Bakeries, Bathrooms, and Big Brother

Well, I guess it’s time to weigh in on a political hot button issue again. I was going to ride this one out as I thought there would be a little more reason involved. So far, I just see mean spirited, hateful, misleading information, blatant lies, and hypocrisy coming from every direction.

A few nights ago my frustration came to a head when Jim DeMint, a politician I thought I could respect showed himself to be either a low information voter himself or just another misleading politician who will lie to get his way. I am hoping for the former because as Aristophanes wrote, “… ignorance [can be] educated… but stupid lasts forever.”

If you can’t tell by the title, this article is going to deal with Mississippi and North Carolina’s new laws, HB 1523 and HB 2 respectively.

On Tuesday, former Senator Jim DeMint posted on his Facebook page that he was upset with Bruce Springsteen’s hypocrisy stating that the laws in Mississippi and North Carolina “… DON'T promote any kind of discrimination and instead protect people FROM discrimination.”[1]

This is one part sort of true and one part nonsense. The part that is sort of true is that the laws don’t force anyone to discriminate, unless they work in a government building. The nonsense part is that the laws, especially Mississippi’s law only protects some people from discrimination, not all. Mississippi’s recently passed law only protects people with “sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions” concerning issues of marriage, sexual orientation, and perceived gender identity.[2]

Bakeries

For those who don’t know the background, these laws are in response to several court cases where Christian business owners were sued for not providing various services related to same-sex marriages where the owners felt their participation would be tantamount to advocating for something they disagree with.[3]^{, [4], [5]}

The LGBT community made matters worse by twisting the narrative to say that these business owners were refusing to serve people in the LGBT community altogether which is patently false. As public accommodations, the business owners were willing to provide a number of services to people in the LGBT community and had done so on numerous occasions.[6]

Before I go any further, I support the right of these business owners to refuse a service that conflicts with their beliefs. However, I also support the right of LGBT business owners to refuse services that conflict with their beliefs.

Southern Evangelical Seminary president, Richard land has said, “This would be like going to a bakery owned by an African-American, and saying, ‘By the way, you have to bake a cake for a KKK induction ceremony, under penalty of law.’”[7]

This is kind of a strange analogy, because why would a member of the KKK go to an African-American owned bakery? I think a better analogy would be a gay-owned bakery being forced to decorate a cake advocating for heterosexual only marriage because a person could walk into a bakery not knowing it was owned by a homosexual. It’s also a better analogy because as far as I know, no member of the KKK has requested bakery services from African-Americans, but Christians have requested bakery services from homosexuals and have been denied service, mocked[8], and even sued[9]. Of course in the last case, the person being sued was Joshua Feuerstein because he’s an idiot and violated Florida state law, but he would be a bigger idiot to not countersue since he was denied service in a public accommodation.

Interestingly, I haven’t heard of a single Muslim owned bakery being sued for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay wedding when many Muslim owned bakeries are on record as not providing wedding cakes for same sex marriages.[10] A friend of mine pointed out that LGBT seem to target Christian bakeries and not Muslim ones for the same reason animal rights activists attack old ladies in fur coats and not bikers in leather jackets.

There is kind of a double standard here and the only people really benefiting are homosexuals and lawyers. The current societal narrative seems to be that it’s okay for a bakery to not violate their conscience and refuse service to conservative Christians, but it’s not okay for a conservative Christian owned bakery to not violate their conscience and refuse service to anybody for any reason.

I believe in liberty. I believe in freedom of conscience. I believe in freedom of speech and freedom of religion. I also believe the framers of the Constitution would support the right of a businessman refusing to provide a service that violates their conscience whether that violation was religious or secular in nature.

James Madison, created the “Virginia Plan” which served as the basis for the Constitution. He also wrote the Bill of Rights and contributed 26 articles to the Federalist Papers explaining the US Constitution. So when it comes to the rights of people under the law, James Madison is one of the best sources when it comes to the intent of the Founding Fathers.

In 1785, Madison wrote in his Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, “We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance.” He also wrote that when a law is made that forces a person to violate his conscience, “The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants.”[11]

This was Madison’s view, but the Founding Fathers agreed to it by adding the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Jurisprudence has held that the freedom of speech and religion extends to conscience as well, including the right to no religion. No person can be compelled by law to believe or disbelieve.

This is why many people believe that not only should a Christian business owner have the right to refuse a service they believe conflicts with their conscience, but that an atheist, agnostic, Satanist, Wiccan, Hindu, Muslim, or homosexual should also have the right to refuse a service they believe conflicts with their conscience. This is where the Mississippi and North Carolina laws fail and why they will likely not pass Constitutional muster if the states are sued and the issue gets to the Supreme Court.

Mississippi and North Carolina should go back to the drawing board and save everybody some time by writing laws that apply to everybody. Either everybody has the right to refuse service that conflicts with their beliefs (what the Founders intended) or nobody does.

Even though I am an independent and I tend to vote Republican, my views line up more with libertarians on this and I believe the best route for solving this problem is let the free market decide. If you go to a restaurant that gives you bad service, you can suck it up and return there hoping it gets better, you can complain to management, you can give a bad review, or you can go somewhere else. If you’re in the mood for a hamburger, you don’t go to a vegetarian restaurant. If you’re gay, getting married and you want a wedding cake, you shouldn’t go to the bakery with the “Christian Fish” on the door.

In the case of Jack Phillips, a baker in Colorado who was sued for not baking a wedding cake for a gay marriage, after he was told by a judge that he must bake a wedding cake, he just stopped baking wedding cakes altogether. He lost 40 percent of his income, but now he doesn’t have to violate his conscience. So now, when a person wants a wedding cake, if they go to Jack Phillips, he doesn’t provide that service, so they must go somewhere else.[12] They should have done that to begin with because people representing less than two percent[13] of the population ruined it for the rest of the 98 percent when there were plenty of other bakeries that would have happily provided a cake for a same-sex wedding, including some Christian bakeries.

There are other solutions to this problem, but the best solution is more freedom for business owners, not less.

Bathrooms

Dr. Paul R. McHugh is a distinguished professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has served in numerous leadership positions in the field of Psychiatry, done some serious research, and is greatly respected in his field. He wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2014 that transgenderism is a mental disorder.[14] I agree with him. So, I would ask my conservative friends to take that into consideration as they read my opinion on the various laws about bathrooms that have been passed in the last few years. Just don’t take this as me advocating for the transgender lifestyle. Instead, take this as me advocating for treating people in situations we don’t understand or may even object to with a little more humility and respect.

Even though I agree with Dr. McHugh, many in the mental health profession do not consider it to be a mental health disorder. Law makers, LGBT advocates, and many others do not consider it to be a mental disorder. The fact of the matter is that the transgender genie is out of the bottle. If you’re afraid of being around people with mental disorders, you probably ought to just stay home because statistics estimate that between 19 percent[15] to 25 percent[16] of people in the United States suffer from some kind of mental disorder. In fact, you’re more likely to come across a person suffering from schizophrenia than a person who considers themselves transgender.[17]

Now let’s get into North Carolina’s Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act (HB 2) a little more.

This law is another great example of a good idea that went wrong. People want privacy and security in public facilities, so that’s a good idea. But the law, as written, can only be enforced by deeply infringing upon individual liberty and privacy.

The law is written to make sure that people only use the restroom of their birth sex. That sounds good, right? Unfortunately, not everyone looks like their birth sex and I’m not just talking about transgender people. I agree that children should probably be segregated according to their biological sex because frankly, at that age, no child has settled completely into their gender identity and, furthermore, trying to establish gender identity or even teaching them that there is possibly a difference between biological sex and gender identity at that age has been found by the American College of Pediatricians to be harmful and confusing to children.[18]

The part of the law that segregates children’s restrooms in public schools is actually okay as written and makes allowances for members of the opposite sex to provide assistance, conduct janitorial services, etc. The problem is the way the parts referring to public restrooms are written. North Carolina now restricts public restrooms and multiple occupancy changing rooms to use by people based on their biological sex which is defined as: “The physical condition of being male or female, which is stated on a person's birth certificate.”[19]

Again, this sounds good, but misses one glaringly obvious detail: How does the government expect to enforce this law, especially where transgender people are concerned? Because unless the government expects every person to carry their original, unaltered birth certificates, there is no absolute way to determine if a person is transgender or not. Sometimes it’s very difficult to tell. Just ask a number of sailors who have spent any time in Thailand.

Requiring people to show identification will be difficult too since some states already allow transgender people to put their sex of choice on their ID cards. So what’s left? Should we require people to display their genitals in order to use the restroom? Nope—gender reassignment surgery will make that impossible and some transgender people revert to their birth sex for a variety of reasons and gender re-reassignment surgery can only fix so much. Even if transgenderism was somehow made illegal along with gender reassignment surgery, as I said, that genie is out of the bottle and it would be YEARS before you could get it back in.

So where does that leave us? The only other enforcement option is one that horrifies me and should horrify any freedom loving American and that is registering people who are transgender. Frankly, if I was transgender, I wouldn’t even want any kind of legal recognition of my new gender because records are kept and that process can be too easily abused. I reject the idea of registering transgender people on the same grounds I reject registering my personal firearms.

There are so few transgender people in the world. In the United States, only about 0.3% of the population are transgender[20] and they have been using the restroom of their perceived gender for years with almost no problems. I don’t know what the statistics are. I spent the majority of my free time Wednesday (a long time for a blog post if you ask me) searching for statistics about transgender sex crimes and frankly, there seems to be no statistics about the prevalence of crimes committed by transgender people.

I spoke to Dr. Adam Schiffer, a professor of political science at Texas Christian University. He teaches courses on political communication, public opinion, and research methods. He’s also an expert where statistics and statistical methods are concerned.

When I asked him about this issue, he responded, “I would be very surprised if there were any credible, systematic studies of this—for the same reason that there aren't any studies of how many people have slipped on rubber duckies on their bathroom floor and fallen head first into the toilet and drowned. It could happen—It probably has happened—but it's so rare that even the most granular crime statistics would have it as ‘miscellaneous.’ Of all groups in America, transwomen are the most likely to fear for their lives every minute of every day—so the thought that they would regularly approach children in a bathroom, when dad might be right outside, strains all credulity.”

I don’t want people to think I am downplaying the concern of people who are worried about sexual predators using the restroom with their children or other loved ones. That concern is completely justified regardless of which laws are passed concerning gender identity or sexual orientation. But here’s a question: What about homosexuals? I’m sure you’re concerned about them, right? You have men who are attracted to men using the men’s restroom and women who are attracted to women using the women’s restroom. Here’s a fact to go along with that: you are six times more likely to run into a gay person in the restroom than a transgender person. Additionally, sex predators have been dressing up as the opposite sex (mostly men) to prey on women and girls for a long time before these laws came along.

UPDATE 4/15/2016: I spoke to several anti-LGBT groups as well as several pro-LGBT groups and none of them had any actual statistics on this issue. So, using the existing demographics I did a back-of-the-envelope estimate of transgender sex offenders. In 2014, the estimated total adult population of the United States was slightly more than 245 million or 77% of the total population. There were 796,598 registered sex offenders which is slightly more than 0.3% of the adult population. Statistics that I have provided endnote links to elsewhere in this post have shown that transgender people make up about 0.3% of the adult population which means you are as likely to meet a sex offender as you are to meet a transgender adult. The actual odds are about 1 in 400. If we assume that the transgender sex offender demographics mirror the population at large, there would only be slightly less than 2600 transgender people registered as sex offenders. The odds of actually meeting a transgender registered sex offender would be 1 in more than 123,000 and the odds of actually being victimized by one are even less. A transgender registered sex offender is practically a unicorn.

In some places, governments have gone the opposite route and passed laws to allow transgender people to use the restroom that corresponds to their perceived gender identity. The problem with these laws have less to do with what the laws actually say and more to do with the confusion created by anti-LGBT propagandists. This is why people should actually read the laws that are passed in your community, especially if you own, run, or work in a public accommodation with restrooms.

Also, before you take your favorite media outlet at face value, you should also read the laws before jumping on the bandwagon of ignorance. I have to admit that I have probably ridden the ignorance bandwagon the full length of the Oregon Trail, but I have always done my best to look at primary references rather than just taking somebody at their word before reacting to anything.

But I digress.

One of the laws passed last year in Seattle was probably one of the most misunderstood laws and thanks to a man who criminally abused the law,[21]^{, [22]} the misunderstanding persists. I say criminally because a man entered a female locker room when he knew that women and girls would be in various stages of undress. When he was challenged by the employees, he said he could be there and that the law protected him. He was wrong and if law enforcement had been called—they were not—he would have been arrested and likely charged as a sex offender.

I pointed out before that the Seattle ordinance did not give him permission to be there. One of the things the ordinance did do was direct all single-occupant restrooms (restrooms that can only be used by one person at a time) to be labeled as “all-gender restrooms.”[23]

People everywhere should be thrilled about this and frankly, similar laws should be passed everywhere if they have not already been. For the life of me, I could never understand why a restroom that can only be used by one person at a time and can be locked would have a label on it other than “restroom.” I can’t count the number of times I have been to places where there is a line of two, three, or more women standing outside the single occupancy women’s restroom while the men’s room goes unoccupied.

I once worked as a security officer in a building where we had gender specific single occupancy restrooms. A woman who was pregnant came in and was suffering from morning sickness. She went to the women’s restroom and it was locked. She came to me and barely getting the words out through her nausea, asked me if there was another women’s restroom. I could see her difficulty and through her body language that she needed a restroom now. I told her to use the men’s restroom. She went in, locked the door, and tossed her cookies in complete privacy, and nobody was hurt by it.

While the law does allow transgender people to use “gender-specific restrooms and other gender-specific facilities in places of public accommodation including but not limited to dressing rooms, locker rooms, homeless shelters, and group homes that are consistent with the individual’s gender identity or expression,”[24] it also demands that transgender people identify themselves as such through their “attitudes, preferences, beliefs, and practices.”[25]

In other words, if an obviously heterosexual man enters a women’s restroom and does not “express a female gender identity through voice, dress, or mannerisms,”[26] the Washington State Human Rights Commission has stated, “there is no rule that states that the person cannot be questioned and required to leave.”[27]

Many people are concerned about sexual predators abusing these laws. Your concern is justified—justified, not because transgender people are sexual predators but because sexual predators already use the restroom and will do what they can to abuse laws aimed at transgender people. Even in areas where it is illegal for people to enter the restroom of the opposite sex, transgender or not, they still do. The things that sexual predators want to do in a public restroom are already illegal and the vast majority of transgender people are not going to the restroom to peep at you or your kids, they are going there to answer the periodic call of nature. As Dr. Schiffer pointed out in my conversation, “transwomen are the most likely to fear for their lives every minute of every day.”

Not all transgender women are flamboyant, bigger than life, devil may care personalities we’re used to seeing on TV or in movies. Most of them are just trying to get through life the best way they can. They live in enough fear just going through their daily routine, riding the bus, and walking down the street. But when it comes time to use a restroom, I can’t even begin to understand the anxiety they must go through (that might be an interesting experiment). On the one hand, if they use the men’s room they worry about transphobic bullies. On the other hand, if they use the women’s room, they not only run similar risks, but they have to run the risk of getting yelled at by transphobic women and harassed by the police for “peeing while transgender.”

If you suspect a person of committing a sex crime in a public restroom, contact the police. Don’t contact security who have limited arrest authority if any and don’t contact employees who will try to do damage control. Call the police. Let them investigate and make a determination based on the law.

If you’re worried about your children using the restroom, don’t let them go alone. Most large public accommodations like malls have family restrooms so you can take your children to the restroom without taking them to the restroom of the opposite sex. If you are in a public accommodation that doesn’t have a family restroom, you can take your kids into the restroom with you even if they are of the opposite sex.

If you are worried about becoming a victim of a sex crime, use the buddy system. But again, you’re more likely to be victimized in a restroom by a violent, sociopathic, heterosexual member of the opposite sex who doesn’t care what the law is than you are by a transgender person who just wants to pee.

Multiple Occupancy Locker Rooms

Two words. They suck.

I have never been a fan of multiple use locker rooms. At least with the majority of public restrooms, you have a stall with a door that can lock and provides some amount of privacy. But locker rooms suck. I hate them. No privacy whatsoever. Junior high and high school were terrible. You go out and run miles in the sun, sweat like a pig and then you have to go back and get changed in front of a bunch of super-judgmental heterosexuals who are looking at you for some strange reason. If you don’t have an athlete’s body, prepare for the ridicule.

I was fortunate never to have been ridiculed in High School, but that didn’t decrease my anxiety about changing in front of other men because I was ridiculed in junior high school. Oh sure, I’ve learned to live with it sort of, but I don’t want to spend any more time in a locker room than I absolutely have to. Get in, get changed, go work out. Get in, get undressed, get showered, get dressed, leave. I don’t even like talking to people I know in locker rooms.

Maybe I’m weird, but why can’t locker rooms and shower areas be designed with private changing areas. I don’t mean to be crass, but I don’t want to see another man naked and I’m not really ashamed of my body, but I don’t want anyone seeing me naked either. I’m not worried about people lusting after me, I’m just uncomfortable with people other than my wife or a doctor seeing me undressed.

My ideal locker room would have a private changing area like a dressing room at a department store. There would be lockers like a regular locker room, but no benches or anything adjacent to the lockers. In fact, there would be no seating in the locker area at all. In order to sit down to put on shoes or do any other activity related to changing, a person would basically be forced to go into the private changing room. Locker areas would strictly be for locking up your stuff, not socializing or body judging.

I have actually seen multiple use facilities similar to this, not exactly, but similar. When I was in Toulon, France, I used a public restroom at the train station. It was gender neutral. To the French, it was no big deal. It’s just the way it has always been. But how do you have privacy? The stalls weren’t attached to the walls with posts on the floor and gaps in the door like America. They were complete privacy stalls. Nobody could see in and the occupants couldn’t see out—not without climbing the walls anyway, which I’m sure some people might find suspicious. The only thing that the occupants did in view of each other was wash their hands. You know what else I didn’t see? A line of women waiting to use the restroom. One big restroom for everyone to use.

Don’t you think that locker rooms and even restrooms like that would solve problems for everybody?

Now before anybody says, “If you like France so much, why don’t you move there?” Let me just slap you upside the head for being stupid. I am definitely a Francophile. I love French art, music, architecture, food, the language, and so much more. However, I love America and think it’s better than France in thousands of ways. I think we could be better than we are, but while I love foreign travel, there’s not a country on earth I would rather live in than the United States.

I’m getting off topic again.

The point I’m making in this second part is that ultimately, the bathroom issue is going to be much ado about nothing and that owners of public accommodations could do a lot to make their restrooms, locker rooms, and changing areas better for everyone instead of seeing them as the one area of construction they can go cheap and cut corners on.

That being said, I do believe in the rights of business owners to run their businesses how they see fit. The only way that the government should intrude is to make sure that restrooms are safe, clean, and operate properly. If businesses choose to provide restrooms or locker rooms for all genders, they need to ensure that they are providing sufficient privacy and security for people using the restroom who may be uncomfortable utilizing such facilities.

The government has a way of making things confusing when they get involved with any issue.

Finally, I want to say that I don't think that the government of Mississippi, North Carolina, or states that pass similar legislation are hateful. Not all the politicians anyway. Some of them may be, but many just don't think through these issues fully and yes, some ignorant, but well meaning people get elected to public office. They're human and they make mistakes, but I don't think most of them, not even conservatives hate lesbians, gays, bisexuals, or transgender people.

---

[1] DeMint, Jim. Jim DeMint. Facebook, 12 Apr. 2016. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <https://www.facebook.com/jimdemint/posts/10153670127850819>.

[2] Religious Liberty Accommodations Act, MS HB1523 § 2

[3] Gershman, Jacob. "Photographers Discriminated Against Gay Couple, Court Rules." WSJ. Wall Street Journal, 22 Aug. 2013. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/08/22/photographers-discriminated-against-gay-couple-court-rules/>.

[4] "Court Rules Bakery Illegally Discriminated Against Gay Couple - ACLU - Colorado." ACLU. American Civil Liberties Union, 06 Dec. 2013. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://aclu-co.org/court-rules-bakery-illegally-discriminated-against-gay-couple/>.

[5] "Oregon Bakery Owners Refuse to Pay Damages in Gay Wedding Cake Case | Fox News." Fox News. FOX News Network, 01 Oct. 2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/10/01/oregon-bakery-owners-refuse-to-pay-damages-in-gay-wedding-cake-case.html>.

[6] Starnes, Todd. "Court: Christian Baker Must Provide Wedding Cakes for Same-sex Couples | Fox News." Fox News. FOX News Network, 13 Aug. 2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/08/13/court-christian-baker-must-provide-wedding-cakes-for-same-sex-couples.html>.

[7] Wong, Curtis M. "Requiring A Baker To Make A Gay Wedding Cake Is Like Forcing Blacks To Serve The KKK, Pastor Claims." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 5 June 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/05/pastor-gay-wedding-cake-kkk_n_5453277.html>.

[8] Smith, Samuel. "13 Gay Bakeries Refuse to Make Traditional Marriage Cake With the Message: 'Gay Marriage Is Wrong'" Christian Post. N.p., 19 Dec. 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.christianpost.com/news/13-gay-bakeries-refuse-to-make-traditional-marriage-cake-with-the-message-gay-marriage-is-wrong-131479/>.

[9] Smith, Samuel. "Evangelist Could Face Felony Charges After Asking Baker to Make Anti-Gay Marriage Cake." Christian Post. N.p., 17 Apr. 2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.christianpost.com/news/evangelist-could-face-felony-charges-after-asking-baker-to-make-anti-gay-marriage-cake-137742/>.

[10] Richardson, Valerie. "Video Puts Muslim Bakeries, Florists in Gay-rights Spotlight." Washington Times. The Washington Times, 5 Apr. 2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/5/video-puts-muslim-bakeries-florists-in-gay-rights-/?page=all>.

[11] Madison, James, and Robert Allen Rutland. "Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments." The Papers of James Madison. Vol. 5. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1977. N. pag. Print. Amendment I (Religion).

[12] Smith, Warren Cole. "WORLD | What's next for Baker Who Refused to Make Cake for Same-sex Wedding | Warren Cole Smith | July 9, 2014." WORLD. N.p., 9 July 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.worldmag.com/2014/07/what_s_next_for_baker_who_refused_to_make_cake_for_same-sex_wedding>.

[13] Ward BW, Dahlhamer JM, Galinsky AM, Joestl SS. Sexual orientation and health among U.S. adults: National Health Interview Survey, 2013. National health statistics reports; no 77. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014.

[14] McHugh, Paul. "Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution." The Wall Street Journal. N.p., 12 June 2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2016. <http://www.wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120>.

[15] Insel, Thomas. "Director's Blog: Mental Health Awareness Month: By the Numbers." National Institute of Mental Health. N.p., 15 May 2015. Web. 14 Apr. 2016. <http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2015/mental-health-awareness-month-by-the-numbers.shtml>.

[16] National Alliance on Mental Illness. Numbers of Americans Affected by Mental Illness. Arlington, VA: National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2013. Print.

[17] The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that there are approximately 2.5 million people in the United States who are schizophrenic (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/schizophrenia.shtml) while only about 700,000 people are transgender (Gates, Gary J. How Many People Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender? Rep. Los Angeles, CA: Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, 2011. Print.)

[18] Cretella, Michelle A., M.D., Quentin Van Meter, M.D., and Paul McHugh, M.D. "Gender Ideology Harms Children." American College of Pediatricians. N.p., Print. 21 Mar. 2016

[19] Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, NC HB 2, Part I § 1.2 (a)(1), § 1.3 (a)(1)

[20] Ward BW, Dahlhamer JM, Galinsky AM, Joestl SS. “Sexual orientation and health among U.S. adults: National Health Interview Survey, 2013.” National health statistics reports; no 77. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014.

[21] Morrow, Allison. "Man in Women's Locker Room Cites Gender Rule." KREM. N.p., 17 Feb. 2016. Web. 14 Apr. 2016. <http://www.krem.com/news/local/northwest/man-in-womens-locker-room-cites-gender-rule/45412534>.

[22] WASHINGTON STATE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION. Washington State Human Rights Commission Statement Regarding Seattle Locker Room Incident. Olympia, WA: WASHINGTON STATE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION, 2016. Print.

[23] All-Gender Restrooms Ordinance, Seattle City Ordinance 124829 § 1

[24] All-Gender Restrooms Ordinance, Seattle City Ordinance 124829 § 6(B)(11)

[25] All-Gender Restrooms Ordinance, Seattle City Ordinance 124829 § 5

[26] WASHINGTON STATE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION. Washington State Human Rights Commission Statement Regarding Seattle Locker Room Incident. Olympia, WA: WASHINGTON STATE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION, 2016. Print.

[27] Ibid.