The owners of the Alamo Drafthouse movie chain believe they have come up with a way to allow everyone to use the bathroom of their choice. In a Facebook post this week, the owners explained that they were scrapping traditional bathrooms planned for Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse in favor of a gender-neutral design…. “Instead of taking sides on whether or not sexual predators will be invading the restrooms of our stores or public schools, we’ve been thinking about what an inclusive commercial gender-neutral restroom design might look like so that these challenges are not even part of the dialogue,” Drafthouse founder Tim League explained. “The consensus was that we’d have a room with ‘standing’ toilets (heck, we’re even looking at those all-gender urinals) and individual rooms with sinks, mirrors and trash cans in each room, our ‘seated’ toilet area. I don’t want to have any ‘men’ or ‘women’ signs in the building.”…. A proposed diagram of the bathroom shows a “standing” area with six urinals, and a “seated” area with eight enclosed toilets.
It astonishes me that we’re smack in the midst of the 21st century, confronted with significant and legitimate issues, and collectively freaking out over….wait for it…transgender people using public restrooms. If that isn’t a “WTF??” moment, I don’t know what would qualify. Social conservative culture warriors are in a lather over sexual perverts- “men wearing dresses”- invading women’s restrooms and assaulting defenseless women and children. Another “Great Moment in Fake Solutions to Invented Problems.” It’s become so over the top ridiculous that 11 states are now suing the federal government over the Obama Administration’s edict requiring schools receiving federal funds to allow students to use restrooms corresponding to the gender they identify as.
Yep, the evil, jackbooted thugs, and Liberals who brought us Big Government are now mandating that schools treat all students with dignity and respect. Oh, the humanity…and the injustice of it all.
This “debate” is a fair indication of the degree to which Stupid has infected our public discourse. When the intellectual/moral Lowest Common Denominator is setting the tone and tenor of our collective conversation, this is about the best that could be expected.
Thankfully, there are numerous businesses and institutions who believe in treating ALL humanoids with respect and dignity- no qualifiers, no artificial dividing lines, no exceptions. Kudos to Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse for taking a step that sends the clear and unmistakable message that people are people…and we all have to pee. Sometimes it’s possible to make a statement and take a stand by taking action instead of diving into the currently poisonous “debate” surrounding this artificial, invented “controversy.”
People are people and deserved to be treated with dignity and respect. What a novel concept, eh?
