Leftist gender ideology makes for bad policy not only because it affirms dangerous lies, but because it infringes on the rights of others. Female athletes are losing their right to an even playing field, and most recently, women are losing their right to privacy in public restrooms.
One California teenager named Rebecca Phillips recently testified in front of the Santee City Council and spoke of her experience with the transgender bathroom policy at a YMCA in Santee.
Rebecca was showering in the women’s locker room at her local YMCA when she encountered a naked man. Rebecca is only 17 years old, and she explained that she was concerned about her safety.
She informed the YMCA staff of the naked man using the women’s locker room, but she was told that the man was allowed to be there because he identified as a woman. “When I asked YMCA management what their policy was regarding transgenders, they confirmed that the man I saw was indeed allowed to shower wherever he pleased,” Rebecca told the city council.
The Director of Membership for the San Diego County YMCA later called Rebecca to tell her she was never in danger with the naked man in the locker room.
Rebecca explained that underage minors, including her five-year-old sister, often go to this YMCA and use the women’s locker room. She suggested that gender dysphoric individuals use the family restrooms or an additional facility instead of the women’s locker room. She said she was made out to be in the wrong by YMCA staff.
San Diego legislator, now Senate President pro-Tem Toni Atkins, is lawmaker responsible for authoring the bill that permits men to use showers with minor girls.
The YMCA staff also told her that according to California law, as long as a man is not a registered sex offender, he can shower alongside a teenage girl in a public restroom. The law used to justify letting men into women’s bathrooms is California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. Back in 2011, current Senate President pro-Tempore Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) introduced AB 887, a bill to change the civil rights statute to redefine gender as a “person’s gender identity and gender expression.” Consequently, if a person is biologically male, but identifies as female, businesses cannot prevent them from using the women’s bathroom or shower. This law was signed into law by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In an appearance on Good Evening San Diego, YMCA Spokesman Dan Cruz responded to the incident by saying the YMCA is dedicated to inclusion, diversity, and equity.
However, equity is not achieved by sacrificing women’s privacy and safety for a man’s feelings. Public spaces should always operate in accordance with biological realities.
Sex-specific bathrooms are necessary because women are far more vulnerable to sexual assault than men. Establishing private and protected areas where women can change prevents sexual violence.
The left is now demanding that radical gender ideology governs public restrooms because they are the “last public vestige of gendered social separation,” as The New Yorker puts it. The left is trying to eradicate all distinctions between the sexes. Despite what the tenets of gender ideology say, men and women are different, and those differences need to be respected.
“The fact that we are now tailoring our privacy policies and bathroom laws around transgenders ignoring the blatant threat to safety that this poses is obscene. The safety of girls is on the chopping block… so I implore you all to take action,” Rebecca concluded.
She is absolutely right. A man’s feelings should never trump women’s rights and basic biology.
