Ha! That’s awesome, @NoVaDad99
Sadly @NoVADad99 you are dead on.
Duke does not discriminate in accordance with the law and the law has absolutely no bearing on Duke which is a private research university in the most liberal part of the state. Please do not post information before verifying that it is true.
I’m happy for Duke. Mine was a hypothetical. But UNC and all public schools in NC would be subject to such a finding, hopefully.
^ I just wanted to set the record straight. Your proposal could potentially be very effective but is it really fair to penalize the people who are least likely to support the law (i.e. UNC and NC State students)?
I prefer @katliamom’s suggestion. This should be viewed as a challenge and an opportunity.
Durham’s city council also opposes the law:
http://abc11.com/politics/durham-city-council-passes-resolution-opposing-hb2/1281421/
Yes, you can fight via the ballot box, but you don’t slack on the other fronts and ways to squeeze them where it hurts. Economic boycotts are already being implemented, and the NCAA is a big hammer. You use every tool in your toolbox.
I think NoVADad99’s idea is awesome. The NCAA refusing 1° tournaments to take place in the State and 2° to accept state universities that discriminate would be powerful, not just for North Carolina, Kansas, and Mississippi, but also for all athletes and universities where athletics haven’t always been all that tolerant. Hoping the law can be repealed faster this way. And of course, players aren’t penalized, ie., NCAA lets them keep their scholarship for 5 years.
I agree, NoVaDad99, and I love your toolbox.
And I would hope they act soon, and let the recruited athletes have an option to withdraw their commitment to NC and be free to be picked up by other schools with no penalty to those schools who give them scholarships or slots. This can kill recruiting for the NC schools for years to come.
The NBA just canceled the 2017 All-Star game that was to take place in Charlotte.
The point is it wouldn’t penalize anyone because just the threat by the NCAA to do so will get the law repealed. Hardly one politician would remain in office if they brought this on UNC-CH, NCState, ECU, UNC-A, UNC-W, etc.
Chancellor Sartarelli has spoken out against this himself. He sent us two emails this week saying how we’re committed to providing an inclusive environment for everyone.
The thing is, the only people in the state legislature that even voted on this bill were the transphobes who actually agreed with it. Those who were against it walked out because they thought it was a joke. Unfortunately, they weren’t joking.
If you intend to vote in NC, make sure that you are not disenfranchised by its rules on voter registration, voter ID, etc. that appear to be made to make it harder for some demographic groups (e.g. college students) to vote.
The law impacts everyone to a degree. I am a middle aged woman with a square face and short hair. Once a month or more someone will glance at me and call me “sir”. I can see me being questioned entering a woman’s bathroom because I am mistaken as a transgender woman even though I have female DNA.
ANY PERSON CAN BE ASKED TO SHOW A BIRTH CERTIFICATE BEFORE BEING ALLOWED TO PEE.
Take this a step further. Those opposed to illegal aliens could use the “prove your gender with a birth certificate” to identify non citizens. A slippery slope if there ever was one.
And as a trans friend pointed out this law makes it more possible for rapes and molestations. A male wanting to sexually offend or “peep” could enter a woman’s bathroom saying that he is trans and biologically female. Have to let him in if he claims that.
I have not made up my view about this law but I think it is not the Draconian measure that so many make it out to be. Too often people hear about HB2, hear the word “discrimination”, and immediately make the flawed comparison to the Civil Rights Era. This has been common throughout this thread. There are some important differences:
- Discriminating against African Americans is discriminating against someone on the basis of a trait that doesn't inherently affect their behavior. People don't act differently merely because they're black. By definition, transgendered people act differently than the rest of the population (they act as if they are of a different gender than their anatomy would suggest). Therefore, a law that discriminates against transgendered people is different from a law that discriminates against African Americans because the former penalizes controllable behavior whereas the latter penalizes innate human characteristics over which people have no control.
- Identifying as a gender other than that implied by one's anatomy places burdens on others in a way that simply being African American does not. The most obvious example is the preference that many transgendered people have that others refer to them by their adopted pronoun, not the one that would be used if they identified as being of the gender suggested by their sex. African Americans require no such accommodation.
- Public safety concerns have been presented as a motivation for this legislation, and as suspect as they may be, they haven't been properly addressed. At the very least, there was never a similar justification given for the laws that codified discrimination against African Americans; usually those were justified for openly bigoted reasons.
- Transgender people are not victims of the same sort of historic abuses that African Americans endured. African Americans throughout history had to deal with the fact that their ancestors were enslaved and subsequent generations were never quite able to recover from that. Essentially, many black people were born into impoverished and under-educated families, denying them the opportunity to pursue economic success (the "cycle of poverty"). There is no such history that makes transgender people uniquely vulnerable.
Furthermore, it is hard to call this legislation discriminatory in the first place. Discrimination requires that a certain group be targeted or privileged in a way that other groups are not. If I made a law that raised taxes for black people, that would be discriminatory. If I made a law that cut taxes for white people, that would also be discriminatory. But in the case of requiring everyone to use bathrooms that correspond to their biological sex, everyone is affected equally. Both transgender and “cisgender” people are required to conform to that expectation. The only reason that transgender people assert that the law is discriminatory is because they are of the belief that they have a more legitimate need to use bathrooms corresponding to their assigned gender than “cisgender” people. One could just as easily make the argument that allowing transgender people to use whichever bathroom they prefer while withholding that same privilege from people who identify as the gender suggested by their biological sex would itself be discriminatory in that one group is being afforded a privilege not granted to the rest of the population.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”. I think the atmosphere not only on this forum but throughout the country has become one in which certain views are being disregarded as bigoted and consequently aren’t being addressed with the same thoroughness and rigor that we would usually expect. As I said, I may not personally agree with HB2, but I think it ought to be addressed on its merits, debated, and not disregarded by people who don’t recognize that they aren’t actually learning from history.
No one ever claimed that they were. This does not mean that they are not victims of (different) abuses and hostile discrimination.
Why would it be? In both cases (trans or not), the person would be able to use the bathroom of the gender that s/he identifies as.
@ucbalumnus I think that the historical context of African Americans during the Civil Rights era is of such integral importance to understanding that era that any comparison between then and now implicitly suggests that transgender people have similar levels of vulnerability. The codified discrimination that African Americans endured was so damaging in large part because they were so vulnerable. Comparing transgender people in 2016 and black people in ~1960 is foolish because the two groups are so radically different.
In regards to the second point, it depends upon whether or not transgender people would be allowed to use the bathroom that conforms to their biological sex in addition to their ability to use a bathroom corresponding to their gender identity. If they are only allowed to use bathrooms conforming with their gender identity, then the law would not be discriminatory. But in the current dialogue, LGBT activists tend to present their ideal world as one in which transgender people are able to “choose” to use a bathroom corresponding to their gender identity, not a world in which they are required to do so.
How is this an “accomodation”? Do you feel that it’s an “accomodation” when women prefer to be addressed as “Ms.” rather than “Miss” or “Mrs.”? How about people who change their names (as many women do when they get married)?
You may want to examine rape, murder and suicide rates among transgendered people. Not “the same” as what African-Americans have endured, of course, but grim nonetheless, and shameful. More shameful if the SQWs (Status Quo Warriors) keep fighting to prevent them from living honest, safe lives.
@marvin100 no, you’re right, those things aren’t accommodations. The difference is that those things don’t represent any substantial belief upon utterance, i.e., I’m not really expressing anything when I say “Mr. X” or “Ms. Y” or when I address a woman by her married name rather than by her maiden name. The only views that could possibly be contained in those utterances are the fact that the person being addressed is married or something similarly trivial and rarely controversial. In the case of describing a transgender person by their preferred pronouns, however, one is implicitly acquiescing to the view that the individual being addressed is of that gender. If I refer to a transwoman as “she”, I am acknowledging their being female. In the case of transgender individuals, this is more controversial than acknowledging someone as married. There are many people who still refuse to belief that gender is something that one can make a decision about, and for these people referring to a transgender person by their preferred pronoun represents a significant burden. I am not saying that their views are right or wrong, but given where we are as a society I don’t think they are outside of the mainstream.
In regards to the rape/murder/suicide rates, you are also right that they are above the norm. This doesn’t imply that they are vulnerable to the same or to a similar extent as African Americans were during the Civil Rights era. I also wouldn’t infer anything from the suicide rates, as it is possible that these would remain high even in a society where being transgender was not viewed negatively.