I want to chime in a little bit on the North Carolina HB2 ‘bathroom bill’ issue.  My take on this is a little different than the ones I’ve seen espoused on the media and  I wanted to get my feelings on this off my chest.

Here is my problem with the entire situation: THE. LAW.

See, both sides of the HB2 debate have made good and legitimate points.

Anti HB2:

1. There is no epidemic of transgenders using public bathrooms to harass women or molest children.
2. Right now, there are transgender people using public bathrooms that are for the gender they identify with (no born as) and nobody has noticed or had a problem with it.
3. Sending some transgenders into the public bathrooms for the gender they are by birth will be more awkward for them since they made their transition.

Pro HB2:

1. There are documented cases of men abusing gender identity bathroom laws or policies to be perverts and peep or take pictures/video.
2. These men may have dressed as women but there is no evidence that they ever really identified as trans.
3. There is an expectation of decorum in public bathrooms.  Privacy is not the right word.  It is the idea that you should not be ‘perved at’ when in a public facility.
4. Having a person who is obviously of the opposite gender (a man) in a gender specific public bathroom (ladies’ room) will make other patrons (women) uncomfortable.
5. Why should a large number of people be put in a position that may make them uncomfortable to appease the needs of 0.3% of the population.

So how do you address these very valid but contradictory points?  Well, a law like HB2 is probably the worst way to do it.  Why?  The law is not a scalpel.  It does not parse things finely.  The law is a sledgehammer.  It crushes everything indelicately.

Let’s be honest.  If you look like Laverne Cox, RuPaul, or even Chaz Bono and you use the bathroom of the gender you identify with, no one will care because no one will notice.  You are – and SJW’s hate this term – passing.  No harm, no foul.

If you look like a one of the GAP GIRLS, guess what, you are going to make some women in the bathroom feel uncomfortable and possibly even threatened.

So how do write a law that says “you can use the bathroom you identify with as long as you pass and/or don’t scare the other patrons.”  You can’t.  The law can’t be that fine.  It is an all or nothing proposition.  But it is that gray area in between the all or nothing that all the protests are about.  When you see the anti-trans/pro-HB2 supporters, what they fear isn’t a Laverne Cox – because they’d never notice her anyway – what they fear is the 250 pound man in a dress with stubble and lipstick.

The gray area is where social convention should rule, because the law does so poorly a job at that.

Want another example?

Gay weddings and bakeries.  Should religious bakeries deny gay couples wedding cakes?  No, probably not.  But let’s say that they do.  Some baker is so offended by the idea of a gay wedding he wants no part of it on religious principles.  What should the gay couple do?  Find another bakery.  This is the type of situation that SHOULD be solved by social convention and not law.  Social convention says that in a free market system, if you don’t want to take my money, the only person you are hurting is yourself.  I can always find somebody else to take my money.  Using the law and civil courts means that somebody’s toes are going to get stomped on by the government.  It’s just a matter of whose.

Think about the absurdity of that for just a moment.

“Take my money or I will have you arrested and fined.”  What!?!

“ But what about the gay couple discriminated against?”

I’ll answer with a question “if you know somebody disproves of your lifestyle, why would you want to give them your money?”

Here is another wide gray area of potentially hurt feelings that could be better solved by the free market and a couple of f*ck yous.  Instead, some legislators wrote a law that ignited a firestorm of controversy, and caused more harm than good, because the law is a blunt tool.

Update: Based upon one comment, I wanted to clarify a position.  Allowing the free market to solve these types of issues is something I do believe in, with one exception: jobs that require professional license – e.g. doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lawyers, etc.  Most other jobs, even some that require a license (like a hair dresser) are easily filled by the free market.  A job that requires professional licence to practice, which requires years of study, advanced degrees, and passing exams, is much harder for the free market to fix quickly, as a licence is a form of government sponsored monopoly.  Anybody with a camera can photograph a wedding.  Not anybody with a saw can be an orthopedic surgeon.  If the government gives you permission to practice to protect the safety of the public (if your hair dresser makes a mistake, you don’t die in the chair), you cannot discriminate.  If you cannot abide by that, find a different career path.

This is the problem with trying to legislate behavior and the minutia of life.  One size fits all doesn’t, just ask any fat guy who has ever won a free t-shirt at a public event.  The more one tries to fix social issues like these with laws, the more consternation they cause.  This is the ultimate lesson that people who fall back on demanding that state power intervene learn.  Liberals are usually the first to run off to big nanny government to “make things fair.”  In North Carolina it was the other side that legislated their desires into law first, and now the liberals are protesting.  And of course the NC law was written in response to liberal transgender bathroom laws passed in other states.

Don’t invite the government in to meddle in personal matters.  It never ends will.  Like George Washington said: “Government Is Like Fire, a Dangerous Servant and a Fearful Master.”  Now people are getting burned.

P.S.  A message to Target stores.  My gun in my waistband is like Laverne Cox’s d*ck in a dress; if you don’t know it’s there, than it shouldn’t bother you at all.  If she can deep conceal in the ladies room of a Target without upsetting people, than so can I in the grocery aisle.