North Carolina deserves a note of thanks! Not for passing a discriminatory bill against transgender people but for opening that whole discussion to the national political stage and international reflection. We can ask ourselves just what is their problem with regulating bathrooms in the South? You would think they would have better things to do? I think this is a happy time! It really is. Look at the history of discrimination in the South. First there was Slavery. This caused the American Civil War and when civil rights won out, Amendments were made to the constitution. The result was Jim Crow laws. Complete with separate bathrooms, separate but equal no doubt. The answer was civil right legislation. Being unable to discriminate against blacks any more, they switch to gays and lesbians. Again the Supreme Court crushed there laws on discrimination. So now they are reduced to regulating who stand up to pee and who sits down? Perhaps we should simple rename this as #pee-gate.

Being transgender is not simply guys dressing in drag. It is a lot more involved and a lot more complicated. Starting at a very young age, perhaps before the age of 2, GTM, Girls to Men, MTG, Men to Girls, before they can even think of themselves as having a sexual identity, start to act out in such a way as to portray themselves as the opposite of social norms society has assigned for their biological gender. Thus when they can articulate for themselves, they will assert they are in fact in opposition to that biological destiny assigned by society. They will think of themselves as the other sex and act accordingly. Thus leading to a lifetime of conflict with social normative views and sadly being outcasts from what we expect a little boy or little girl to be and to act. Thus growing up, they struggle with the overwhelming message sent by society to behave according to script on the one hand and yet their inner need to be true to themselves. Nietzsche, perhaps out of context did offer the answer. “Become who you are.” Today, we live in a more open and understanding society, North Carolina notwithstanding, that people who are transgender are given a more accepting and welcoming transition. Laws are still need to be enacted and amended in order to ensure the safety and protection from discrimination for transgender people. But as with the Stonewall Riots that forced society to confront the lesbian and gay community. North Carolina will force society to now confront transgender people. This is why North Carolina has done a good thing, they play the villain as we are forced to confront such outrageous hatred in the 21 st century. In the end, we can and will pass laws to protect these vulnerable members of society.

The reason why people can think that Transgender are some sort of pervert waiting to rape little girls in bathrooms, (seemingly rape, molestation and assault are still against the law in North Carolina? What need is there to add another law on top of those, if not to merely discriminate against an undefined but clearly in need of protection minority group?) is because they do not know who or what a transgender person is. In order to help you, and myself, I went to YouTube to find transgender peoples who could explain who they are in their own words. I don’t think you need agree with everything they say, or even find all their content to be universally enjoyable, to find that after only a few minutes watching that these ladies are smart, articulate and above all else, human beings worthy of our respect and admiration for showing the straight world who they are but also granting us a view with these small slice of their world.

Be they smart, funny or beautiful, they do not ask your permission to be who they are, they, in the immortal words of Marin Luther King, “They shall overcome!”

Maya

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf0CRezZYOUcvqrdMmozowQ

Brittney Kade

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcKor6He5ZbTUYlvNntcEmw

PRINCESSJOULES

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT9lRRTBWIqMIfVgSyfsg7Q