Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Transgender people problem in public bathrooms

This morning I received a notice about a transgender person the article called a "woman" who was pulled from a public restroom at a restaurant & beaten. They wanted me to blame the restaurant employees who stood by.

Hmm. Well, I would never condone the beating of a person. I know that however confused that poor person was, he/she was created in the image of God. Of course, that image did not include gender confusion. The Bible clearly states that "male and female created He them." We do live in a fallen world where our human tendency to choose our own way and to think we are smarter than our Creator has marred us all, myself included as well as that poor person who was confused about what gender he/she was and what bathroom he/she could use. I do not hate that person or wish that person evil. I would not wish to see that person harmed.

But the employees must have been just as confused. What were they to do? Were they to let a person use the women's bathroom whom others obviously recognized as not a woman? If so, how were they to protect the privacy of their other customers who entered that bathroom not expecting to find what they recognized as a man? The other customers did not attack the person in question when that person sought service at the counter. They only attacked that person when that person invaded the privacy of the women's bathroom. They were wrong in attacking her, but I can understand their outrage in finding no privacy in the bathroom of their own gender.

I would not want to say or do anything that would encourage attacking people who conceive of themselves as transgender. Probably I would have cleared my family members out of the bathroom and waited for the offending person to exit. That would have meant giving up our rights to use the bathroom freely, but it would have been preferable to the action that was taken. This incident, however, clearly shows the problems we face as a society when we decide to label ourselves as something other than what God created us to be. We all need the use of public bathrooms, so there is no way we can relabel ourselves without infringing on the rights of others. Yes, I do sympathize with the poor person who was beaten. I also sympathize with the customers who were offended to find what they perceived as a man invading the privacy of the women's bathroom. I also sympathize with the employees who in a split second had to decide whether or not to defend the person who was being beaten. When we leave God's ways behind, we always create confusion, not only for ourselves, but for all those around us.

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