Obama Spins Transgender Bathrooms in Schools; A Majority of Americans Don't Agree

The late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said people are entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts. America is now engaged in a great public debate about who is constitutionally responsible for schools and public safety. The headline reads "bathroom law" but the subject is 10th Amendment state sovereignty. So, facts matter. ~~~~~ Jay Brown, communications director for gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, told The Hill : “There has been incredible growth and visibility of transgender people....When you personally know somebody who is LGBT, you support laws that support LGBT equality. It’s making an enormous difference in fighting for equal rights.” Brown, who is transgender, said HRC 2008 polling showed 8% of Americans knew a transgender person. Now, that figure is at 35%. ~~~~~ NO. There is a critical misrepresentation of the survey facts by Brown and The Hill. The survey polled LIKELY VOTERS, not "all Americans." ~~~~~ All they had to do was read the HRC National Survey of Likely Voters : "Results from a new national survey commissioned by...HRC, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, reveal a significant uptick in the number of Americans who say they personally know or work with someone who is transgender. The data...shows that 35% of likely voters surveyed reported that they personally know or work with a transgender person....37% described the transgender person they knew best as an acquaintance, 33% said that person was a friend, and 17% said they were a co-worker. 9% had a family member who is transgender....knowing a transgender person translates powerfully into positive attitudes. In HRC’s 2015 survey, 66% of those who said they know a transgender person expressed favorable feelings toward them....the number of voters motivated to support critical laws and protections for transgender people is growing fast. Q&A About the Survey Q: How did you conduct this survey? A: This was a national survey of 900 2016 likely voters. It was commissioned by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research using live professional interviewers between March 17 and 24, 2016. 60% of respondents were reached by cell phone. For the full sample, the margin of error was +/-3.27 percentage points at 95% confidence; this margin is greater for subgroups..." ~~~~~ So, Brown and The Hill say 35% of Americans know a transgender person -- 114 million Americans. The HRC survey actually says it is 35% of likely voters -- 40 million Americans. Since there are only about 700,000 transgender people in the US, 40 million seems much more likely and it shows a much smaller pool of Americans who know a transgender. ~~~~~ Transgender people are hard to discuss because they often hide their gender identity. In the 2011 National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force largest-ever US survey of 6,456 transgender or gender non-conforming adults, 12% had never told anyone about their gender identity and 41% said they were “generally not out." And, a 2013 Pew Research LGBT survey, including only 43 transgenders, showed that among LGBT adults, few said they could relate to transgender people : 15% of gay men, 11% of lesbians and 12% of bisexuals said they share “a lot” of common concerns and identity with transgender adults. ~~~~~ Dear readers, The Hill article went on to support Obama's transgender bathroom directive, based on the misleading HRC 35% statement, and quoting Democrat strategist Brad Bannon : "It’s pretty clear there is a solid majority of Americans who want equal protection for trans people. I think [Obama] is trying to push the Republicans on the issue.” Fine, if the pushing is with the facts. One fact is that there is no evidence of a solid US majority that supports Obama's disturbing every US school and 55,000,000 children for 115,000 transgender children (0.2%), who could be accommodated otherwise. The lack of facts and common sense in Obama's directive is astonishing.