South Dakota governor pledges veto
Yesterday, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard pledged to veto a discriminatory bill that would restrict transgender students from accessing locker rooms and facilities that match their gender identity.
SB 115 was introduced this week even though Daugaard vetoed a similar bill last spring.
The legislation does not address any pressing issue concerning the school districts of South Dakota.
I haven’t heard one instance of a problem in this area. Not one. But we have seen major problems in North Carolina when a bill like this was enacted.
--Daugaard
Discrimination is wrong at any age, but it may be particularly dangerous for LGBT youth, who are at heightened risk of isolation, family rejection, depression, and suicide. As Human Rights Watch has recently documented, restrictions on bathroom and locker room access jeopardize transgender students’ safety, health, privacy, and access to education. In the process, they stigmatize transgender youth instead of addressing the real problems faced by the US’s LGBT students – bullying and harassment, exclusion from curricula, restrictions on speech and assembly, and discrimination in schools.
--Human Rights Watch
Governor Daugaard urged lawmakers not to reintroduce bathroom restrictions this year, deeming them “a solution in search of a problem.” Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky has offered a similar assessment, saying that legislating bathroom access would be “silly.”
Comments
Watch the sleight of hand . . .
South Dakota is the neighboring state to North Dakota where police have now doubled down on violence to the native people seeking to protect their water. I full support Transgender Rights, but am concerned that the Democrats are just as "smoke and mirrors" in choosing their battles as their equally corrupt colleagues in the other party: The U.S. is poisoning the water of many communities with leaky pipelines: scrap metal is scrap metal, wherever it comes from: and this is their only water supply. The corporations violated the law by artificially segmenting this pipeline and pretending they did not: their investors don't care. Now innocent, prayerful protestors are being blinded, maimed, shot at close range in the genitals: and there is DEAD SILENCE from corporate Dems, who are now taking credit for the demonstrations. Bernie Sanders has disappeared from print or media today, with Tim Kaine in his place. Do you really think the Democrat's care? I sure as hell don't. The take selective stands on which outcast group will be protected, while ignoring others: Frankly the Native population is in grave danger: and there is DEAD silence from Democrats. If you listen to the slimy Kaine this morning on Meet the Press, he is just a Democrat Pence with the same set of meaningless platitudes and double speak: his message was basically: the Republicans are supported by unions, and the Dems are going to ally with the working class pipeline workers: not the other unions . . . just watch. They have NO PLAN, and this is just manipulation of the media. My theory holds: this whole election was Kayfabe, they elected Trump on purpose, and Clinton got paid to kneecap Bernie Sanders. This whole Trump outrage is designed once again for the stock market. And the banks. And obscene wealth.
Everyone should have privacy
in facilities like locker rooms and bathrooms.
All facilities other than sinks in ladies' rooms are typically private; men's rooms and school locker rooms typically are not. If everyone can access an individual stall, the only activity of others that is visible in the typical ladies' room is hand-washing and drying. (Ever seen the coed rest room Ally McBeal?)
I say this not because I don't want to see certain people changing or relieving themselves, but I'd just as soon relieve myself and change in private and I have no desire to watch anyone with whom I am not intimate doing those things (with the obvious exceptions).
Duplicated deleted by HenryWallace
... avert your eyes,
if observing a natural bodily function disturbs you so much. Were we all still "in the forest" (in Steve King's memorable phrase), we likely all would be sharing similar trees --
When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.
You read into my post something that is not there,
@jwa13.
missing the point of what is there, apparently in order to take a silly jab.
Aren't message boards fun?
FYI, a transgender woman told me that forcing members of her community to be naked in public can be tantamount to torture. That is partly where I was coming from, along with a desire to mention something that might actually be helpful longer-term in alleviating some of the pain of transgenders around the issue that is the actual topic of this thread.
No idea where you are coming from but, hey, shine on!