The Discrimination Catch-22 of the Right

by: Matt Singer

Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 17:07:52 PM MST

The bathroom stuff has been one of two responses to the public demands for an anti-discrimination measure. The other has been to deny that discrimination happens.

It's astonishing in its audacity: people publicly doubting the existence of discrimination while voicing their own personal plans to discriminate against transsexual or intersex Montanans, sometimes quite violently.

A couple recent letters from two friends of mine really cut to the core of this issue. The first, a letter to the editor by Steve Knight:

I have heard of friends being refused job applications at businesses because they are perceived as gay or lesbian. Last week I watched a woman who didn't quite pass as female being watched, pointed at, laughed at and then yelled at by the occupants of another vehicle. This happens in our town. It happens to people I care about.

I'm proud of our City Council for taking a stand as a city that wants our citizens to be safe. Thank you Missoula for your support and for being wary of outsiders trying to come to Missoula to influence what we stand for - love, respect, decency, and compassion for one another.

Anyhow, if one is lucky enough to make it through school and enter the real world, they end up navigating relationships, careers, and, yes, decisions about bathrooms often in hiding not wanting to be recognized as different.  This phenomenon is often referred to as 'passing.'

Why do LGBTIQ people feel the need to 'pass?'  The answer is simple:  discrimination.  Don't ask, don't tell.  Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.  God hates faggots.

One way to curb discrimination is through the ordinance you are considering.  People have the right to have discriminatory thoughts, but acting them out in a way that hurts people is unacceptable.  Please pass this ordinance and state definitively that it is NOT ok to discriminate on the grounds of sex, gender, sexuality, or any other unprotected class of citizens.

As far as the potty crusaders are concerned, if this ordinance fails because of some argument about heterosexual pedophiles who think cross-dressing will permit them bathroom entry, I'm going to be one nasty, screaming queen.  As someone who has shared a restroom and locker room with many a cross-dresser, drag queen, and FTM, I have NO concern about bathroom entry.  Trolling for young children in bathrooms and locker rooms is a nasty stereotype that is so intolerable, I can't think of anything else to do but laugh at people who think that way.  So many LGBTIQ people are loving, caring parents, teachers, public safety officers, and more who constantly look out for the GOOD of children - not to prey on them.  Some of my best years were spent teaching children English as a Second Language around the world - never a thought to sexually prey upon them.  There simply is no link between being LGBTIQ and being a pedophile.  It's completely nonsensical.  Oh, and as a former Boy Scout - I could have really used a queer mentor at that time in my life.  Really.

The discrimination is real.  The fear surrounding the ordinance is simply smoke and mirrors - a perspective held in deeply rooted beliefs that society should only be structured around a heterosexual reality.  Look through the smoke and mirrors and pass the ordinance to make a real difference in Missoula.

What this measure will do is finally put an end to the current blind eye given by the law in Missoula to those occasions where discrimination happens. We already protect a dozen classes of individuals. Opposition to this is just a slap in the face saying we don't think Queer Montanans deserve the same protections we afford so many.