From the office of Congressman Andy Harris:
Congressman Andy Harris sent the attached letter to the 12 public school superintendents in Maryland’s First District regarding the Obama Administration’s “guidance” that would require all public schools to accommodate students using restrooms of their choice regardless of their biological sex. Once again the Administration is misinterpreting federal law.
The letter says, in part, “Violation of this “guidance” is, of course, under the implicit threat of withholding of federal funds and/or legal action by the DOJ. On this issue, I believe the Administration is misinterpreting federal civil rights law, and violating states’ rights. There is no statutory authority for this “guidance.” Thus, these conflicts must, and ultimately will, be resolved by either Congress or the Federal Courts.”
The Obama Administration can issue executive orders and regulations that conflict with the Constitution’s 9th and 10th Amendments faster than the states can sue and get an injunction. The same thing is going on in Venezuela and freedom is disappearing there.
Less than 1/2 of 1% of the population is trans gendered. People need to ask themselves who started this whole debate and why? Those folks have been managing to figure out where to pee just fine till now. Who is trying to get the general populace fighting amongst themselves about an issue that simply does not affect the overwhelming majority of Americans. What are they trying to distract us from? What are they laying the groundwork for by having this battle. Making it legal for anyone to use any bathroom they wish will likely cause more problems from flasher & perverts than it will solve for trans folks.
Jay, five gold stars for your comments.
I’ve been wondering about this situation myself. Why are women, in particular, being subjected to unsafe public facilities at the whim of such a small number of folks. What woman is going to feel safe using bathrooms, locker rooms and other sexually segregated facilities when any man can walk into them at his discretion and do whatever crosses his mind while he’s in there.
The same holds true for men’s facilities where they can be subjected to any demented activity of a deranged female.
Has the intelligence level in Washington suddenly dropped? Why is the American public being subjected to such a ludicrous and insane “regulation”? Who comes up with this s**t and why aren’t they in a nice quiet padded cell where they can pee in whichever corner suits them?
Ms Teary,
The Lib/Dems in Washington came up with it as you well know. But now the ongoing BS is starting to hit home with people who thought the administration was the best thing since sliced bread. Please, please don’t criticize them or their decisions, or you will be branded a racist homophobe.
I’m just going to start going in the parking lot.
Third tree on the right.
Clearly Andy didn’t read the 4th Circut ruling on this. He does know that MD is in the 4th Circut!
Doesn’t our Representative have better things to do beyond obsessing what our children’s genetalia look like under their clothes? He always did strike me as that type.
This whole bathroom thing is a red herring. Trans people are not perverts or preying on women and children. If you force them to use a bathroom of their birth certificate how will you tell a trans man from any other man who wants access to the ladies bathroom? There are already laws against stalking, assaulting, molesting, rape, etc. 90% of the culprits are known to victims – family, clergy, friend, teacher.
Just more fear from the right on things they don’t understand.
This whole transgender issue is nothing more than the current administration trying to divide the county and the voting public during a Presidential election year. Personally, I don’t really care if the women want to pee in my bathroom and I would have looked forward to women, even those who think they are men, taking a shower in the big room with the rest of us when I was in High School & College (think late 50s and early 60s).
In the seventy’s I had season tickets several years for the New Orleans Saints who play in the Superdome. At halftime the male bathrooms would fill up with women since the female bathrooms were so crowded and it takes them about three times as long to pee as men. We are not talking about transgender women who think they are men, we’re talking about lots of women who wanted/needed to pee and didn’t want to miss half of the third quarter. Didn’t bother the women and it sure didn’t bother the men. In fact, when the women got done peeing, they waited for a lavatory to wash their hands and primp their hair in the mirror. All the while having about 30 men peeing in the wall urinals. Can’t remember having any conversations with any women in the bathroom about their anatomy or mine. Mostly it was about Archie Mannings performance at QB or Russel Erxleben missing another chip shot field goal, all while they pull up their blouse/jersey and adjust their bra straps. A girls got to be comfortable when she is watching the NFL. But hey, we’re talking about football fans here,
Of course I could talk about my boat club and how we raft up for boat get togethers. When you are out on the water ya just hang it over the side and let loose. Boy or girl, makes no difference, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go. .
You are aware the guidelines came out in 2014. Sort of blows that whole the president did this to divide the country in an election year thing out of the water!
You and I both know that this issue has come to the forefront just this year. When you go public during an election year with administration statements that imply withholding federal funds if government run schools do not comply with the guidelines it will create controversy and drive a wedge between the voters.
Where has the administration been since 2014? Answer: Waiting for the election year!
It became for front this year because North Carolina passed a bill to stop the city of Charlotte from expanding on these guidelines. It became a big deal because a small school district in VA violated a kids rights contrary to this and they just lost in the forth Circut. The president did not make this a big deal this year. A Republican legislature and republican school board did!
What are you going to do when you don’t have the Obama boogeyman line anymore? Blame it on Hillary?
There will be no chance to blame it on Hillary. The Donald maybe.
I guess we blame it on Mr. Trump.
I wouldn’t vote for Hillary under any circumstances I can imagine. Absolutely none.
If a transgender man (who is currently a female under the skirt) uses the ladies room, how is he/she any different from the other ladies?
I really don’t get this. My understanding is that “transgender” means a person has surgically change his or her sex and no longer sports their original equipment. When this happens, forcing this person to use the bathroom associated with their birth sex would be forcing them to use the wrong bathroom. How would anyone know the difference? Why would anyone care?
What upsets me is this argument sounds like “transgender” has not happened yet. In other words, we have a man who thinks he is a woman but still carries his original packaging. If this is the case, how will anyone know he is not just a pervert who wants to use the women’s room?
I really wish someone would clear this up. A person who believes him or her self to be a different sex from the one on their birth certificate is not yet a transgender person. They are confused but they don’t have the right to jeopardize the safety of other people. True, it is strange to see a transvestite entering/leaving the “wrong” bathroom, but dressing up is make believe and doesn’t materially change anything.
Is the real issue that transvestite males feel unsafe using the men’ room? I can understand this, but they are still men. If they are allowed access to the woman’s room, then any pervert with nefarious designs could dress up like a woman and jeopardize the safety of women.
Presenting oneself as a woman makes it difficult to spot perverts As a woman, I feel I am entitled to the safety given to me by denying men access to areas where I feel sexually vulnerable. It is safe to assume that a transgender man is sexually interested in men and pose no threat to me sexually. Therefore, there is no harm in allowing them access to facilities that protect their sexual vulnerabilities.
As for women using the men’s room, I have been guilty of this on occasion when for what ever reason the ladies room was unavailable. But I always made sure it was not occupied at the time. I would understand men using the women’s facilities if the men’s facilities were unavailable, but precautions should be made to protect the privacy of any woman using the facility at the time.
Why, Amber, all of a sudden you are an Andy Harris fan. I wondered what it would take.
Ms. Jugular
I am not a fan of Andy Hardy.
I just don’t want men to have a legal right to use the woman’s room. Transgender men (those who have undergone the required surgery) are not longer men. They are functionally women and should have the same rights as any other woman.
A man in a dress is still a man and I feel threatened when they enter the woman’s room and I’m in it. :Nuf said?
Well then you better make your fears known to your Lib/Dem friends in Washington and Annapolis who disagree with you. Because they really don’t give a damn what you think or how you feel about it. Believe me the President and the Attorney General don’t give a flip about your safety because they have their own private bathrooms and their own bodyguard wherever they go. My best advice to you is wear nice underwear, honey. Or you may want to consider who your political friends really are. Or you can just hold it until you get home. Doesn’t matter to me because I’m not threatened by any pervert.
Judy,
I am afraid of perverts and you should be too. I’ve run into a few males of this species and I’ve been grateful for what little refuge the women’s room offered. But sometimes even that comfort is denied you.
Consider being confronted by a wild-eyed, knife wielding man slamming the stall door open on you while you sit passively staring at where the door used to be as it slowly dawns on you your only avenue of escape is over the stall wall. Been there done that, hope like hell it doesn’t happen again. Hope it doesn’t happen to you or your daughter too.
Well, Amber, I sympathize with you of course. Don’t worry about my daughter or about me. We know how to defend ourselves. Too bad it’s the People’s Republic of Maryland or you could get a gun legally. I guess your only option is to get a gun the same way all of the criminals and perverts get their guns. Or you can take a self-defense course, carry pepper spray and stay out of public restrooms.
Judy,
Another option is to vote the idiots responsible for this bathroom travesty out of office, replace Scalara on the Supreme Court and take this issue through the courts one more time.. Maybe you could take your blinders off long enough on November 1 to vote as against them well.
If you were wondering what happened to me, I was wearing a really gaudy finger watch with a lot of cut glass stone around the face. I was able to punch this fool in the general vicinity of is nose and walk out of the restroom. Later, he tried to press assault and battery charges against me. After the first responders cleaned the blood off his face, we all had a good laugh.
Say, do you think I could get a permit to carry a concealed weapon to protect me from the dykes and perverts I might find lurking in a public restroom?
Good God. Your knowledge of trans gender people is low. They don’t wield knives etc. in fact you may not even know they were such unless they tell you.
Additionally this SCOTUS would probably uphold the lower rules ng 7-1 based on their recent ruling in the Bible case!
cdev
Read a little closer. I never said, implied or hinted that transgender people are perverts or go after unassuming women in public women’s facilities wielding a knife or any other weapon of individual destruction.
I was lamenting the possibility that true perverts – those who prey on women and children – could put on a dress and have ready access to places that most women consider to be a refuge from aggressive males.
I did say that transgender men, men who have undergone surgical procedures to change their sex, are in fact women and are therefore entitled to all rights and privileges accorded to any other woman.
Its because of this I don’t understand what this regulation is trying to accomplish. Just because a man or woman thinks they should have been born the other sex doesn’t make them entitled to act out their fantasies in ways that are harmful to other people.
Amber,
Get a concealed carry permit in Maryland? You must be dreaming. Maybe if you had some really close friends in the legislature or got elected yourself. Most people who have guns in Maryland have them illegally. The answer I prefer is pepper spray and karate. But if you feel you want to take a chance on carrying then make sure you know full well how to handle it safely and use it effectively. Nuf said?
I understand when a man who now ‘identifies’ as a woman decides to enter my teenage daughter’s locker room while she is in the shower.
No adult belongs in the shower with a teenager. Just ask the kids who Sanusky butt raped.
The fact you don’t get it has been noted.
“Dr.” Harris should use his title and educate the citizenry about transgender social issues as opposed to fear mongering. What a shame.
Simple if you have a bat and bag of balls you use the men’s room. If you have a pair of holes you use the ladies room. Should clear up the confusion. Think roosters and kitty cats
Women have three holes. The urethra, vagina, and the anus.
I betcha the president’s daughters will never have to worry about a confused person walking in their bathroom. It’s easy to make rules for everyone else to follow. I’m not judging transgender people, I’m sure they identify their gender honestly, but why can’t they just use the bathroom associated with their plumbing and get on with it? Why does it have to be an issue? If you have a pecker, use the urinal, come out, and get on with your day. If you’re minus a pecker, sit down and pee in the women’s room. It’s not a huge part of our days.
The guidance to HCPS from MD stated that every student is to have access to private restrooms and locker room facilities. Private poopers rejoice. My child will hold a bowel movement until they get home. Maybe now they will also put back some of the missing stall doors in the men’s (boy’s) rooms. I guarantee you that the person that thought this was a good idea doesn’t sit in an open stall to poop.
After,
Amen to that sister..