I put on the TV to watch Loretta Lynch go after North Carolina for its new law (referred to as House Bill 2, or HB2) concerning sex-specific bathrooms.
Ms. Lynch again threatened to withhold federal funding to the state because, in the administration’s view, it is violating anti-discrimination laws.
The fact that no such threat has ever been made to states with “sanctuary cities” tells me that the Obama administration thinks transgender men peeing in women’s rooms is more important than states flouting our immigration laws to facilitate millions of illegals being here. But that’s another point for another blog.
The point of this one, is to note that CNN, in an effort to support the administration’s view, is reporting the finding of a research study it commissioned which, they tell us, shows the public to be heavily in favor of the administration’s policy – by 57% to 38% opposed. Click here to see the article, which is headlined:
POLL: 6-1N 10 OPPOSE BILLS LIKE THE NORTH CAROLINA TRANSGENDER BATHROOM LAW
Now I will show you the specific question and findings being used to make this claim:
Overall, would you say you favor or oppose laws that require transgender individuals to use facilities that correspond to their gender at birth rather than their gender identity? Do you [favor/oppose] that strongly or somewhat?
Strongly favor 25%
Somewhat favor 13%
Somewhat oppose 18%
Strongly oppose 39%
No opinion 5%
Does that make the public’s view on this issue clear?
Not to me it doesn’t.
Here’s why: do you notice anything in that question about the possible consequences of this policy – i.e. the prospect of non-transgender people, say pedophiles, using it to come into opposite sex bathrooms?
Me neither.
It can be argued that the question should be single-minded in nature to get a clean reading on this specific issue – that the other issues surrounding who goes in which bathroom should be asked about separately.
As a researcher, I agree with that argument.
The problem, however, is that the other issues were not asked about at all. That one question was the end of it right there.
So you didn’t see questions like “Do you think pedophiles can use this policy to pretend they are transgender and go into opposite sex bathrooms? Or “If so, how likely do you think that is to happen?” Or “Does this likelihood make you more or less favorable to maintaining single-gender facilities?”
Nope, none of those saw the light of day in this research.
So what we have here is a statement, asked exclusively about truly transgender people, about whether they should be forced into what they sincerely consider the wrong facility for them – if I were asked that question, that way, I would have been among the majority my self – with no reading at all as to whether the public thinks this is the way it would actually play out.
In other words, from the standpoint of addressing North Carolina HB2, it is garbage.
