A recent nationwide survey revealed that “60 percent of transgender Americans have avoided using public restrooms for fear of confrontation, saying they have been harassed and assaulted.” The “landmark” survey cites data based on the responses of 27,715 individuals, or an estimated 2 percent of the adult transgender population (which comprises only 0.6 percent of the entire U.S. population).

Reuters refers to transgender people as a “severely understudied group whose experiences and challenges from medicine to law to economics and family relations are poorly understood.” And the National Center for Transgender Equality, the group that conducted the survey, hopes the new data will serve as a basis for researchers and policymakers for years to come.

A survey like this demonstrates the power of the trans-victim class, and it should be a cause of great concern for any American who respects the rule of law.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Here is the problem with these “findings” … There is no proof that these claims are accurate. The study cites alleged encounters and experiences reported by transgender people, without a shred of documented evidence to back them up.

According to the survey, 32 percent of transgender people said they limited the amount they ate and drank at least once in the past year to avoid having to use a public restroom. Eight percent reported that they developed a urinary tract infection, kidney infection, or another “kidney-related problem” because they avoided restrooms.

From Reuters:

The findings by the National Center for Transgender Equality on public restrooms counter the message of mainly conservative politicians and religious leaders that transgender people are the antagonists preying on others. It found that 12 percent of transgender people were verbally harassed in public restrooms within the previous year, 1 percent were physically attacked and 1 percent were sexually assaulted. Nine percent said someone denied them access to a bathroom.

Notice the unmistakably ambiguous language used in the study; what constitutes “assault” or “harassment” in these scenarios? The law clearly defines these terms, but the survey does not. The survey doesn’t “counter” the conservative response to transgender people occupying restrooms that don’t correspond with their birth sex, because it doesn’t actually “find” anything.

Transgender people already receive the same level of protection under the law as their fellow citizens. They have the same legal options as any other victim of discrimination, harassment, or assault. But instead of filing a legal claim, they report their experience to a transgender advocacy group who will apply social pressure to advance their interests, without a shred of proof required. How convenient.

He-said, she-said

“Trans people have been in danger in the bathrooms. These numbers are just astronomically high,” Mara Keisling, director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, told Reuters. “This is what’s really happening in bathrooms. The nonsense of what [North Carolina] Governor [Pat] McCrory was saying is not what’s happening in bathrooms.”

Reuters notes that the survey was conducted before the passage of North Carolina’s House Bill 2, which “prohibits local governments in North Carolina from forcing places of public accommodation to allow people to use restrooms and changing facilities that do not align with their biological sex.” The bill was met with powerful backlash that launched a nationwide civil rights debate over whether transgender people should be considered a protected class.

Here’s the thing about North Carolina’s “nonsense” bathroom bill: There have been not only reports, but documented cases that prove transgender bathrooms pose real threats to public safety. But a group like the National Center for Transgender Equality is able to dismiss actual evidence with anecdotal accounts via “surveys.”

This survey is just the latest example of the Left’s “ends justify the means” approach to public policy. Whether it’s the widely disseminated “1 in 5 women are raped on college campuses” propaganda and falsehood, or the countless hate crime hoaxes and fake trends perpetuated by the agenda-driven mainstream media time and time again, unapologetic liberals are notorious for playing fast and loose with the facts. The Left has had an extremely successful track record of furthering their agenda of victimhood by convincing the public that their claims are above (bigoted) scrutiny.

Sixty percent of transgender people have been “harassed and assaulted” in public restrooms? That’s one heck of a statistic to be throwing around without a shred of proof. And seeing as how literally anything and everything can (and is) deemed an “attack” these days, the onus should be greater than ever for the accusers to provide the unassailable evidence proving such charges.

Strength in victimhood

The trans community will argue that many of these incidents of discrimination, harassment, and assault go unreported due to the fear or shame these victims feel. They have already successfully implemented this argument in the past to carve out special provisions in the workplace and, famously, in public restrooms.

In fact, the National Center for Transgender Equality was behind the LGBT report that was cited as the basis for California’s transgender affirmative action jobs program, which subsidizes restaurants who hire trans employees. These people know what they’re doing.

Consider this excerpt from the new survey’s executive summary:

The findings reveal disturbing patterns of mistreatment and discrimination and startling disparities between transgender people in the survey and the U.S. population when it comes to the most basic elements of life, such as finding a job, having a place to live, accessing medical care, and enjoying the support of family and community.

Replace the word “transgender” in the text above with “black,” “female,” or “Latino,” and you have the Left’s basic argument for identity-driven policies that forcibly “level the playing field” at the expense of true equality, justice, and safety for all. The implied claim is that the legal system doesn’t work for certain groups of people, and the only solution is to overthrow the system and create a new one. In other words, civil rights are great, but special accommodations and government handouts are not only better, but an absolute must. (A right, if you will…)

The conversation surrounding the new transgender survey is not about “equality” or “safety”; it is about subverting the rule of law and creating new policies based on feelings, not facts.

Though small, the trans-victim class is more vocal — via government allies, financial means, and political capital (with a virtual monopoly on all the greatest influencers in mainstream culture these days) — and more armed than ever. It is crucial, then, that public leaders and policymakers recognize the identity-driven agenda of the Left’s “equality” crusaders, and shut down any attempts to bulldoze over the rights of other Americans. (For more from the author of “New Transgender Survey Could Set a Terrible Precedent for Policy Based on Feelings, Not Facts” please click HERE)

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Why do we make our restrooms and locker rooms private? Each of us performs a variety of necessary life functions in front of strangers every day.

We eat in public restaurants, we work in public offices, and as anyone who ever has been stranded in an airport can attest, we even sleep in public. There is no shame or embarrassment in doing such activities in front of complete strangers.

Yet when it comes to activities that involve a measure of undressing, we realize that most people are not comfortable doing them in public—and especially not in the presence of members of the opposite sex.

So as a society, we set apart designated areas—restrooms, locker rooms, showers, changing rooms—for individuals to perform these intimate activities. In other words, private facilities exist because privacy matters.

But according to the federal government and LGBT activists, the primary function of private facilities is not privacy; it is affirmation of a person’s gender identity.

And now the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a related case out of Virginia.

In December 2014, the Gloucester County School Board made what should have been an uncontroversial decision. In response to a request to use the boys’ restrooms from a female high school student who asserts that she is male, the school board adopted a policy stating that the girls’ and boys’ restrooms can be used only by students of the designated sex.

The school board concurrently made several single-stall, unisex restrooms available for anyone, including the self-described transgender student who was uncomfortable using the communal facilities at Gloucester High School.

The board otherwise allowed the student, Gavin Grimm, to live as a male, dress like a male, and use a male name and pronouns. And by offering accommodations, the school district guaranteed that Grimm would be afforded privacy—whether Grimm chose to use the single-stall facilities or the female communal restrooms with others of the female sex.

But Grimm, 17, rejected this solution. Relying upon guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, which for several years quietly had pushed the idea that schools must treat a student consistent with his or her gender identity, Grimm sued the school district.

The suit argues that under federal Title IX and its regulations, the school must affirm Grimm’s male gender identity by allowing use of the boys’ restrooms.

The lawsuit received immediate support from the Education and Justice departments, which ultimately issued the now infamous “Dear Colleague” letter in May 2016. In it, the departments threatened to strip federal funding from any school that does not use its locker rooms, showers, restrooms, and even overnight accommodation on school trips to affirm a student’s gender identity.

The Gloucester school board courageously stood against the full might of the federal government, recognizing that complying with Grimm’s demands would violate the constitutional privacy rights of other students, to whom the board owed a duty of care.

While the school board won in lower court, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision and found that the government’s re-interpretation of Title IX and its regulations should be given deference.

Under this re-interpretation, a law that allows schools to maintain separate locker rooms and restrooms on the basis of sex becomes one that orders schools to open up these facilities to anyone who asserts he or she is of the designated sex.

The school board immediately asked the Supreme Court to review the case.

On Friday, the high court accepted the case, and the implications of its eventual ruling likely will be historic and affect millions of schoolchildren across the country.

Two aspects of the case are noteworthy. First, the Supreme Court previously issued a stay, allowing the school board to maintain its policy that protects student privacy in communal facilities. The stay, which remains in effect, recognizes that there would be irreparable harm if students were suddenly forced to share locker rooms and restrooms with the opposite sex.

Second, the court declined to take up the issue of whether “Auer deference”—the legal doctrine relied upon by the federal government to claim that its nonbinding guidance interpreting Title IX have the force of law—should be overturned. Instead, the court will examine whether the interpretation itself is consistent with Title IX and should be given deference.

As a result, the privacy implications of the federal government’s lawless actions are likely to play a prominent role in the case.

And it is clear that the federal government’s interpretation of Title IX has no foothold in the law, whether one looks to the text of Title IX and its regulations (which authorize schools and colleges to maintain separate dorms, locker rooms, and restrooms on the basis of sex); the law’s legislative history (where concerns over privacy and safety were addressed by allowing sex-specific facilities); or subsequent court decisions interpreting the law (the overwhelming majority of which reject the claim that Title IX extends to gender identity or requires schools to affirm a student’s self-perceived gender).

Indeed, when you research the purpose of Title IX, it is apparent that Congress sought to affirm the equality of women by guaranteeing them equal access to educational opportunities.

One’s sex is irrelevant in the classroom or science lab. Yet by recognizing that sex-specific facilities are permissible when privacy is needed, Congress communicated that women are not disaffirmed as being equal to men nor denied equal educational opportunities by the commonsense recognition of biological differences and the need for privacy that those differences necessitate.

The same is true in the Gloucester County case. The school board has shown incredible compassion and accommodation to Gavin Grimm. Yet Grimm and the federal government are not seeking privacy or equal educational opportunities; Grimm is receiving both. Instead, they are demanding affirmation of Grimm’s decision to identify as a male.

But locker rooms and restrooms are not for affirmation; they are for privacy. And schools should remain free to put the privacy of their students above political agendas. (For more from the author of “Supreme Court Enters Legal Battle Over Gender Identity and the Purpose of Restrooms” please click HERE)

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North Carolina’s legislative body passed a bill mandating a statewide policy banning individuals from using public bathrooms that do not correspond to their biological sex, as opposed to their opinion of their sex.

The law, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, means people must use bathrooms and other public facilities where occupants can be in various stages of undress according to whether their sex chromosomes are XX, in the case of females, or XY, in the case of males.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community claims that the use of biology to determine sex is oppressive and limits alternatives. I agree. I all but argued this in a column earlier this year titled “You Are What You Say You Are.”

Let’s look at some possible benefits of freeing oneself from the oppression of biological determinism.

Say that I am sentenced to a five-year prison term for bank fraud. Though confinement can never be pleasant, I’d find it far more tolerable if I could convince the judge that though biologically I have XY chromosomes, in my opinion I’m really a woman and thus my confinement should be in a female prison with a female cellmate.

For the court to fail to take my sexual opinion into consideration would violate our Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, I could say.

The Atlantic Coast Conference, the entire NCAA, and the NBA have threatened to remove important games and championships from North Carolina because of its law denying bathroom rights to males who feel as if they are females and females who feel as if they’re males.

I am wondering just how consistent they are.

Only a few college basketball players have the skills to make it onto a professional team, but most of these players have skills that exceed most players’ skills in the Women’s National Basketball Association.

What if a college basketball star were to claim to be transgender and go out for the WNBA? Would the self-righteous NBA leaders come out and support him if he were to be refused?

Aside from this gender question is the gross pay discrimination between the NBA and the WNBA.

NBA players such as LeBron James (nearly $23 million) and Carmelo Anthony (also close to $23 million) individually earn twice as much money annually than every single player in the WNBA combined. The WNBA minimum rookie salary is $37,950, and the top salary is $107,000.

I bet that if the NBA and WNBA were to permit transgenderism, salaries in women’s basketball would rise dramatically.

It’s not just basketball that would yield benefits for those with XY chromosomes. What about allowing transgender XY people to box women in the Women’s International Boxing Association?

Then there are the Olympics. The men’s fastest 100-meter speed is 9.58 seconds. The women’s record is 10.49. What about giving XY people a greater chance at winning the gold by permitting them to compete in the women’s event? They could qualify by just swearing that they feel womanish or have gender dysphoria.

President Barack Obama’s defense secretary, Ashton Carter, wants to promote sex equality in the nation’s military. I don’t think he’s serious.

The minimum fitness test requirement for 17- to 21-year-old males is to be able to do 35 pushups, 47 situps, and a 2-mile run in 16 minutes, 36 seconds or less.

A weak male soldier might simply claim that he feels feminine. That would mean he could pass the minimum fitness requirement by meeting the female minimums of 13 pushups, 47 situps, and a 19:42 2-mile run. To boot, he would get to reside in the women’s barracks and enjoy all the privileges attendant thereto.

For most of history, homosexuals were persecuted unfairly. They pleaded, “Get out of my bedroom. What consenting adults do is no one else’s business.”

I share that sentiment, and for the most part, homosexuals have won that objective. Had their early campaign against persecution included a demand that males be permitted to use women’s bathrooms, the persecution they suffered would have continued. (For more from the author of “When Transgender Inclusion Moves From Bathrooms to Basketball Courts” please click HERE)

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