You're not exactly strengthening the case for letting your feelings (or anyone else's) influence the issues at hand. If this is what your emotions can wreak upon human syntax, imagine what they could do to the legal code.

This is saddening to hear. (Though since a 60% was always good enough for me at school, it should be good enough for me now.)

Well, "letting men go into women's restrooms" was inescapably what the act imposed—some men, at least. It's hard to look at that from any angle that doesn't cry out to have political hay made from it … or that doesn't imply possible unintended consequences that make the legal remedy worse than the disease.

I don't find fellow conservatives' "risk of assault" argument all that compelling, myself. And for the same reasons, I don't find yours compelling either.

Ah, but there's no public moral consensus here that's remotely comparable to the general sentiment against not running over old ladies (and the pre-existing homicide laws).

The local ordinance did, however, establish a precedent: that it's the government's job to distinguish who belongs in which restroom. In the face of that precedent, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the state legislature then decided to put in its own two cents.

Wouldn't dream of dismissing "people's actual lived experience." However, neither am I required to defer to it, or to assume that it automatically deserves to have any bearing on public policy. If that's obnoxious, so be it.

Our own feelings are all very interesting to each one of us … but part of growing into a functioning adult involves learning about their limited relevance to the world.

In my minor defense, I've never claimed to be a libertarian.

In their defense, a job's a job. (Better them than me.)

Outside of a few chromosomal aberrations, I'd argue with you about the "sex" business. And as for those exceptions, it's proverbial that "hard cases make for bad law" … and shouldn't be relied on to dictate the default handling of such situations.

Since I don't have an unlimited latex-glove budget, I'm inclined to take a patron at his word. But I wouldn't presume to speak for better-heeled proprietors, with more time at their disposal and more reliable palpation techniques.

If it were up to me, as a proprietor, in the first place, then I'm cool with that. If I owned a business, and if one of my patrons were convincing enough not to scare the proverbial horses, then I honestly wouldn't care which restroom he used.

Good point … which is a good reason, among many others, to refrain from having race-specific legal policies. Now, I'm open (on similar grounds) to an argument for eliminating stuff like sex-specific public bathrooms. BUT, if you're going to keep them, then let them rest on a distinction that's rigorous and doesn't…

Then we shouldn't have a problem. Persons of different races exist, as do persons of different sexes. Butcher's anecdotes are an argument for eliminating sex-specific bathrooms … but not for maintaining them and pretending that there's no rigorous way of distinguishing sex.

I'm saying that "gender" is a cretinous and pointless construct, and that if we're going to distinguish between occupants of differing restrooms in the first place, then only distinctions of sex are rigorous enough to be worth observing.

Wait—are you insinuating that black people don't exist?

I said "sex," not "gender"—the latter term is pointless outside of grammatical contexts. And if enough of the general public becomes fatuous enough to believe that 2+2=5, then saying that 2+2=4 is a point worth bothering to make (whether or not it ought to be).

That'd be for the proprietor of whoever's bathroom it is to decide (wisely or not). But it's certainly not for the state government to decide.

This is a strong argument for doing away with sex-specific bathrooms altogether. But if we're going to have them in the first place, one might as well have the right to insist on their being sex-specific.