Gender identity clashes with privacy fears in N.C.

After North Carolina struck down a local ordinance supporting transgender rights, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week banned non-essential state-funded travel there.

Overturning the ordinance (which would have allowed transgender individuals to use the public restroom associated with their gender identity), will have repercussions on tourist dollars, conventions and business investments in the state of North Carolina. Its bigoted state representatives have cost Asheville and the whole state a lot of potential income.

John Penley

A simple solution would be costly, but rather than have to share restrooms, build a third restroom that is gender neutral. They are all over shopping malls. Just build an extra facility to accommodate. That way no one is imposed upon.

Judy Canup

If the creep who filmed TV broadcaster Erin Andrews put on a dress and hung out in the restroom or locker room your daughter used, how would you feel? This is a privacy issue, plain and simple.

A person with gender issues using the restroom for his or her biological equipment is not going to suffer any.

But to change the standing rules would put the privacy and safety of women and girls at risk.

Kenneth Crook

People just don’t understand what it means to be a transgender individual. Transgender people aren’t looking for sex when they use the bathroom. They’re looking to use the bathroom. A transgender woman isn’t a man in a dress, regardless of having male genitalia or not. It’s the same for transgender men. Their sexual identity is in their brain, not their bodies.

Scott Garb