Render: Facility control a business right

For the first 70 years of my life, males were required to use the public restrooms or locker rooms labeled “Men” and females were required to use facilities labeled “Women.”

Most people seemed to be content to take care of their business in the designated bathrooms.

Rube Render

Public restrooms were provided by businesses for the use of their patrons and most other buildings open to the public (courthouses, libraries etc.) also had these facilities. All this was taken for granted.

Recently, the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, decided this practice was, if not barbaric, at least archaic, and discriminated against transgendered persons. Accordingly, it passed an ordinance that allowed transgendered people to use the public bathroom that corresponded with the gender they claimed rather than use the facility that corresponded to the gender of their birth.

A male who felt like a female could use the women’s bathroom and a female who felt like a man could use the men’s bathroom.

As a result of Charlotte’s ordinance, North Carolina legislators passed a wide-ranging bill that barred transgender people from bathrooms and locker rooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificates. What ensued was startling.

PayPal Holdings Inc. called off plans to open a new operations center in North Carolina that would have provided 400 jobs. It claimed that North Carolina’s law halted anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay and transgender people.

The National Basketball Association hinted it might move its 2017 All-Star Game, scheduled to take place in Charlotte, and the federal government is considering stopping funding for billions of dollars in aid for schools, highways and housing.

The state’s attorney general has also refused to defend the state against a federal lawsuit filed by two transgender individuals and several civil liberties groups.

It strikes me that had the headlines declared that “State Legislature reaffirms centuries-old custom for use of public facilities” rather than screaming “State Legislature passes national embarrassment; new law destroys anti-discrimination protection for gays, lesbians and transgender persons,” things might have been different.

The proprietors of any business have the right to tell any patrons they may smoke or not smoke and they have the right to allow all manner of individuals to utilize their restroom or locker room facilities. Individuals can determine whether or not they wish to patronize the business.

However, a significant number of businesses will probably stop providing restrooms to the public. They will be able to live without the hassle of never-ending lawsuits filed by the never-satisfied victims of perceived discrimination.

Rube Render is the Curry County Republican chairman. Contact him at:

[email protected]