Dan Forest And Poorly Disguised Bigotry

There’s an old adage that, if you’re going to say something, you should at least have the guts to say it to my face. Take, for example, the KKK and Neo-nazi groups staging violent demonstrations across the nation. They hate minorities and want nothing but harm for minority communities, but they at least admit that up front. I rarely hear a skinhead beat around the bush when talking about the rights of black people or the ludicrous notion of “white genocide.” With these deplorable monsters, you know exactly what you’re getting at face value.

Other hateful people aren’t so subtle. Some will even try to spin their bigotry as something positive. And no one is better at doing that than politicians. Pissing on your face and trying to convince you it’s raining is practically an art form for some elected officials. Here in North Carolina, we were recently blessed to have a blatant example of this terrible practice. Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest released a statement a few days ago in response to Governor Cooper’s executive order guaranteeing protections for state employed transgender people (it was about other stuff too, but that’s the main point for the purposes of this post). His full statement is below:

For Immediate Release: Lt. Gov. Dan Forest’s Response to Gov. Cooper’s Executive Order

Governor Cooper’s Executive Order once again opens the bathroom stall for those who would seek to do women and children harm while falsely claiming they are transgender. While I take at face value the Governor’s intent to help transgender people use the bathroom of their identity, his order creates a legal loophole that will be exploited by non-transgender pedophiles, stalkers and perverts. All bathrooms at state rest areas, parks and museums will now be fertile ground for sexual deviants who will falsely claim to be transgender to gain protected access to our women and children.  

Is your skin crawling too?

I’ve dealt with a lot of different kinds of transphobia. Many times it’s blatant and obvious. When I get called sick, mentally ill, psychotic, confused, sinful, etc., it is by people who wear their trans hate on their sleeve. This statement represents the more sly, subtle form of transphobia. First off, you’ll notice he says “I take at face value the Governor’s intent to help transgender people use the bathroom of their identity.” He doesn’t try to invalidate the identities of transgender people and seems to indicate that Forest believes transgender people are indeed who we say we are (imagine that!).

However, the rest of the statement divulges into one of the most textbook examples of fear-mongering and outright lying I’ve seen from a politician in recent time. Consider the notion that, with these protections in place, “sexual deviants…will falsely claim to be transgender to gain protected access to our women and children.” This just flat out does not happen; at least not with any kind of regularity that it could be considered a present danger. You’re more likely to die being crushed under a vending machine than you are attacked by someone “pretending” to be transgender. It’s practically a made-up crime.

Speaking of crime; this argument, as well as any other argument I’ve ever heard against letting trans people just pee in peace, completely overlooks one big issue: molestation and sexual assault are already crimes! It doesn’t matter if you’re in the men’s room, the women’s room, in a car, at the office, at home, a movie theater…anywhere! Assault is against the law. If someone “pretends” to be trans to go into the bathroom and assaults someone, they’re still committing a crime whether trans people are allowed in there or not.

This is just trying to spin your bigotry as a positive, pure and simple. And just look at the language he uses! “All bathrooms at state rest areas, parks and museums will now be fertile ground for sexual deviants.” Talk about fear mongering! He’s ignoring the fact that trans protections are already in place in other parts of the country and they’re not experiencing anything even close to this. Forest is crying wolf; making up a boogieman that doesn’t exist. He needs something to scare people with so they won’t think rationally about the issue. Trans people are harmless. I won’t say it’s never happened that a trans person did something bad in a restroom. But if we’re going to throw up single instances as proof that there’s a bigger problem in need of solving, then I’m free to bring about gun control by sighting the mass shootings that happen every single goddamn day in this nation. You can’t use one logic for something you hate and then use another for something you don’t.

I’m sick of hearing that my safety and dignity have to be compromised so people who don’t want to understand me don’t have to think about me. Being “weirded out” by trans people isn’t an excuse to kick us out of anything. And for god sake, stop dressing this all up as a means of protecting cis women and girls. It’s all a farce with you. How many women had to come out against the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby before the public started to believe them? We both know that if a man went into a restroom and molested a cis woman, they would ask what she did to coerce him.

Dan Forest, you are a bigot, and it’s clear in every hate-filled word you write. In case you happen to be reading this, I dare you to speak to me face-to-face. I want you to tell me to my face why my safety isn’t important. Explain to me why I have to be put in danger because cis women must be protected from a phantom threat you made up to stir the public. Or, better yet, just have the spine to admit that it’s all just because you hate me and others like me. You’re no different than the monsters marching in Charlottesville or burning crosses in the middle of the night; you just express your bigotry in more subtle ways.

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Mr. Governor, How Long Must Trans People Wait for Liberty?

Yesterday it was announced that Roy Cooper, governor of the great okay flawed disgraceful state of North Carolina was signing an executive order that makes it illegal to discriminate against LGBT people in government employment. It also bars the state from contracting with any business or organization that discriminates against LGBT people. It’s a bold move, especially given the current political climate of NC. The heavily Republican controlled general assembly has his office so locked up that he basically can’t do anything. I’ve lost count how many of his vetoes have been overridden just this year.

So, once again, my home state is going to be talking a lot about transgender people. The order applies to all LGBT people, but the focus for most queer opposition these days has been on the transgender community, so that’s going to get the bulk of the attention in all this. I have a lot of feelings about this as well as a lot of information that I think needs to be worked through a filter or two. In this post I’ll be both defending Cooper as well as raking him over the coals. I will not, however, be praising him at any point. This new development hasn’t removed him from my shit list.

First off, I need to address the people decrying that this order doesn’t do nearly enough. Why only protect government employees? Why not extend that protection to all LGBT people, regardless of where they work? Well, because he can’t. Executive orders aren’t all that powerful. Cooper can protect government office workers because they all technically fall under the executive branch of government, which therefor makes him their boss. This is very much a case of doing what you can with what you have. I originally turned my nose up at this part because, as far as I know, this is already the case. After the national shit-show started over the passage of HB2, then governor McCrory tried to save face by passing essentially the same thing. His order also stated that government employees who were LGBT would be protected from discrimination. It was a pretty empty gesture though, since the law still made it illegal for transgender people to use public facilities in state-owned buildings. Basically, you couldn’t be fired for being trans, just as long as you never had to pee while at work.

It’s the second part of this order that’s really new. Baring the state from contracting with anti-LGBT groups is a big step. Ironically, it basically makes one of the most hated parts of the Charlotte transgender protection ordinance a statewide policy. That’s good, and serves as a nice middle finger to the Republicans who hated the Charlotte ordinance so bad they wrote the cancerous HB2 to begin with. Cooper had mentioned right after the passage of HB142 DietHB2 that he would be passing some sort of LGBT protection order. There’s been nothing but silence on the matter for months, leading me to think he honestly just tossed the idea once the public ire died down. That’s the one good mark I’ll give him here; at least he came through on his word…this time.

What I want to stress though is that, in my mind at least, this does not exonerate Cooper from signing HB142 in the first place. For those who don’t know, 142 was the replacement to HB2 that basically repealed the bill but barred local governments from passing any kind of non-discrimination laws until the year 2020. It was passed because the NCAA was threatening to take NC off the list of potential championship hosts for the next ten or so years if they didn’t repeal HB2 by their arbitrary deadline. 142 is how they did that. It was signed into law by Cooper after receiving support from enough Democrat senators to get it through the GA. One of those senators was Terry Van Duyn of Asheville, and I had the pleasure of getting to say to her face that it was a load of crap and that I’d lost respect for her.

After 142 became law, the Democrats (Cooper included) who backed it trotted out a synchronized song and dance about how it was only a first step, and that they would keep fighting for transgender equality. It was a message that went over with trans people as well as a cow gets over a ten foot wall, and I was definitely part of that group. It was a load of crap, so much so in fact that it’s the reason I’m still not forgiving him, even after this new executive order. Why, you ask?

Because it should never have happened in the first place.

Remember, LGBT people aren’t a federally protected class. When you tell local governments they can’t pass non-discrimination laws, LGBT (and especially T) is really the only group you’re screwing over. And don’t forget, 142 was passed to save basketball games! Yes, there’s a lot of revenue on the line there, but since when is their a monetary value on the safety and security of a group of human beings? I’m transgender and luckily work for a company that respects my gender identity. What if tomorrow we get a new CEO and they don’t like trans people? They could call me into the office and fire me on the spot, and there’d be nothing I could do about it. That’s a fear I have to live with. That’s a fear the family I provide for has to live with. And Roy Cooper signed a law which told me it’s better for me to keep suffering through that for another 3 years than for the state to lose some basketball games. You know what message that sends? That tells me I’m not completely a person. That tells me my rights, my dignity, my safety, and my basic humanity aren’t as important as they are for other people. Can you imagine if the same kind of law was passed about a religion, or a race? There would be sustained public rage. No amount of money is worth leaving them out in the cold, but that apparently doesn’t apply to transgender people.

So that’s my take. Is this a good order? Yes. Does it forgive Roy Cooper for betraying the transgender community? No. It doesn’t matter that he’s fighting for our rights now, because he already demonstrated that our rights were only worthy of the ‘when I can get around to it’ pile. We’ve already been shown that we’re just talking points to him instead of actual people, and I for one am sick of being treated that way. I won’t be happy getting something just because I rarely get anything. I’m just as much a person as cisgender people are, and I refuse to be seen any differently. So go ahead and call your order a step in the right direction. It doesn’t matter how many steps you’ve taken if you waited in the blocks when the race first started. I am not something for you to just get around to when it’s convenient for you.

I don’t appreciate having to wait to be a person.