House Speaker Johnson announces transgender bathroom ban

Looks like his desk is a great place to use the bathroom instead!

- The irony is Mr. Garrison is trans in later seasons…

I think it should be said. I went to a reading of the names this year, as I have in some form every year since 2015; and I’ve never seen so many children’s names read. For context, the names are of the people murdered in transphobic hate crimes in the past year. It used to be a notable tragedy when a 15 year old was driven to suicide and this year we had multiple 14 year olds dead by others’ hands.

Speaker Johnson doesn’t care though. I’m sure he’d say his behavior today was in those children’s best interests, but no the transphobia he is promoting is killing children both by emboldening bigots and by driving them to hopelessness.

I hope someday he has to stand before his victims and a deity and explain himself. I hope he begins acting in a way so as to make it a less unpleasant experience when he gets to that point.

I hope someday he has to stand before his victims and a deity

He won't.

The bad guys are winning. Simple as that.

Any repercussions will have to be earthly. Hope we can make that happen. But at this point I'm gonna go with "probably not", since we just elected a felon and rapist who is now guaranteed to get away with his crimes.
Nex Benedict was murdered, and the state covered it up. There was an immediate attempt by bad actors on the far right (Alex Jones/4chan/etc) to spin a suicide narrative. State coroner is a governor appointed position in Oklahoma. Owasso just had a federal investigation into not just the queer bashing, but serious issues with neglecting children with disabilities and covering up sexual abuse by teachers.

The kid was murdered, it was covered up, and no one seems to care.

This isn’t just ignorant, it’s also a complete waste of taxpayer dollars and good will. Do something that matters, Johnson.

Do you REALLY want him to do something he thinks matters?
- Uh, good point.
Ignorant, a waste of tax money, good will, AND downright malicious.
Do something that matters

I challenge anyone reading this to point out a time Republicans did something that mattered (positively) at any point so far in the 21st century.
You expect better from Trumps little Johnson?
"...it’s also a complete waste of taxpayer dollars and good will. Do something that matters..."

TBF, I'm pretty sure he's choosing to do this so he doesn't have to do something that matters. Bread and circuses minus the bread.

Petty in a very child minded way, like a 10 year old bully. This is the next 4 years. Petty, greedy children ruining everything.

A society with a majority of voters who are petty, greedy, ruining everything.
- Not their fault. Don't hate the non-wealthy ones, pity them.
  
  They're deluded to be that way by the owner's for profit media propaganda and captured public education teaching us all that reveling in ~~greed~~ "rational self-interest" and being a rugged individual instead of a member of a society is the only way to live. You have to think critically (something most aren't taught until college by design) and actively buck that programming to actually see the reality for what it is.
  
  There used to be something called the social contract, but that was set on fire so long ago with the false delusion lie impressed onto us by the owners of one day becoming the millionaires inflicting ourselves on society, many don't even know the term.
If it makes you feel better, everything was already ruined.

The best case scenario was continued crony capitalist dystopic hellscape with the poor's lives being burned up in subservient subsistence to our modern pharoah oligarch class... but you know with identity affirming ribbons and pins and stuff.

Now we get all the oligarch stuff with... concentration camps and death squads and stuff.

Either way, the owners win, they don't care. Their mistresses will always have abortion on tap, their nepo children will always have their identities affirmed, elections are simply for the poors to either inflict supplimental cruelty on other poors or not to give us the illusion of choice and keep us hating one another instead of looking up at our owners.

This country was ruined irreparably in the 1980s, a few Tuesdays ago was just a reminder of that reality.
- "crony capitalism" implies that there's a version of capitalism which doesn't lead to oligarchy.
- It's ruined for them too. The stuff they love is also doomed to fall apart; sooner than they think. Sooner than most people are willing to admit. Good luck to whatever life remains.

This is in direct response to the first openly transgender member of congress being elected. This is a targeted attack against Sarah McBride.

The cruelty is the point.

So unisex bathrooms aren't a thing, aka, normal bathrooms?

Also the dismantling of government agencies begins! First step, OSHA!

PDF Warning: 1-800-321-OSHA (6742) 1 www.osha.gov A Guide to Restroom Access for Transgender Workers

I was in Europe and they had full unisex bathrooms. There were only stalls and the dividers were floor to near 8 feet. And no gaps you could see through on the doors. It was no big deal, everyone just did their thing and left.
- The only place I've experienced this in the US is Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Some of their restrooms are exactly like you describe. Full height stalls (small rooms basically) with a shared sink area. Literally no one I saw has had an issue with it. You just go, wait in line with everyone else, and take a stall when your turn comes. No issue and no confusion. There is no reason this can't be the norm in the US.
- As a german I have never seen this but whichever country is doing that has things figured out.
  
  To be clear we do still have proper stalls, it's just that bathrooms are always gendered unless it's a really small place that only has one toilet in the first place.
- I've been to venues in New England where the formerly gendered restrooms are unisexed with just signs--something along the lines is "unisex with urinals" and "unisex without urinals". Sometimes the change is just for an event, sometimes it's more permanent. It just works.
Also the dismantling of government agencies begins!

That's going to be the thing that really fucks us going forward. If our democracy survives at all, we'll spend a significant amount of time and energy rebuilding what was dismantled. That means less time and energy on general progression.

When Trump won the first time I knew it really meant we were going to see less progress in our lifetimes. Now we're going to see even less.

And it's our own fault. Because we're generally very stupid.

It was black people.

Then it was gay people.

Now it's trans people.

And we voted for this.

America is trash.

No, America is not trash. But the United States recognized the need for guard rails after the bus plunged.
- No, America is not trash.
  
  How much do you know about US history?
- Sorry bud, from here up north, America is trash.
- it never recognized the need for guardrails, but it thinks we never got close, because nobody fucking knows anything.

Petty pathetic and normal for the GOP. Too bad they did not pass a Nazi bathroom ban but I guess to close to home.

What a prat. As a member of Gen X, I'm deeply ashamed. We were supposed to be the first generation not to care about people's gender and sexuality.

We were supposed to be the first generation not to care about people's gender and sexuality.

Many of us got there.

Unfortunately there are some in every generation who ate a bit too much glue in their formative years.
- Hey now, I used to love library paste, and I didn't grow up to be a hateful bigoted asshole. Hateful and an asshole, yes, but not bigoted.
as a member of Gen X, I'm deeply ashamed.

Considering you're Joe Rogan's generation, I can see why.

Perhaps I read too many stories where humans are past this kind of bigotry. I hope so much for such a time—some day. But living amidst the constant hate and bigotry... it hurts so much. It's so very tiring.

Sorry, but us hairless chimps will forever be scared of the other hairless chimps on the other side of the hill.
- Some perhaps. Not all. And not all to the same degree. It's something we can work to move beyond. That ability is also human nature.

Whites only bathrooms within 20 years I bet.

Try more like January 21st.

This is really an awful wasteful thing to do. Especially on a day like that. It's really disturbing how little empathy some people seem to hold. I fucking hate Americans (as an American) :c

Does Mike Johnson have a johnson? How do we even know?

Let the inspections begin (edit: with "him")

Cocksuckers.

Almost all non-gender bathrooms I have ever seen are just single occupent restrooms. Would that be covered under the ban, or would their be more nuance than that?

Single occupant bathrooms should be the norm everywhere. Visiting a country where they do that, after being used to the garbage arrangements we have in the US, was fantastic. It was one item on a list of a thousand that made me think “so this is what it looks like when a society values human dignity more than an extra hundred bucks in a millionaire’s pocket!”

Well I guess 355 days of being able to use the bathroom is a fair compromise

I wonder if there is some sort of health or building code Ms McBride can escalate to. Aren’t workplaces required to have restroom facilities? Maybe OSHA can close the Capitol as unsafe or something. Now that would be some headline

Thought I heard on one if the news segments that there are unisex bathrooms around the building/campus, but I wonder how accessible they would be if they were in session and had a need.
- Good point, they would claim “she could use …., it’s not much more of a walk”, and endlessly bicker over what the threshold for too far is, missing the real point

I'm a trans woman in Europe. Got traumatised by public restrooms in the 1990s way before my transition when one fucking coin-operated bathroom lock on a train station malfunctioned and I almost missed a train until some dude entered. Why the fuck do people use public bathrooms. Scourge on humanity. Especially coin-operated ones. Fuck them. I always hold until I get home, no matter what. Yet, glad our trains have gender neutral bathrooms. And they're free of charge. SEE, AMERICA? TRAINS GOOD.

Meanwhile Boeing lays off hundreds of workers in her constituency.

guarantee he has gigs of transgender porn on his computer. the speaker doth protest too much.

You could ask his son, they monitor each other's porn.

This is just a distraction and rage bait. Sarah McBride herself knows that. Best to ignore it and move on

It’s showmanship for sure, but these policies have real implications

House Speaker Johnson remembers.

House Speaker Johnson announces transgender bathroom ban—on Trans Day of Remembrance