Denton County sheriff candidate Tracy Murphree
This weekend, as Equality Texas was condemning violently anti-trans hate speech from Tracy Murphree, a candidate for sheriff of Denton County, video surfaced online of a male security officer and a female security officer (possibly police officers, the video isn’t clear), accosting a young butch lesbian and throwing her out of a public women’s restroom as her friends videotape the incident while screaming out the officers that their target is female.
Dallas Observer on Friday, April 22, broke news of Murphree’s comments on Facebook in which he threatened violence against trans women in public restrooms:
“This whole bathroom thing is craziness I have never seen. All I can say is this: If my little girl is in a public women’s restroom and a man, regardless of how he may identify, goes into the bathroom, he will then identify as a John Doe until he wakes up in whatever hospital he may be taken to. Your identity does not trump my little girl’s safety. I identify as an overprotective father that loves his kids and would do anything to protect them.”
The Observer also notes that Murphree, a Republican, is most likely to win the race for sheriff. He faces Libertarian candidate Randy Butler, who by the way, has posted on his Facebook that trans people in bathrooms aren’t the ones molesting children.
Murphree’s post was quickly swamped with support, racking up “likes” and supportive comments. When Amber Dyden Briggle, mother of an 8-year-old transgender son, dared take Murphree to task, she too was attacked by the candidate and his supporters. Murphree responded:
“Maybe I’m a bit jaded after almost 30 years of seeing kids assaulted and sexually abused. Maybe I realize that child molesters will use these new rules to their benefit. Maybe, just maybe I have the same right to advocate for the safety of my kids. I’m angered that when someone says bathrooms should be gender specific, they are made to be a horrible person. Yes, I will be the next sheriff, and I will serve all citizens. I will not sit back and not voice my beliefs and opinions. I will not give in to the political correctness police. I won’t be threatened by those who may call me a bigot or ignorant. I have no issue with transgenders. That’s between them and God. The few transgenders rights do not trump the rights of the many. I will not stand by in political correctness afraid of being labeled and allow a male to enter a bathroom my daughter occupies. I just won’t do it.”
Steve Rudner, Equality Texas’ board chair, said his organization believes, “No Texan should ever have to live in fear of violence because of their gender identity or gender expression,” and that “it is inappropriate and unacceptable for any law enforcement officials to make inflammatory statements that condone violence.”
Meanwhile, last week Instinct Magazine posted video from last December of a butch young lesbian being manhandled out of a public restroom by a male security officer (police officer) because she couldn’t produce any ID to confirm her gender. (The girl looked to be in her mid-to-late teens, maybe 16-17. I have a son who is 16-going-on-17 who has yet to get his driver’s license and who has no ID other than his school ID, which isn’t something he carries around all the time and which doesn’t note his gender anyway). The girl’s friends — one of whom videotaped the encounter — are crowded around telling the male officer — a man in a women’s restroom, by the way — and his female fellow officer that the girl was a girl, and not just a girl but a cis-gender girl, which is the only kind of “girl” that some people are willing to acknowledge as female.
And if that’s not enough to prove to you that bathroom bills lead to discrimination and violence, check out this report below by WXYZ News in Detroit, from last summer, about a woman suing a restaurant after their security pulled her out of the bathroom and kicked her out of the restaurant because they decided she looked like a guy.
