ISBL Asshat of the Week: Virginia's Transphobic Delegate Mark Cole

I can’t with some people; I just can’t.

I like, er, liked, Ricky Gervais before last week’s Golden Globes when he made several disparaging “jokes” about transgender women. With trans women being targeted for beatings and murder so often around the country, and around the world, making a joke of them is the last thing we need to be doing.

It creates a sense in some places that trans people are less than, that they are freaks, that they are “faking it” because they want to sneak into an opposite sex bathroom and, oh, I don’t know, I can’t wrap my head around that brand of crazy; or this brand …

Virginia Delegate, and Republican, of course, Mark Cole wants to fine transgender children $50 if they use what he says is the “wrong” bathroom. Now, to be fair, Cole wants to fine all transgender people $50 for using any public bathroom that doesn’t matches their birth-assigned gender, but makes a point to say his new proposal applies to students as well. And he's so adamant about it that he has filed two different bills proposing the same thing, though they are worded differently:

HB 663 requires that all public restrooms. all school restrooms, all locker rooms, all school shower rooms are to be “designated for use by a specific gender to solely be used by individuals whose anatomical sex” — described as the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person’s anatomy — “matches such gender designation.”

HB 781 uses slightly different language instead of “anatomical sex.” It requires that all public restrooms. all school restrooms, all locker rooms, all school shower rooms be “designated for and used by individuals/students based on their biological sex” — defined as the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person’s birth certificate and is identified at birth by a person’s anatomy, or by a birth certificate amended in accordance with subsection E of § 32.1-269 which allows trans people to change the sex on their birth certificate only if they’ve undergone sex reassignment surgery.

And both bills end by saying that “any person/student who willfully and knowingly violates this section shall be liable for a civil penalty not to exceed $50.” This money would go to the state’s Literary Fund.

The Literary Fund? How about to an LGBT Education Fund? How about a Transgender Awareness Fund?

Now, of course, one wonders how Cole’s bill would be enforced. Would there be monitors at the doors of all restrooms and showers and locker rooms in all of Virginia doing a physical inspection of every single person before they enter the room?

Cole’s bills stipulate that “any law-enforcement officer may issue a summons regarding a violation of this section” but how would a police officer know if a violation had taken place?

So, if this lunacy passes, think about schoolchildren forced to show their genitals to a stranger before peeing; think of the adult in any public building being made to prove they are the anatomically correct gender for the bathroom of their choice. Think about that … would you willingly bare your genitals to a police officer before you use the restroom? Well, Cole’s bill would make it a law for you, for anyone, for all of us, to prove our gender by showing our junk to a stranger

And if you think that’s degrading, think how a transgender person, who, seriously, just wants to pee, or use the shower or change clothes, might feel in the same situation.

Less than. Freaks. Different.

I suggest something else entirely for Virginia: I suggest that before anyone be allowed to become a Delegate in their state, that person be subjected to an intelligence test to make sure they aren’t some anti-trans, card carrying loon who thinks that trans people have nothing better to do in a bathroom, locker-room, shower room, than ogle other people. And I would ask that Virginia begin their intelligence test with Mark Cole.

Show us your sense of dignity.

Oh, and your penis, too, if you’re using the bathroom at the statehouse, sir.

Think Progress