Republican Rep. Frank Artiles of Florida with Mitt Romney
LGBT activist, sex columnist and co-founder of the "It Gets Better" campaign, Dan Savage,
has a few ideas for combating a Republican state lawmaker in Florida who wants to jail transgender individuals for using the bathroom.
His name is Rep. Frank Artiles and here's the background:
The Miami Republican’s bill would restrict single-sex public facilities—including restrooms in restaurants, theaters, workplaces, and schools—to people of the corresponding “biological sex, either male or female, at birth.” Violators would be guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail. Asked if such a rule would create problems for transgender women required to use the men’s room, Artiles told BuzzFeed News, “People are not forced to go the restroom. They choose to go to the restroom.”
And here's Savage:
Right-wing assholes keep hammering away about the threat posed by trans people using public toilets. In reality, trans men and women are at higher risk of violent attack, hate crimes, and murder than any other group; trans women of color are at highest risk. …
But if assholes like Artiles want public toilets to be the arena where we debate trans rights—if that's where assholes like Artiles wanna fight this one out—I think trans activists should meet the assholes in their preferred arena: Get a small group of trans activists and their allies together and occupy the public toilets in Representative Artiles's office—even better, get a large group of trans activists their allies together and occupy all of the toilets in Florida's state capitol building.
There's more to that post. My money is on Savage. He's taken down bigger politicians than Artiles. Just ask former Sen.
Rick Santorum.
Good thing Artiles was a Marine. Quick, man the loos, Artiles!