To the editor:
North Carolina's House Bill 2 is intended to make bathrooms safe. The possibility of a male predator dressed as a woman molesting a girl in a bathroom is certainly a worry, but the incident is in no way enabled by transgender bathroom usage. ("How to stamp out the transgender 'bathroom panic,'" Opinion, April 15)
A predator can do that now. Just walk right in—no costume, no deception. If and when he is arrested and prosecuted, it won't be for pretending to be transgender; it will be for a sex crime.
The fear that this will happen over and over again is just ludicrous. And it belittles the trauma that a transgender man or woman feels every day on entering a place where too often, bullying and intimidation make it unsafe.
North Carolinians should think of what other people go through before denying them their freedoms.
James Severtson, Reseda
Note from KBJ: It's really quite simple: No penises in women's bathrooms.
Note 2 from KBJ: I don't have a problem with vaginas in men's bathrooms.
