Cooper: McCormick may have spoken for many

Henry Seaton, a transgender high school senior, listens during a March Tennessee House subcommittee hearing about a bill seeking to require school children to use restrooms that correspond with the gender on their birth certificates.
Henry Seaton, a transgender high school senior, listens during a March Tennessee House subcommittee hearing about a bill seeking to require school children to use restrooms that correspond with the gender on their birth certificates.

Tennessee House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick may have unintentionally been speaking for legislatures around the country when he used a period of personal orders Tuesday to verbally threaten businesses that would blackmail the state over a transgender bathroom bill with the economic incentives so many of those same businesses crave.

"All these companies who tried to blackmail us over this thing," he said, "when they come for their corporate welfare checks [economic incentives] next year, we need to have a list out and keep an eye on it."

States around the country who consider bills like Tennessee's - that would force students in public schools or colleges to use the bathroom of the gender on their birth certificate rather than the gender with which they currently identify - have been threatened with the loss of business and events if they didn't cater to the less than 0.3 percent of the population who consider themselves transgendered. McCormick, for a vituperative moment, turned the argument around.

The bill in the Volunteer State was removed from consideration for the year by its sponsors Monday.

But McCormick, who said the measure's removal was "the right thing," also was incensed over the timing of a letter from the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce urging local legislators not to support the bill.

It came, he said, while "we have a full-fledged gang war going on in Chattanooga."

Five shootings - several in retaliation for a previous gang-related slaying - occurred over the weekend. Another Monday killed a 17-year-old who was inside his house, and still another wounded a pregnant woman Tuesday.

As of Monday, there had been 33 shootings in 2016, according to police.

"Our Chamber of Commerce is writing us letters about the bathroom bill," McCormick said. "Now the reason they're not all fired up about the city of Chattanooga's handling of the gang problem is because the city of Chattanooga sends them money and funds their budget. And we don't. Guess what? We ain't gonna."

The Chattanooga Republican is smart enough to know the Chamber of Commerce actually is very concerned about the city's gang problem, but he admitted "they got me mad."

Indeed, while the Chamber might have kept its opinion on the bathroom bill to itself in a largely conservative city whose residents were likely in favor of the bill, it is nevertheless leading the battle against gang violence in a way it can - by emphasizing the importance of education and workforce preparation with its Chattanooga 2.0 movement.

The best antidote to a gang-banger, after all, is a good job, but the gang-banger can't take - may not even know to desire - a good job without education and proper training.

So the bathroom bill may be dead for the year, but the issue is not going away. Yet if principals and other college and university administrators stay on top of situations involving the use of bathrooms by individuals whose current gender identity differs from that of their birth, a volatile issue may die down.

It won't go away because both sponsors of the measure and the transgender lobby, which would politicize every issue until 100 percent of the population has bowed to the tiny minority affected, want their way and believe it is correct.

In the offing, perhaps students who are uncertain of their gender identity and school officials could quietly converse and come to an agreement about bathroom facilities.

The students could, for instance, use bathrooms with stall doors, where privacy is ensured, that correspond with their gender identity. Where privacy is not ensured, in locker rooms and showers, though, principals will have to craft a solution that accommodates both the transgendered few and the majority who would be uncomfortable with the situation.

For now, that might mean the transgendered student dresses in a bathroom stall and showers elsewhere; in time, that may mean more walled-off locker areas and showers for transgendered students.

In general, common decency suggests that individuals unsure about their sexuality - especially in secondary schools and universities - not be given carte blanche access to bathrooms that match their present gender identity.

Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery has said the just-pulled bill may violate portions of the Title IX provision of education funding, as presently interpreted by the Obama White House. Sponsors, who like McCormick heard threats of business blackmail, said they want to work out issues about it, which they admit would likely draw a lawsuit if passed now.

But we're sure to see it, or a version of it, again.

Five years ago, the idea of allowing a high school-age person of one gender to shower with a person of another gender because one of them was unsure about their sexuality would have been unthinkable. Now, states are threatened if they don't allow such behavior. But McCormick just may have given those states something to think about.

April shootings map:

Violent attacks since April 17

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