It’s a myth that transgender-inclusive restroom policies enable sexual predators, but Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has said his high school friends would have taken advantage of them to spy on girls.
Johnson made the comment in 2016, after President Barack Obama’s administration issued guidelines to schools on equal treatment of trans students under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a law that bans sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs.
The administration, through the Department of Education and the Department of Justice, advised schools to allow trans students access to the sports teams, restrooms, locker rooms, and other single-sex programs and facilities that comport with their gender identity.
Johnson, then a Louisiana state legislator, was appearing on KEEL, a news-talk radio station in his hometown of Shreveport. Host Robert J. Wright said the administration didn’t define what it means to be transgender, so anyone could claim trans identity. “A 16-year-old boy, according to Barack Obama and the DOJ and the DOE … showers in the girls’ locker,” Wright said.
“That’s exactly right, and that’s the problem,” Johnson said. “These terms are vague, unconstitutionally vague, by the way. Gender identity, no one knows what that means, and even an effort to define it is going, it can cause more problems. So yeah, look, Robert, I went to Captain Shreve High School. I graduated in 1990. My crew, my boys, I mean, look. I can tell you, they would’ve said, ‘Hey, next Thursday is gender identity day, man. You know, we’re going to self-identify as girls, and we’re going to be in be in the other locker room.’ It opens it up to high jinks and all sorts of problems.”
For the record, studies have shown that trans-inclusive policies do not increase the risk of sexual assault or harassment of cisgender girls and women. Indeed, trans people are likely to face assault are harassment when they’re not allowed to use the restrooms appropriate for their gender identity.
Recording of Johnson’s comments has been posted online by Meidas Touch and other sites. It’s just one more example of his homophobia and transphobia — and a new example emerges almost every day.
