Before writing a post on the ongoing fight that North Carolina is having against discrimination, namely gender discrimination, I decided to give it a week’s worth of delay. My viewpoint is encapsulated in this essay written by Robert A. Sedler. To begin, I would want to bring to the attention of my audience the fact that the North Carolina General Assembly cannot demonstrate to any large incidence of restroom assaults in order to justify the passing of this emergency law. Instead, this bill tries to disenfranchise yet another aspect of our society, much in the same way that efforts have been made to restrict the voting rights of low-income minorities. This time, it’s the community of transgender people. We are governed by a written constitution as well as the legal system. We have depended on the Constitution over the course of our nation’s history to ensure the protection of individual rights and to prohibit discrimination against individuals and groups based on who they are. According to previous decisions made by the Supreme Court, the Constitution prohibits the federal government from engaging in discrimination on the basis of race, discrimination based on gender, discrimination against children born outside of wedlock, and, most recently, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Only a year ago, the Supreme Court ruled in a number of cases, including the one from the state of Michigan known as Deboer v. Snyder, that the Constitution protects the basic right of people of the same sexual orientation to engage into the institution of marriage. The court came to the conclusion that the ban on marriage for same-sex couples caused serious harm to these couples and their children, and that the state had no legitimate reason for denying same-sex couples the right to marry. In addition, the court found that the state had no valid reason for denying same-sex couples the right to marry. However, it seems as if no sooner does the Supreme Court rule against one kind of prejudice than another form of discrimination springs up in its place. People who believe that they have the right to a gender identification that is different from the gender they were assigned at birth have become a target of discrimination in today’s society. My position is that the United States Constitution should preserve the freedom of all individuals to decide their own gender identity, and that the government cannot legitimately discriminate against people based on the gender identity they now identify with. Discrimination on the basis of a person’s gender identity may take many forms, just as racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and sexual orientation discrimination can. The recent legislation passed in North Carolina is one of the most harmful examples of this kind of discrimination since it mandates that individuals must use the public toilet according to the gender that is shown on their birth certificate, even if they now identify with the opposite gender. It is very clear that the legislation cannot be enforced. People using public bathrooms won’t be subjected to genital inspections by the state since there won’t be any security personnel stationed there. However, the enactment of the law is intended to demean transgender people in the same way that laws in the southern states once demeaned African Americans by prohibiting “colored men” from going into restrooms for “white gentlemen” and prohibiting “colored women” from going into restrooms for “white ladies.” This was done in the same way that laws in the northern states once demeaned transgender people. The state’s justification, which is completely absurd, is that the legislation is required to prevent “sexual predators” from entering women’s toilets. This claim contributes to the demeaning of transgender people and makes the situation even worse. The Supreme Court of the United States has declared that “it is a promise of the constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter,” and that “as the constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.” This sphere of personal liberty must unquestionably include the freedom of all people to decide for themselves what their gender identity is, as well as the right to be exempt from any and all kinds of discrimination by the government on the basis of their gender identity. civil rights attorney sean erenstoft, who is located in los angeles and developed the site www.superiorcourtblog.com, is the author of the blog. Erenstoft may be reached on his website at any time for further information: www.erenstoft.com.
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