There was a time not that long ago when blacks could not use the same restrooms as whites. Isn’t there a glaring parallel between those Jim Crow laws and today’s efforts to keep transgender people out of the restrooms and locker rooms that meet their gender identities, not to mention legally excluding them from restaurants, malls, etc.? I believe those who are against the public accommodations bills see transgender people as fundamentally different from them and therefore threatening. The good news is that we humans, who come with great variety, are very adaptable, and we learn over time. Jim Crow laws are off the books, and homosexuality and transgenderism are no longer recognized as psychiatric disorders by our health care system. The antidote to fear of difference isn’t apartheid, it’s familiarity.
Letters