By Sabrina Samone, TMP
Earlier this year an
Arizona Republican, Rep. John Kavanagh, proposed a bathroom bill aimed at
discriminating against the Transgender Community in his state, and caused a
major uproar. News articles and comments from Trans people and their allies
around the world were outraged. I often view the Republican Party as a bunch of
bigots that enjoy shocking people, mainly to gauge how far they can go and to
build momentum for their personal bigotry. This one certainly has placed Rep.
John Kavanagh on the national stage, as one of many, Republican nut jobs.
Immediately following the proposed bill, petitions and demonstrations erupted
across the state and nation. There is someone in politics so full of bigotry
they’d try to strip a fellow human being of a simple basic right in life, to
use the bathroom sparked a furry within the Trans Community.
In Kavanagh’s
original proposal, merely using a bathroom would have become a crime if the
person using it didn’t have a birth certificate that matched their gender
identity. Not a simple task in a state, like many, that makes it a very
difficult process for transgender people to change without having SRS surgery.
After the initial outrage, the measure was amended so that businesses would
have the right to choose if they may, to penalize a transgender customer at the
business’s own discretion for using what they considered, the wrong restroom.
It seems now, the
Republican Representative has announced to drop the bill, for now, until next
year. They are allowing the Trans people of Arizona the luxury of being allowed
to use a toilet, until next year. According to The Republic/azcentral, Kavanagh said, he decided to drop the
proposal mainly because there’s little time left to address it given that Gov.
Jan Brewer has said she will not sign any bills until there is progress on the budget. It’s being saved by a budget. A budget built
with funds made on the backs of many taxpaying Transgender people of Arizona,
who may or may not be forced to relive this nightmare next year.
Many speculate that Senate Bill 1045 wouldn't have gotten far anyway, but the
damage is done. To me this is the endless propaganda of the Conservative
movement, to push the limits on criminalizing those in society that they
disagree with or outright hate. Arizona
was the test to see if they could actually get away with it. I think Arizona
Republican’s were not ready for the anger of millions of Trans people
nationally that expressed their outrage. It is important to remember such
outlandish bills proposed, those either passed or failed, and the story didn’t
end there. Back in 2010 AZ was the first state to propose an outright racial
profiling law, SB 1070, that was targeting another group Republican’s fear…Latinos. Since
then, 16 states have passed copy cat laws, modeled after SB 1070. After
receiving the national outrage the copycat states, tweaked there’s a little,
but all increased racial profiling of brown and black people.
The formula is to see
how far the public will allow them to go, measure the outrage and downsize to a
less noticeable hate bill. That is the Conservative Republican way and the only
way to change and prevent our basic human rights and the basic rights of
liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness our founders promised this
nation, is to vote every Nazi Republican out of office. Things want change on
their own, LGBTQ people have to cast our votes, make our voices heard and be
willing to lay down our lives if necessary for the promise of freedom and true
equality.
They are hoping we
move on and forget. They’ve allowed you to uncross your legs and pee…for now.
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