Utah actually passed this law
Source: Utah Launches "Snitch Line" To Report Trans People In Bathrooms; Memes Flood In: The move is the latest in a series of states that have tried to launch ways to report transgender issues to authorities; such attempts in other states have not been successful. Erin Reed, Erin in the Morning, May 2, 2024
On May 1, "the Utah Public Auditor released a form to report transgender individuals encountered in changing rooms and restrooms to state authorities. The form, titled "Alleged Government Violations of Utah Code 63G Chapter 31: Distinctions Based on Sex," is in response to a law enacted earlier this year. This law bans transgender people from using restrooms that match their gender identity in schools, as well as locker rooms and similar facilities in public buildings across the state."
The law "explicitly prohibits transgender individuals from using restrooms that match their gender identity in schools and also bans them from public changing rooms unless they have amended their birth certificates and undergone gender reassignment surgery." This is a problem in part because whether a person can update their birth certificate is up to the state in which they were born.
Reed says:
"In February, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita released a snitch line to report schools. Instead, it received copies of Godzilla holding a trans flag. In March of 2023, the Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey launched a website for reporting gender affirming care clinics. Within a month, the website was taken down after being flooded with the 'Bee Movie' script. In Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin launched a tip line to report 'divisive teaching practices.' That tip line received very few legitimate reports, and instead was flooded by “GenZ for Change” activists. The website was taken down quietly a the end of the year."
Context
Source: Mississippi Passes Bill Allowing Cis People To Sue Over Trans Bathroom Usage: The bathroom ban targets transgender people in colleges. It also contains a private right of action that some have said would allow cisgender people to sue over trans bathroom usage. Erin Reed, Erin in the Morning, May 6, 2024
Reed says: "Utah’s ban targets all government buildings, including the airport, with enforcement depending on allegations of behavior that 'causes affront or alarm.'"
Result
Utah Auditor Slams Legislature For Making Him "Bathroom Monitor" After "Snitch Form" Flooded With Meme Complaints: After receiving thousands of meme submissions to a form used to report transgender people in bathrooms, Utah's auditor shared scathing words for the legislature tasking him with the role. Erin Reed, Erin in the Morning, May 7, 2024
"...the Utah Public Auditor released a form allowing cisgender people to report transgender people in bathrooms. This was done in response to a law passed earlier this year banning transgender people from bathrooms and changing rooms in various circumstances. Within a couple of days, the form was flooded with over 4,000 meme submissions..."
Utah State Auditor John Dougall said the law gave his office "a role we did not request. Indeed, no auditor sets out to become a bathroom monitor."
The situation was pretty bad: "The form included a section where people could upload images, among other things, to support their allegations. This led to fears that the form would encourage members of the public to act as vigilante bathroom police, taking pictures of people they thought were transgender in private bathroom spaces."
Public defender Dustin Parmley had told the Senate Business and Labor Committee that it's "impossible to enforce" who belongs in which bathroom if you rely on the public to know "if someone is feminine or masculine enough" to be in a bathroom and if the qualifying facts for "exceptions" have to do with "someone's surgery or birth certificate" as those facts are, of course, "hidden" from the public.
"Already, the option to submit a picture has been removed" from the Utah form, Reed reports.
"Other attempts to create such forms have similarly failed, such as in Virginia, where Governor Glenn Youngkin's tip line was flooded with complaints about Beowulf, or in Missouri, where scripts for the Bee Movie were sent in."
Read more
In addition to subscribing to Erin Reed...
Check out
Surviving Transphobia. ed. Laura A. Jacobs. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2023.And my article: How the bathroom verification cards would work
No comments:
Post a Comment