I'm
going to begin this entry by talking about an event that I remember from my
childhood. And yes, it's somewhat
linked to the topic that I have chosen for today.
Do
any of you that are around my age remember when McDonald's had birthday
parties? I know I certainly do. After all, I had a party there when I was
seven years old.
I'm
not entirely sure why I wanted a McDonald's birthday when I was seven. Perhaps it was because back in 1988,
McDonald's food was still edible. Or
maybe it had to do with the fact that a couple of my classmates had McDonald's
parties, and I decided that I wanted one too.
Either way, I spent my birthday with Ronald McDonald and six of my
classmates.
And
I have to say for the most part, the party went off without a hitch. We played on the Playland slides and
equipment, we gorged on ice cream and french fries, and we even took a tour of
the McDonald's kitchen to see how everything worked. Granted, we were all seven at the time and we all thought it was
the coolest thing ever. Flash forward
almost thirty years, and I'm thinking that anyone who ever worked at McDonald's
should deserve a medal for putting up with what they put up with!
There
was however, one tiny problem.
You
see, the week that my party was booked was the same week that the men's
washroom decided to malfunction. I
don't exactly know what happened, but it was deemed unusable that whole week.
What
did this mean? Well, for that one week,
McDonald's was forced to turn the women's washroom into a unisex washroom. This meant that certain stalls were reserved
for men, and certain stalls were reserved for women. I imagine it must have been an inconvenience for a lot of people,
but I do understand McDonald's decision to do this. The only alternative would have been to have closed the
restaurant down while repairs were made, and that wouldn't have been a good
option financially.
(Not
to mention that my party would have been cancelled.)
Here's
the kicker though. Sure, it was a
setback. But nobody really complained
about it. At least, not back in 1988
they didn't. When people have to go,
they have to go, right? I imagine the
women weren't very happy to share a public bathroom with men, but at the same
time, the stalls were all closed in.
Nobody could see anything that they didn't want to see. And I imagine that for some of my friends at
the party, they were just excited to see what the inside of a women's bathroom
looked like!
But
again, I reiterate the point that nobody complained. We just dealt with the situation as best as we could. I don't think anyone had any long-term
effects from the week that McDonald's had a unisex bathroom.
So,
I don't quite understand why people are in an uproar over Target making an
announcement that anybody could use any bathroom that they so desired.
Well,
okay...let me clarify.
When
it comes down to it, most of us know what gender we are. I know I'm male, so I will use the men's
washroom - or if all the stalls are full, I'll use a designated "family
washroom" in an emergency. And
yes, family washrooms do exist. There's
one at the store I work at. Sometimes,
that washroom has been a godsend.
But
what happens if a person is confused about what gender they feel they are? Or if a person decides to undergo gender
reassignment surgery to become the gender that they feel that they should have
been born as? It's certainly a question
that many people have wondered.
Some
may say that transgender or questioning people should use the washroom as the
gender that they were born as (which I don't believe is fair) and some feel
that they should use the washroom as the gender they currently are (which I
completely support). And some just
think that transgender people should have a bathroom of their own (which would
be pointing out more attention to them which I don't really agree with).
Whatever
the case, I just want to say that I really don't understand why there is such
anger about it.
Some
people claim that the idea to open up bathrooms to all genders is just asking
for trouble. My response to that
is...why? I mean, think about it. Most people who go the bathroom aren't doing
so to pick up a date. They have to do
things in there that really aren't appropriate to discuss inside of this
blog! I really couldn't care less if the
guy in the stall next to me is really a male or not because I'm kind of doing
my own thing, if you know what I mean!
Besides,
if I had someone staring at me trying to deduce whether I'm really male, I
would think that would be more of a problem!
Some
make the argument that it invites pedophiles into the opposite sex's bathrooms
so that they can continue their deviant behaviour - and yes, certainly that is
a legitimate concern. But where did it
say that all transgender people are pedophiles? The vast majority of them are not! And to be honest with you, I think anybody who does feel that way
is a person that I most certainly do NOT want to know.
When
it comes down to it, I think that transgender people have gotten enough abuse,
and it needs to stop. I get so angry
when I see anybody get rights taken away from them because people do not
understand their lifestyles or their cultures.
And, I especially get ticked off by people who claim to love their God
and use that to justify being jerks towards people who don't fit into what they
believe to be "normal".
Here's
what's abnormal. People who use
religion as an excuse to hate people and to abuse their power to satisfy their
own logic. I think that's why I and
many other people are outraged that states like North Carolina, Mississippi,
and Tennessee are passing laws that deliberately deny people who identify as
being a part of the LGBTQ community basic human rights. To me, it's no different than it was back in
the 1950s when skin colour dictated what water fountain a person drank from.
I
thought we were supposed to improve on what history taught us, not go back in
time and celebrate the worst of it.
To
me, religious freedom means that a person has the right to practice whatever
religion they feel best fits them, whether it be Catholicism, Judaism,
Buddhism, etc. It's even cool if you
don't follow any sort of religion, as I certainly don't. Religious freedom does NOT mean that you
have the right to take away other people's rights because they clash with your
own. It doesn't mean that you have the
right to bully other people who appear different from you because it's what the
Bible tells you. It doesn't mean that
you have the right to kill someone else because they go against everything you
stand for. That's not religious freedom
at all. That's hate.
I
think that the people of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi who do NOT
have this much hate need to band together and get these politicians out of
office.
Because
this is an issue that goes beyond bathrooms...this is an issue of human
dignity. And believe me, no matter what
gender you identify as, we all deserve that dignity.
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