celebrities who haven't been relevant for 20, 30, or 40 or more years are cancelling events.  Elites are calling for boycotts.  And with the general degradation of political discussion thanks to social media, 90% of the debate is pictures with slogans on them.  Of course, they're full of oversimplifications.

There's one that goes like "If you're worried about assault, then don't assault."  That's not particularly relevant.  No matter whether you have the Charlotte law or the North Carolina law, assault, from groping up through rape, is still a crime.

There's one that shows (claims to show) pictures of people who were born one sex, transitioned, and now look like the other sex.  This is posted as a criticism of the North Carolina law, saying these people would be forced into the bathroom that looks wrong for them.  But no one would notice someone like that, unless they pull down their pants and show off their surgical scars.  (See the above about laws staying the same.)  Even if the transition doesn't look that good, if you've completed the process, and have a reissued birth certificate showing your legal sex is not the one that matches your chromosomes, no one is going to complain.

The problem comes with the terrible people who would abuse a law like the Charlotte law.  Take something that isn't a clear-cut crime.  A man uses a women's bathroom or locker room, and the women there find that creepy.  Maybe he (who claims to be she) seems to be looking far too long, and gazing at places when instead he should be averting his eyes.  Before this law, the management has an easy solution.  "This is the women's locker room.  Get out!"  Now, the only way to deal with this isn't so easy.  "We request that you leave because you're making the other guests uncomfortable."

In this case, the management is forced to make a call.  "Is this person an actual creep?  Or does he legitimately identify as a woman?  What should I say?  And what if he's looking to attain fame by becoming a victim, and then filing a lawsuit against me, which would lead the charge of public opinion against me?"  And if this is the owner, not just the manager, only one of these responses creates an existential risk for his business.

Sorry, women, you just have to accept the creeps.

You don't think people want to get rid of creeps?  A few years ago, I posted a link to a story about an older man who was kicked out of a Barnes & Noble because a female customer complained he was in the children's book section.  That was a situation where a person was doing nothing, but someone else became uncomfortable thanks to making multiple leaps of logic, assuming the worst of that first person.