An open letter to "Moms for Liberty" who can't look at a restroom sign without getting the vapors
Tennessee in 2024, seriously.
There is a kerfuffle in my town. And, of course, it’s not a kerfuffle about the fact that there is no reproductive or sexual health education in our schools. Or about the fact that voting in a church seems acceptable. Or that the churches here assume that we have a state religion AND a national religion. Or that they keep their tax exempt status while dispensing political advice.
Those are real issues with real consequences.
Today’s “issue” of the day regards bathrooms. Again.
But this time it’s not who is trying to USE the bathroom.
The “issue” is a sign.
It’s about this sign that causes you Moms for Liberty and Moms for Liberty supporters to head directly to the fainting couch.
Yes, it’s a sign that looks “different.”
But the sign isn’t exclusionary. It isn’t interactive. It doesn’t leap from the wall and force a child to watch a sex-change operation or text with a trans DJ at a rave in Berlin.
Or, for that matter, be hectored by people who behave like Moms for Liberty.
That’s a sign that says, “come on in, lock the door, and use the toilet.”
That’s all.
Your group is once again doing what you do best: making something utterly normal into an issue of life and death that nobody saw as an issue until you started braying.
You say 90% of the population where we live objects to this sign.
No they don’t. That’s an exaggeration to serve your purposes.
Your main complaint is that you might have to explain to your children or grandchildren that some people in the world don’t conform to your narrow religiously-based world view.
It appears to me that you are afraid to have a simple conversation with a child.
When a child asks about the interesting symbol on the door you could say, “it’s a sign that says anybody can use this bathroom.”
Or if you wanted to live your Christian, follower-of-Jesus life (instead of missing the entire point of being “Christ like”) you could say the following:
“There are some people who aren’t exactly like Adam and Eve but they are people just like you, deserving of a good life, equal rights, acknowledgement, kindness, and God’s love.”
Liberty isn’t what you say it is. And it’s the exact opposite of what you think it is.
The definition of Liberty- the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.
There’s nothing wrong with this sign. It’s welcoming, inclusive and is actually perfectly in keeping with the definition of Liberty.
The bathroom that you are complaining about isn’t even all that easily seen from the majority of the building. It’s a tiny, lockable, single toilet. I used it a few times as a straight cisgender male and found it to be remarkably boring.
There weren’t even any good magazines to read.
Of course, most of the people complaining don’t know this because they don’t even regularly visit the building that houses this bathroom!
Our right-wing talking points local news titled their article “Gender neutral sign scorned in Signal Mountain” instead of “Nervous Nellies interrupt council meeting over nothing.”
They played right into your idle hands.
I assume you have time on your hands?
I assume none of you are working Construction all day in 95 degree heat, or Roofing from Six in the morning until 8 PM. Or cleaning Brow Estate Houses all day.
That means you have time to work on some really important stuff!
That’s great, and I’d welcome Moms for Liberty’s assistance in really protecting young people.
Here are just a few issues that a group concerned with Liberty might want to address:
In Tennessee, your kid can easily get hold of a gun after being bullied in high school and take their own life. And our legislators won’t do a damn thing about that and want to get more guns into the hands of more and more people.
Save the children!
In Tennessee, legislators are perfectly okay with the actual possibility that your daughter can be raped and then forced to deliver a baby.
That same daughter can be experiencing a much wanted and joyful pregnancy that incurs a tragic issue and die waiting for treatment right here in Tennessee in 2024.
This state is rife with attempts to deny liberty from anybody who isn’t a cisgender, white male. It only takes a very small bit of reading papers like the Times Free Press to know this.
Protect young women!
You’re women in Tennessee! Haven’t you watched, or heard of, “The Handmaid’s Tale?” Your own liberty is truly threatened, and not by bathroom signs.
History tells us that when oppression of any group is tolerated, eventually all groups are oppressed.
Even people like you.
You should think very hard about liberty.
You should think about forming another group, one called “Moms for Everybody’s Liberty.”
You’d probably enjoy yourselves while doing good deeds and making other people smile.
And REALLY protecting children.
Give it a shot.
For your own sakes.
Love somebody,
Nathan Bell