Cheap Seats 2016Boys, Girls and Others - 04/27
By Rich Trzupek
Let’s review. Almost eight years ago we elected a President who said that he believed that he agreed with the traditional view that the institution of marriage should only be available to couples of competing genders. Then, he had a change of heart and, eventually, so did the Supreme Court.
Having so dramatically changed an institution that has been around for a few millennia, one would think that would be the end of the matter. But of course it’s not. Once a group gets organized to correct injustices, they will always manage to find new injustices with which to battle.
Which puts us where we are today: the Battle of the Bathrooms. Or, as I would prefer to style it: Modern America’s Struggle with Reality.
The argument in favor of letting anybody do their business anywhere they choose is that people who “identify” with the sex that they actually aren’t are made to feel bad when they are forced to take a dump sitting next to anybody who is pretty sure of the sex that they actually are.
I’m sorry transgenders that going number one or number two – or perhaps you do number three? I don’t really know – while I’m doing my business makes you yearn for the ladies room. There have been times, typically a day after indulging my penchant for spicy Mexican food, that I’m certain my fellow male reality-gender-ers (not really sure what to those of us comfortable with our equipment) would have liked to escape to a happier place as well. We all have our own crosses to bear.
There are so many obviously idiotic things about letting somebody who owns a “goseinta” use “goseouta” facilities and vice-versa that it boggles the imagination that anyone would need to list them.
First of all, how exactly do you enforce this idea? How do you separate a fella who truly identifies himself as herself from a fella hoping to sneak a peek of something interesting, who merely says the he thinks he’s a she, when he actually believes he’s a he? Are we really going to have court cases that hinge on whether Joe Schoblotnik can prove he was sufficiently convinced that he was actually Josophine Schoblotnik, and no counselor, the way Ms. Schoblotnik chose to use the tampon she purchased is not in the least relevant! I mean, it kinda feels like this is where we’re headed.
Second, this whole concept screams “opportunity to create mayhem” to adolescent boys, the stupidity of which can never be overestimated. I’m not even talking about them trying to peek into stalls or hoping to find some young lass in a state of undress in the locker room – which will of course happen – but a group of them just wandering in, a great, sweaty lump of testosterone and bluster, plopping down on the coach and telling off-color jokes that might be accidentally overheard on purpose.
And you might say, but adolescent boys ought not behave that way! We shouldn’t tolerate such behavior! Which is all true, but then we come back to the reality thing again.
Adolescent boys ought not behave like idiots – and to be sure, some don’t – but a whole lot of them do. I should know. I was one of them. We can wish all we want that they so many adolescent boys wouldn’t be idiots, but they are, they always have been and always will be.
But the most blindingly obvious point about the entire bathroom discussion is that it allows people the “right” to define alternate realities. That’s wrong, in any context.
When a middle-aged married man has a little on the side with a college-aged woman, psychologists tell us that he is usually trying to recapture his youth. That doesn’t actually subtract thirty years off the cheating schlup’s life. He can “identify” with twenty years olds all he wants, but he’s no less a jerk for doing so by trying to paint a happy face on the affair.
Maybe I identify myself as a member of the Reinsdorf family, so I should legally be entitled to use Jerry’s personal luxury box. Perhaps I should tell the IRS that I identify myself as Swiss (lowest marginal tax rate in the first world) so they can stick their 1040 where the sun don’t shine.
Reality is reality folks. What you do with whatever God gave you is your business. Where you do your business however, won’t change who you are.
e-mail: rich@examinerpublications.com
www.threedonia.com
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