Safety is paramount in North Carolina

We humans could learn a thing or two from wild critters. Sometimes they eat together and sometimes they take turns. Sometimes a bully comes on scene and chases them all away, and sometimes even the little guy fights back. And sometimes the little guy wins.

Except in North Carolina.

The Tarheel State is, indeed, a leader in being out of the legislative main stream of intellectual thought. In 2012, the state outlawed global warming. This month, it set its sights on transgender people, with a law requiring humans to use public toilet facilities appropriate to the gender listed on their birth certificate.

The Global Warming thing was easy to understand. Ocean front property gets high prices from buyers, and maybe they won’t be so eager if the state is telling them it’s all going to be underwater in a few years. And if they buy anyway, and it becomes submerged, taxpayers will revolt at being asked to replace the rich folks’ sunken abodes; that happened a couple of decades ago when a series of hurricanes reshaped North Carolina beaches.

But the problem with transgender people is a little more difficult to fathom. Supporters of the law claim there is a horde of perverted men waiting for an opportunity to slip into the women’s toilets and molest the daughters. It has not happened yet, but you never know …

But I wonder how, without the requisite birth certificate, anyone would know. Rest Rooms (I often wonder why they are called that, but – another column) mostly are equipped with doors that lock or, if facilities are designed for multiple users, with stalls with lockable doors. Speaking as a man, I know there are many users of the men’s facilities who use the booth even when there is a manly standup station available. I’ve never felt an urge to wonder what a fellow is doing in there, but in light of the immediate discussion I can think of several possibilities.

Comedians and doctors are familiar with so-called “shy kidneys,” an affliction of some men who cannot “go” when someone near them might detect what they are doing, so they use a stall with the aforementioned lockable door.

Or maybe the gent just doesn’t feel capable or energetic enough to stand for the necessary duration.

Or wants to read some email in privacy.

Or, goodness knows, maybe he actually needs to use the enclosed equipment to “get it done.”

Without the birth certificate, how would anyone know?

I suspect I am not the only person who travels intra- and inter-state without my birth certificate. How do I respond to nature’s call as I pass through The Tarheel State?

Maybe it’s a “jobs bill,” intended to provide employment for state officers who will check everyone’s birth certificate at the bathroom door?

I wonder whether those gender-guardian lawmakers have considered the effect of their endeavor on the price of airline tickets when the companies are required to retrofit their jetliners with a signal next to the Fasten Seatbelt sign indicating the plane is over North Carolina. And there will be the cost of paying additional air marshals to check goers’ birth certificates while the sign is lit?

I wonder what special training will be required of those tasked with ensuring the passenger’s carry-on luggage matches that listed on their certificate of origin.

By the way, transgender exists in the wild, though scientists often equate it to endocrine disruption caused by human-made chemicals in the water supply sometimes, for instance, causing boy fish to have ovaries.

In North Carolina, that is illegal.