Attorney General Loretta Lynch understands what it means to be transgender -- unlike the state legislators and governors who enact bathroom laws

The U. S. government and the State of North Carolina are suing each other over bathroom use.   Or, more technically, they are in dispute about whether NC is unlawfully discriminating against trans people who, the U.S. claims, are protected under federal civil rights laws that forbid discrimination based on sex.   Or, in everyday language:  Should bathroom choice be determined by your anatomy or by your deep-seated and complex sense of who you are?

What I want to highlight here is the difference between the rhetoric of those whose willful ignorance and bigotry are exploiting fear in a totally distorted scenario -- and those like AG Lynch who understand and empathize with the real victims of this fight.

We've heard ad nauseum the horror tales of men in dresses preying on innocent children in bathrooms meant for females.   Some even acknowledge that they know it's not the trans people themselves who would do that, but they fear predators will get by with it because we will not object to obviously masculine men in dresses going in.   But, as one critic pointed out, the likelihood of a real predator putting on a dress and trying to carry out his abuse in a place with lots of women witnesses around is really pretty silly and remote.   So I think we can assume that the perpetrators of this hoax are simply using this to create a political hot button issue.

Now, contrast that with the reason and sensitivity coming from AG Loretta Lynch, as reported by Ryan J. Reilly for HuffPost.

"The Justice Department said in a lawsuit that the so-called 'bathroom bill' 'stigmatizes and singles out transgender employees, results in their isolation and exclusion, and perpetuates a sense that they are not worthy of equal treatment and respect.'

"A person’s external genitals, the feds said, are 'but one component of sex and not always determinative of a person’s sex' . . . Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the lawsuit 'is about a great deal more than just bathrooms' and affects the 'dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens.'  Speaking directly to the citizens of North Carolina, where she herself was born and raised, Lynch said the law inflicts 'further indignity on a population that has already suffered far more than its fair share. . . . The entire Obama administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.'”

[Lynch continues] “'This is not the first time that we have seen discriminatory responses to historic moments of progress for our nation, . . .  We saw it in the Jim Crow laws that followed the Emancipation Proclamation. We saw it in fierce and widespread resistance to Brown v. Board of Education. And we saw it in the proliferation of state bans on same-sex unions intended to stifle any hope that gay and lesbian Americans might one day be afforded the right to marry.'

“'That right, of course, is now recognized as a guarantee embedded in our Constitution, and in the wake of that historic triumph, we have seen bill after bill in state after state taking aim at the LGBT community,' she went on.  'Some of these responses reflect a recognizably human fear of the unknown, and a discomfort with the uncertainty of change. But this is not a time to act out of fear. This is a time to summon our national virtues of inclusivity, diversity, compassion and open-mindedness.'

"The attorney general added that 'what we must not do — what we must never do — is turn on our neighbors, our family members, our fellow Americans, for something they cannot control, and deny what makes them human. This is why none of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something they are not, or invents a problem that doesn’t exist as a pretext for discrimination and harassment.' . . .

"The Obama administration told an appeals court last year that 'treating a student adversely because the sex assigned to him at birth does not match his gender identity is literally discrimination "on the basis of sex."’ The appeals court ruled in favor of a trans student who was denied bathroom access." 

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Damn, it feels good to have people like President Obama and Attorney General Lynch in charge at a time like this.   Either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders -- or any Democrat who could be nominated -- would undoubtedly take the same position.
 

Ralph