Contact: Peter Wolfgang, Executive Director, Family Institute of Connecticut, 860-548-0066, pwolfgang@ctfamily.org 

HARTFORD, Conn., April 27, 2011 /Standard Newswire/ -- A "Transgender Bill" passed by the Judiciary Committee on April 5 is headed for a vote in the House of Representatives.  This "Bathroom Bill" would extend sexual discrimination laws to people who disagree with the gender they had at birth or disagree with expressing themselves as a single gender and would allow them access to places where they would make other people uncomfortable or worse.

Men in Women's Bathrooms and Showers: This bill would permit men, sexually attracted to women, but disguised as women, to use women's bathrooms, locker rooms and showers in Connecticut.  Unlike homosexuals, many transgendered men are sexually attracted to women. They express their gender identity in a skirt while, at the same time, they are attracted to, date and marry women.  Though definitions are fluid, the transgender community commonly refers to these men as "male lesbians." 

Parents/School Boards Cannot Object to Getting "gender*cked" in the Classroom:  This bill would prevent parents and Boards of Education from regulating any form of gender expression in the classroom, counselor's office, gymnasium, school locker room, etc., by employees or students. Gender expression can take many forms and is based solely on how a person desires to express themselves. One expression is a heterosexual man who chooses to dress as a woman or as a woman and a man at the same time -- not temporarily or as part of a transitional period, but as a permanent expression of self. This expression can include cashmere and chest hair or breasts with a beard.  Unfortunately labeled by transgender activists as "gender*cking" (they substitute * for "u"), this type of expression is included under the umbrella of transgender and would be protected by the proposed law.  See www.firelily.com/gender/resources/defs.html, among others.

Bill Provides an Invitation to Sexual Predators and Other Mischief:  Peter Wolfgang cautioned legislators during his testimony at the public hearing that this law would invite sexual predators (not necessarily transgendered persons) to dress up and enter public bathrooms and locker rooms to abuse and observe women.  Supporters of this bill have said that this simply doesn't happen.  However, in the 4/20/11 edition of The Waterbury Republican, was a plea for more security at a local mall based on an elderly woman's terrifying experience of facing a strange man in the women's bathroom.  Outrageously, the man only left after others came to the woman's aid.  In the future, will elderly women be asked to leave the bathroom instead?  Will people refuse to come to her aid because of uncertainty?  Remember that "gender expression" as used in the proposed law, is so broad it could include men wearing women's clothes,  men's and women's clothing simultaneously, or even a man that wears masculine clothing yet identifies as a woman.  Society's natural and well-founded resistance to men in women's bathrooms and showers will be weakened by this proposed law.