BECAUSE #DIVERSITY (TRANSGENDER VERSION)!:  Obama’s EEOC has ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964–which prohibits discrimination “based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin”–was violated by the Army when it refused to allow a transgender, male-to-female, civilian employee to use the women’s restroom.

The individual met with Army supervisors and discussed her transition from male-to-female, agreeing to a written plan that would allow him/her to use a single-user restroom rather than the general women’s restroom, at least until the individual had his external male genitalia removed. When he/she found the single-user restroom closed for repairs, he/she decided to use the women’s restroom, triggering understandable discomfort by other women in the office.  He/she then filed a civil rights claim with the EEOC, claiming he/she was being harrased “based on sex” due to a “hostile working environment.

Obama’s EEOC agreed that the Army’s actions constituted discrimination based on sex, even though this individual was still, biologically, a man.  As Ed Whelan at NRO aptly observes:

But the EEOC has now ruled that an employer engages in discrimination on the basis of sex when it treats a man who thinks he’s a woman the same as it treats all other men—by barring all of them from using female restroom facilities.

What’s more, even though Lusardi did not complain about it, the EEOC goes out of its way in a footnote to opine that his employer unlawfully deprived him of the “use of common locker and shower facilities that non-transgender employees could use.” In other words, according to the EEOC majority, it’s unlawful sex discrimination to bar a man who thinks of himself as a woman from sharing locker and shower facilities with women.

There is a lot more of this craziness to come, and it will soon reach a work location near you. According to someone who is very well informed about the EEOC, the EEOC issued the decision because it has filed suits against employers about transgender employees and plans to file more very soon, and it wants its litigators to be able to cite something as legal support for its adventuresome claims.

Whelan is right–ladies had better get used to seeing male genitalia in their restrooms, because diversity! Personally, I would be deeply offended by this happening, prior to the “final” surgery of a male-to-female transsexual–talk about a hostile working environment!

A recent oped in Slate indicates that the progressives have the elimination of separate gender bathrooms on their target list:

But as a straight man, gender-neutral bathrooms matter a lot to me, too—in part because I want the trans community to enjoy the same privileges I do, but also because nothing irks me more than seeing a long line snake out from the women’s room while the men’s room sits vacant, or vice versa. This affront to queuing theory and common sense is never more irksome than when the bathrooms in question serve just one person at a time. In such spaces, the concepts of a “men’s room” and a “women’s room” are completely imaginary; the room belongs to whoever is in it, although that philosophy didn’t impress the two older women waiting for me when I exited “their” one-toilet restroom at a McDonald’s last summer, nor did it stay the manager they’d convinced to escort me Big Mac-lessly to the parking lot.

So there you have it:  It’s all about being “fair” to women, who have longer lines during intermission and the seventh inning stretch.  Right.  And the notion of “men” and “women” (and their respective restrooms) is far from “completely imaginary”– it is basic science.  What are they now, a bunch of science deniers?

Thank you very much for your concern about my waiting time for a private stall, but I’d still prefer waiting in a long line to having to see strange men lined up at a urinal, or worrying that some creepy dude is going to be trying to peep through the gap in the door.  And I know my teenage daughter (and my husband) would feel the same way as I do, so the oped writer’s attempt to dismiss opposition as generational is utterly ignorant.

I remember when, as a kid, my mom used to tell me that she didn’t support ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment because she believed it would result in the elimination of separate men’s and women’s restrooms.  I thought that sounded scary back then, and it still does.  But hey– no need for a constitutional amendment!–we can just pack the EEOC (and federal courts) with progressives and accomplish the same thing.