Letter of the Day: Restroom law

Restroom law

EDITOR: In the midst of an international gay rights revolution, an Arizona lawmaker is attempting to pass a bill which restricts transgender people to using the restroom of their birth gender ("Arizona bill ties public restroom use to birth gender," March 21). As I thumbed through articles about this development, I had a few questions:

First, how in the world would this be enforced? The police can't barge into stalls willy-nilly, checking everyone for their parts. Are Arizonians going to have to carry papers around all the time so that this can be regulated? As Masen Davis, executive director for the San Francisco Transgender Law Center says, "No one should have to show their papers to pee."

Second, while the country is moving toward becoming more open-minded, tolerant world citizens, is this not a detriment to our progress? In at least 16 states, discrimination against transgender people is illegal, and we all know that discrimination in general is wrong. Civil Rights, anyone?

Rather than attempting to pass laws that allow the oppression of minority groups, wouldn't such valiant efforts be more useful elsewhere such as, I don't know, health care or education?

JESSICA DO

Santa Rosa