State Sen. Donald Humason used the word “tolerance” last week when explaining why he voted against a bill to expand transgender protections to public restrooms. He told the Gazette that because the measure is based on tolerance, people ought to make room for his minority view on the bill, which passed 33-4.
Humason got the second half of that right, but not the first. The senator has a right to his opinion. “Tolerance” is understood to be a willingness to endure an opinion you disagree with, or behavior you would not engage in. But we think Humason is mistaken to suggest the transgender people this bill would serve need to be tolerated.
You tolerate a neighbor who plays music too loud, or an uncle who calls climate change a hoax. Transgender people deserve respect and acceptance, not grudging tolerance.
Lawmakers in Massachusetts understand this, though others do not. States across the country are falling in line with North Carolina in resisting a federal recommendation that schools provide the same bathroom and locker room access for transgender students that is already law in the Bay State.
As we noted earlier in this space, these policies are partly designed to protect transgender people from harassment and violence in restrooms. A 2013 UCLA Law School survey of 93 transgender people found that 68 percent reported verbal harassment and 9 percent experienced physical assault when trying to use restrooms in the Washington, D.C., area.
To be sure, this issue confounds people. Most go through life never wondering if the bodies they occupy match their true gender. People who found it difficult to talk about sexual orientation don’t know where to begin with the trans experience.
They should know this: The hazardous pursuit of one’s gender identity isn’t a fad. It is a matter of human beings seeking out their true selves. It takes courage, for it subjects people to ostracization and violence. In that search, as with all civil rights, it is up to an enlightened society to show compassion and to remove obstacles. Society should not play its members against each other when a human right is at stake. That was the finding in the landmark 2003 case, Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, that made gay marriage legal in Massachusetts, a stance the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in 2015.
Last week, Humason observed that the transgender bill, which closes gaps in a 2011 law, shifts a right from one group to another. “By expanding a right on one side, we actually impacted a right on the other side,” he said. He is mistaken. No one has a right to stand in the way of a legitimate claim by another to a basic entitlement, such as use of the appropriate restroom.
Fears of predatory behavior by transgendered people are unfounded. In the 200 municipalities and 18 states that already protect transgender access to appropriate restrooms, no increase in violence has been detected, according to a joint statement in April from 200 groups that work with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
Humason tried but failed to amend the bill by delaying its implementation, imposing penalties for improper use of the spaces and limiting the change to restrooms. He said the amendments would have made the bill “more palatable to more people.” That may be true, but with the safety of transgender people at stake, it wasn’t responsible to dilute or delay the measure. As we’re seeing across the country, this debate tests tolerance. Sen. Humason says he wishes more people showed respect for his views after he voted no. Instead, he says he was called a bigot and a “hater.”
“We are asked to be tolerant of transgender individuals, while those same proponents are not at all accepting or tolerant of people who have a different opinion,” he said.
One group that disagrees is the City Council in Easthampton, which is one of the Hampshire County communities, along with Southampton, in Humason’s district. The council voted unanimously this spring to support the transgender bill. District 2 Councilor Jennifer Hayes said Humason’s vote suggests he is the one who is intolerant. “This is a civil rights issue,” she said. When it comes to civil rights, the majority should not decide the rights of the minority. Such oppression, as our nation’s history attests, is intolerable.