The Obama administration's Friday letter -- from the Departments of Justice and Education to school districts around the Nation -- posits constructions of two anti-discrimination statutes, and on the basis of those constructions directs school districts that they must allow individuals to use toileting and showering facilities based on their self-perceived gender identity, rather than limiting access to such facilities based on sex.
Proponents of such actions appeal yet again to the struggle of African Americans for basic civil rights. That appeal should fall flat just as the unfounded interpretations of federal statutes by this administration do fall flat.
Race has been understood to be an immutable characteristic.
I suppose adventures, such as the social experimentation in "Black Like Me" are suggestive of a chameleon like quality to race, but the daily application of pancake or black face to change one's "race" suggests more the immutable character of race.
Sex, likewise, has been understood to be an immutable characteristic. It continues to be such. And, in fact, the transgender kerfuffle doesn't change that.
Take a child, growing up in a boy's body, that "feels" like she is a girl. Give her loving parents that accept this construct of her personality and support her long term goal of transitioning to life AS A WOMAN. The right hormone suppressive drugs are administered. She wears clothing that, in her construct of the feminine, accords with her image of the female. Eventually, at some advanced age, say, 24-25, she has modification surgery often called reassignment surgery. Because the doctors asked politely, she allowed her testes to be donated to science.
She now thinks of herself as a woman. She may, to some greater or lesser extent, resemble a woman.
Is she a woman?
Unbeknownst to her, her doctors transmit her testes to a reproductive research facility. They are part of a research protocol to develop donor testes for survivors of testicular cancer. Ultimately, "her" testes end up in the sack of a guy that thinks he's a guy. A successful transplant, "his" testes from "her" begin producing spermatozoa. He impregnates his wife. The wife gives birth to a son.
Was our misfortunate child a woman?
Does the genetics of it all escape you?
You think that Republicans are all over the bathroom issue? Why is it lost on you that this brouhaha began when the City of Charlotte amended its ordinances, added "gender identity" to its city antidiscrimination laws, and stripped away from private businesses the previous legal protection they had from discrimination.
I should the hell hope that Republicans are all over OVERTURNING the inane stupidities of progressive social engineers run amok.
And, no, Eisenhower was not demanding that a black kid that thought he was a white kid be treated like a white kid would be treated because, as this new movement seems to demand, Eisenhower insisted that the black/white boy's self-conception must be respected.
What Eisenhower, and the law, demand is that we recognize that treating governments treating people differently based on racial classifications violate the color blind Constitution.
