Genderless restrooms work way to Chicago? I think they're already here?

It seems we’re in for some pre-emptive political action, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel this week had an ordinance introduced to make it clear that Chicago has no problem with the concept of gender-less restrooms.

As in ones that can be used by either men or women, or those individuals who are confused about what their orientation is.

PERSONALLY, I DON’T see the big deal; except that some people are determined to use “the law” as a way to harass those individuals who aren’t exactly like themselves.

Which is the motivation of states that have gone out of their way to pass laws that would require people who may have changed their gender to use the restroom appropriate to their gender of birth.

So all that Emanuel has in mind in terms of pushing this ordinance that would forbid entities from restricting restroom use based on gender is trying to show that we’re not Mississippi or North Carolina or Georgia.

A fact I’d have thought was already apparent. Or, more importantly for Emanuel, to get someone on his side without first taking his name in vain!

IN FACT, I wonder if when this ordinance comes up for debate we’ll get any of the religiously-inspired hokum about an abomination about to take place, or how our daughters are going to be at risk by being in the same rest room as some pervert man who wants to pretend he’s a woman.

I’d hope that Chicagoans would have enough sense to ignore such nonsense talk. That in fact we’d present a political environment in which people who spout such trash talk would not be made to feel comfortable.

Of course, then they’ll complain they’re the ones being discriminated against because we’re refusing to legitimize their own efforts to write discriminatory behavior into our municipal code.

 

EMANUEL: He wants somebody on his side

They likely will even be the ones who will believe they want to “make America great” by restoring the old days when certain people had to face harassment in their daily lives.

YEAH, FOR ALL I know they’ll wind up being the minority of Chicagoans who will back the Donald Trump presidential aspirations – even though Trump himself has called out as nonsense this very issue.

Perhaps as a big-city type he realizes that people are people, and anyone insistent on preserving older ways of thought are the real problem our society faces.

As I started to say earlier, I really don’t comprehend why this issue has to be controversial – except that some people have the ability to over-complicate everything.

Just the other day when I was at a Jewel supermarket, I happened to walk past the public restrooms when an older man in need of a urinal seemed confused.

HE COULDN’T FIGURE out which of the two rooms he could use. As it turns out, both rooms were built for single occupancy and had doors that locked behind their user. Meaning that either a man or a woman could use either room, depending on need.

Somehow, I think if my neighborhood supermarket (and something as Chicago-oriented as “da Jewels”) is capable of figuring out how to implement a unisex restroom without bringing down society, it ought to be capable of achievement by other entities.

 

SIRICO: The world according to Paulie Walnuts

Let’s hope a level of sense prevails when the City Council’s Human Relations Committee reviews the issue. Then again, presuming that common sense will prevail in the halls of City Hall is always a risky gesture.

We could easily get a level of conversation that devolves down to the level of “The Sopranos,” where actor Tony Sirico’s “Paulie Gualtieri” character told us the essential difference between men’s and women’s restrooms – the former were disgusting while the latter were clean and sterile enough you could eat off the floor.

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What if we're no closer to resolving 'gay marriage' by week's end than now?

There were those people who, while Illinois spent time this spring trying to figure out what to do with the issue of making marriage a legal option for gay couples, gave as their reason for wanting to wait the concept that we should see what the Supreme Court of the United States would do.

For the issue was among the cases that the nation’s high court heard this spring, and is expected to issue a ruling on some time later this week (maybe even as early as Tuesday).

BUT WHEN I learned of the court’s ruling Monday with regards to affirmative action, I couldn’t help but wonder if those people felt a little bit foolish for waiting.

Probably not! Many of those individuals have no factor for feeling shame. Many of them just want to delay the issue – perhaps out of some misguided belief that it will go away if they don’t think about it.

Now what do affirmative action and gay marriage have to do with each other?

It just seems that the high court was desperately trying to avoid doing something that would be seen as definitive in the case involving admissions policies at the University of Texas.

THE CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGUES who want to do away with policies that try to balance out the factors in our society that can hold back certain individuals from achieving their full potential would have loved it if the Supreme Court had upheld a lower court’s ruling that found flaws in the university’s policies.

Instead, the Supreme Court told that lower court to reconsider the way it reviewed the case. The Supreme Court seemed to imply there might be flaws in the lower court’s rejection.

It’s as though the Supreme Court doesn’t want to be the entity that strikes down attempts to restrict affirmative action policies. But they also don’t want to do anything that could be interpreted as giving “aid and comfort” to those policies as well.

Are we going to get another ruling later this week that manages to take the same attitude toward gay marriage?

IF I HAD to put money down on a bet, I’d be willing to say the answer is “Yes.”

Perhaps this case will wind up being thrown back to the individual states to resolve for themselves. Perhaps Illinoisans are going to have to figure out for ourselves what to do with this issue.

Which would mean that all that was accomplished with the failure to pass the bill in the Illinois House of Representatives this spring was that several more months of time were wasted.

And our state managed to lump itself for a few months in with the states of the Old Dixie that probably will take a certain amount of pride in being the final states of the Union to take up the issue.

ILLINOIS CERTAINLY ISN’T going to be at the forefront of this issue.

Now for those people who are going to start citing political strategy at me to defend the failure of the Illinois House to even vote on the bill, don’t bother. I get it.

Having some sort of vote just for the sake of putting people on the record as being opposed might have resulted in an overwhelming defeat that would have given the same “aid and comfort” to those ideologues and their personal hang-ups about our society.

At least this way, there’s still a bill pending in the Illinois House that already has Illinois Senate approval. The whole legislative process doesn’t have to start over.

I SHOULD STATE one thing here. I don’t know for a fact that the Supreme Court of the United States will take this same attitude toward gay marriage. Nobody knows what the high court will ever do until they literally do it.

Way too much of what passes for reporting about appeals courts borders on predictions that are about as legitimate as those funky people who read tarot cards at sleazy carnivals.

All I know for sure is that it is likely that those people who were expecting a definitive direction from the Supreme Court on this issue are likely to be among the disappointed by week’s end.

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