Police State America wants everyone to carry their birth certificate to the bathroom (Updated)
image credit: Transgender Law Center
Last year, multiple states have pushed bills requiring people to “prove” their gender before using a bathroom. Some of these bills encourage people to report on each other and offer a cash reward for finding someone in the “wrong” bathroom!
North Carolina is the first state in America to create 'bathroom police'. The new law enacted in March, bars people from using public restrooms that don't align with the sex on their birth certificates.
"The bill was passed by the state legislature in less than 10 hours and then signed by the governor that very same night with very little debate," Oakley says. "And so it's incredibly poorly drafted, leading to all kinds of consequences."
"This is not really a bathroom bill. That's the part we have to get to the public. This is a hate bill... said Rev. William Barber."
Mother Jones (MJ) asked if cops would be patrolling bathrooms and asking people to show their ID's?
"That's a very interesting question. We don't have police officers sitting at public bathrooms all day long," a spokesman at the Raleigh Police Department said.
UNC claims "we will not be policing bathrooms,” said university system spokeswoman Joni Worthington.
According to the MJ article, police departments were checking with their attorneys to determine whether they could arrest an individual who used the wrong bathroom!
"There is absolutely no way to enforce this law, as it relates to the enforcement of the bathroom provisions. It is an utterly ridiculous law" Rep. Rodney Moore said.
MJ tracked down the lawyers behind the Anti-Trans bathroom bills
"Three of Ted Cruz's advisers threw their support behind the bathroom bill in North Carolina, as did the Family Research Council. Another group, the Family Action Council of Tennessee, rallied behind a bathroom bill in its state, along with the executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. But one conservative powerhouse appears to be particularly influential when it comes to putting bathroom bills on the agenda: a massive, deep-pocketed network of lawyers called Alliance Defending Freedom."
Updated 4/28:
Cops demand a lesbian woman's ID and force her to leave bathroom
“You’re a man?” a male officer asks.
“I’m a f*cking female,” the woman in the cap replies. “Do I have to tell you again?”
“You have ID?” the officer asks. When she says she does not, he orders her out, then pushes her toward the exit. A second officer is then heard calling her, “Sir,” causing the person filming to protest, “That is a f*cking girl.”
Welcome to Police State America, where soon everyone will need to carry their birth certificate to the bathroom.
Wilmington Police Department, spokeswoman Linda Rawley said the law struck her as strange. "So that means people have to go to the bathroom with birth certificates? Yeah, that was curious to me."
While, North Carolina became the first state to enact a law restricting bathroom use by transgender people, at least 10 other states have introduced similar bills this year!
Image credit: MotherJones
If South Dakota's bathroom bill becomes law, "it would require really intrusive examination of students' identity documents and possibly anatomy," says Kris Hayashi, executive director of the California-based Transgender Law Center.
Numerous states have been trying to criminalize going to the bathroom:
Last year, Texas Rep. Debbie Riddle filed House Bill 1748 that would make it a misdemeanor for a transgender person to use a public restroom that doesn't match their gender identity.
Punishment for breaking Riddle’s bathroom law would be up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $4,000 for trans people who use “a locker room, shower facility, or toilet facility designated for use by persons of a gender that is not the same gender as the individual’s ID.”
California's AB-1266 would have required people to “prove” their gender before entering a bathroom in a public building – and place a $4000 bounty on those who don’t comply. “Such claim includes equitable relief and damages up to a maximum of three times the amount of actual damage but in no case less than $4,000, and attorney’s fees that may be determined by a court...”
Florida's HB 583 would have criminalized transgender people for using the wrong bathroom and charged them with a misdemeanor if they use a restroom inconsistent with their “biological” sex. It would also have given non-transgender people a right to sue if they used a bathroom with a transgender person.
Kentucky's SB 76 would have forced people to use a bathroom based on their “biological” sex. It incentivized students to spy on transgender students bathroom habits by offering what amounts to a $2,500 bounty.
Is this the America you want, where police are allowed to harass, interrogate and arrest people for using the bathroom?
Image credit: MotherJones