Free Republic

Standing on principle, not to mention common sense, is so rare these days that when someone does it they make headlines. That's because you can quickly be labeled a "bigot" if you oppose a lot of the sludge dumped on us by the secular left, and few can withstand the onslaught. North Carolina's Republican governor, Pat McCrory, is unafraid. On Friday, the Department of Justice sent him a letter warning that North Carolina's House Bill 2, also known as the bathroom bill, violated the Civil Rights Act. The bill, which requires that transgender people use public bathrooms that match their...

The latest salvos in the struggle over whether a law passed during March in North Carolina forces transgender people to use public restrooms that don't correspond with their “gender identity” came on Monday, when Dan Savage tweeted that those who disagree with House Bill 2 should leave jars filled with their urine at Republican Governor Pat McCrory's office. The strategy promoted by the gay activist and columnist drew the immediate attention of Noah Michelson, an editorial director on the liberal Huffington Post website, who called Savage's idea a “brilliantly gross” method of protesting the state's “Anti-LGBT Law.” “If Dan Savage...

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has suspended all city-sponsored travel to North Carolina and Mississippi due to the states’ new transgender laws. Rawlings-Blake made the announcement Tuesday in a letter to city officials, saying she hopes the city’s efforts combined with those of other governments and companies “will push North Carolina and Mississippi” to change. …

NEW YORK (AP) — Consumer backlash is growing against Target's stance on what type of bathrooms its transgender customers and employees can use. Two weeks ago, the Minneapolis-based discounter issued a statement that said customers and employees can use the restroom or fitting room that "corresponds to their gender identity." The move made Target the first major retailer to take such a prominent position on the issue, and won praise from supporters of transgender rights. But Target's position has also sparked criticism on social media. One online petition started by a group called The American Family Association, a conservative Christian...

Target’s stock price and its favorability among shoppers are crashing as the public rebukes the retail giant for ignoring their vigorous protest against mixed-sex changing rooms and bathrooms. The company’s stock was two cents shy of $84 on August 19, when it revealed it would not allow shoppers to use single-sex bathrooms or changing rooms. Instead, all rooms were opened up to anyone claiming to be of either sex. As of 4.00 p.m. Friday, the stock had dropped almost $4.50, down to $79.50. That’s a huge loss of 5 percent in stock value, costing shareholders roughly $2.5 billion in company...

More than 1,000,000 people have signed the boycott pledge against Target, following the secretive decision by executives to open all of their stores’ bathrooms and changing rooms to people of both sexes. “That’s a million families who are going to spread the word about Target, so they may not get those customers back,” or their money, said Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, which has hosted the boycott.

Almost all counterarguments against allowing transgender individuals into sex-segregated spaces focus on the high likelihood of what harm will be caused to girls and women. However, to my knowledge there have been very few if any well-developed cases regarding the ramifications of allowing female transgender individuals into male sex-segregated spaces and what could happen to boys and men. Furthermore, the vast majority of rebuttals to allowing transgenders into sex-segregated spaces have focused almost solely on private areas such as restrooms and locker-rooms without further emphasis on incidents of privately owned, male-only businesses that have been coerced into accepting transgender individuals....

A sign posted in a Target bathroom stall cautioned female customers that men can now use the women’s restroom because of the company’s recent policy. The sign left many people baffled and outraged.The sign was posted in the women’s restroom in a Keizer, Oregon Target. It read: Attention Ladies:Target Corp. has publically announced that Men may now use the Women’s restroom (and vice versa), no questions asked. The sign further implored other customers to “please be cautious” and to “report suspected hidden cameras” and “loitering or peeping individuals.” In addition, it called on parents to “use [their] good judgment about...

The rules of bigotry, according to the left, represent a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of nonsense. This week, we learned that if you don't want your small daughter sharing a restroom with a man who thinks he is a woman, you are a bigot; if you are a woman who is uncomfortable with a man who thinks he is a woman whipping out his male genitalia to urinate in front of you, you are a bigot; if you are a religious person who doesn't want to participate in an activity you consider sinful, you are a bigot. Conversely, if you are...

SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, Pa (CBS) – Some people never give the signs on the bathrooms a second thought, but that’s not the case for transgender students like Evan Petersen, a junior at Springfield Township high school. “I definitely didn’t wanna use women’s bathroom, and I was scared to use the men’s bathroom because I wasn’t out at school yet,” said Peterson. “So I just didn’t go to the bathroom during the whole school day.” “It’s awful it’s a very bad feeling,” said Christine Settino a teacher. “That’s the kind of thing that makes you want to do something and make change.”...

Welcome to life in totalitarian America, where even going to the bathroom and identifying the sex of an adult have now become intensely political acts. Totalitarianism is about the politicization of everything, and once people’s careers can be destroyed by the New Bathroom Order if they publicly object to the once-bizarre idea of men in the ladies’ room–we’re there. Ask the now-unemployed Curt Schilling. Totalitarianism is about using force to gain political goals. You can’t get more coercive than forcing the vast majority of people to endorse the utterly bizarre just to accommodate the allegedly hurt feelings of an almost...

I like the way he focused on the role of law. North Carolina enacted a law, and now "they're paying a big price, and there's a lot of problems." Law wasn't needed, because: "There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate, there has been so little trouble." There was already a social adjustment that accommodated people who needed to be accommodated. Asked whether he would let Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman, use the bathroom of her choice at Trump Tower, he said he would. He added, "There's...

Ted Cruz on Thursday criticized the backlash to North Carolina's transgender bathroom law after Republican presidential rival Donald Trump indicated he opposed the controversial measure. "We have gone off the deep end. This is absurd," Cruz said during an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck, a backer of the GOP White House hopeful's campaign. Beck asked Cruz how he'd argue that his position isn't aimed at targeting transgender people but rather at "the heterosexual pervert" who would try to flout gender-specific bathroom laws. Cruz pointed to his two daughters, ages 5 and 8, arguing that the younger one "knows...

If it concerns sex in any way, you can be sure that our culture will fixate on it and manage to defy common sense with hyperventilating indignation. Same-sex marriage roiled the waters for decades, but now that the Supreme Court has big-footed that question, culture warriors are prowling for new realms of transgression to embrace. So, coming to a bathroom near you — transgenderism. I’m just back from a weekend at Harvard University where unisex bathrooms are the norm. On behalf of womankind, I say: To the Bathroom Barricades! Bathroom injustice has been a feature of the world for a...

The rights of transgender individuals have been in the news in a big way lately and one of the nation's largest retailers is now weighing in. In a post on its website Tuesday, Target reiterated an existing policy: that transgender employees and customers are welcome to use the bathroom or fitting room that corresponds with their gender identity. The post also expressed support for federal legislation protecting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. "Inclusivity is a core belief at Target," the post said. "It's something we celebrate. We stand for equality and equity, and strive to make...

More than 167,000 people have signed a pledge to boycott Target after the retailer said it would welcome transgender customers to use any bathroom or fitting room that matches their gender identity. The boycott pledge was started by the conservative American Family Association (AFA). "Target's policy is exactly how sexual predators get access to their victims," AFA President Tim Wildmon said in an open letter. "This means a man can simply say he 'feels like a woman today' and enter the women's restroom...even if young girls or women are already in there." Wildmon urged people to sign the boycott pledge,...

BOSTON — Former Red Sox pitcher and ESPN baseball analyst Curt Schilling has been fired from his position as an analyst for ESPN following comments he made on social media earlier this week regarding the bills going through several states to require people to use the bathroom of their assigned gender. The bill impacts the transgender community, because many of those individuals prefer to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify.

Donald J. Trump said Thursday that transgender people should be allowed to use whatever bathroom they feel most comfortable with — including at Trump Tower in New York. Dipping into a contentious issue by taking a stand many Republicans oppose, Mr. Trump told a town-hall-style event, hosted by NBC’s “Today” show at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, that when people go to the restroom, they should “use the bathroom they feel is appropriate.” Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, was responding to a question about a bill that North Carolina’s governor signed into law last month that bars individuals in the...

Donald Trump had waded into one of the most bizarre controversies to have roiled American politics, that being whether or not transgendered people should be allowed to use the public bathroom according to the gender they identify with rather the one that biology has assigned them. North Carolina recently passed a law that mandates that people use the bathroom according to which gender is recorded on their birth certificate. The law has caused an uproar in the LBGT community. Some businesses and performance artists have decided to boycott the state, even those who do business and perform in countries that...