Stacey Dash believes that she has a solution to the nationwide conversation about transgender restroom use: Trans people should pee outside.
On Wednesday, the Fox News personality and former Clueless star appeared on Entertainment Tonight to promote her forthcoming book, There Goes My Social Life: From Clueless to Conservative. In the interview with ET's Nischelle Turner, Dash referred to allowing trans people to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity as "tyranny by the minority." She said, "Why do I have to suffer because you can't decide what you wanna be that day?"
Dash further claimed that she supports laws like House Bill 2 in North Carolina, the controversial llaw that effectively forces trans people across the state to use public facilities that do not correspond with their gender identity. She claims that equal access "[infringes] upon" her rights "too much."
Instead of using the women's bathroom and, thus, violating her rights, Dash advised people like Caitlyn Jenner to "go in the bushes."
"I don't know what to tell you, but I'm not gonna put my child's life at risk because you want to change a law," said Dash, who is a mother of two. "So that you can be comfortable with your beliefs -- which means I have to change my beliefs and my rights? No."
Despite Dash's claims, in more than 200 localities across the country that allow trans folks to use the bathroom that most closely corresponds with their gender identity, there's never been a single case of a transgender person attacking someone else. There have also been no reports of a cisgender person pretending to be trans to enter the bathroom of the opposite sex.
At the heart of the 49-year-old actress' opposition to transgender equality is her belief that being transgender is a "choice," akin to getting a new haircut or having one's ear pierced. "It's your body!" Dash told Entertainment Tonight. "So, it's your decision, right? We all make choices."
Dash, who has previously come out against Black History Month and networks like BET, further stated her belief that respecting the gender identity of trans people undermines American values.
"What we're doing is we're chipping away at what it is to be a woman and to be feminine," she said. "And what it is to be a man and be masculine. We're chipping away at that. I wish we could go back to Mad Men days. I love those days. Men were men. And I love them."
Dash blames the feminist movement for this phenomenon, which she feels is undermining basic gender norms by encouraging women to act like men -- and vice versa.
"We are the most powerful creatures on the planet, women," she said. "That's why I hate when [critics] say I don't get this, I don't get that. I'm like, 'Come on! We have the men. We raise the men. So, let's start letting them be men.' Stop trying to be men. Let's be women. And let's let men be men. Let's empower them to be men, because I feel like they're falling away."
These opinions might feel like an extreme outlier in the movement for trans equality, but unfortunately, they are not.
Dash's interview echoes similar sentiments from former presidential candidate Ted Cruz. During his campaign for the Indiana primary in April, the Texas Senator and Tea Party favorite claimed that rather than using the public restroom at all, transgender people should simply "pee at home."