While I was in Senate Taxation watching business and Republicans maintain their resistance to repealing the food tax, House Judiciary was packed with potty-panickers jumping up and down for House Bill 1296, one of three bills offered by the transphobic community to bully our gender-nonconforming neighbors. HB 1296 sought to force every school district to establish a potty policy for transgender persons, thus allowing the value-paranoiacs to wave their fake news at every local school board meeting.
Luckily, there were even more friends of liberty for all South Dakotans on hand to testify that there’s no reason to push local schools and transgender students around with this kind of legislation. Equality South Dakota issues this statement on the defeat of House Bill 1296:
HB 1296 was killed in House Judiciary this forenoon by a vote of 11–1–1. Equality South Dakota released this statement:
“Today Members of the South Dakota legislature tabled House Bill 1296: a bill that would have required school boards to establish and make available their policy regarding the use of bathrooms and locker rooms by transgender persons.
Here in South Dakota, we are very happy that our legislature has recognized that this type of bill isn’t necessary. In fact, it only stirs up controversy and puts transgender students in a spotlight they don’t want to be in.
Schools and school boards across the state have been working–incredibly successfully–with individual students and their families to implement policies that ensure students are able to access all components of an equitable education. By rejecting this bill, our legislators avoided a potentially chaotic situation, and they are letting trained experts on the ground manage each individual situation as appropriate.”
The only committee member who voted for HB 1296 was Rep. Daniel Kaiser (R-District 3 Aberdeen). Rep. Kevin Jensen (R-District Canton) was excused (not in attendance). Legislators voting to kill HB 1296 were Reps. Hugh Bartels (R-Watertown), Michael Diedrich (R-Rapid City), Shawn Bordeaux (D-Mission), David Lust (R-Rapid City), Kent Peterson (R-Salem), Tim Reed (R-Brookings), Tona Rozum (R-Mitchell), Charles Turbiville (R-Deadwood), Susan Wismer (D-Britton), Timothy Johns (R-Lead), Mike Stevens (R-Yankton).
There was a great lineup of people who testified against HB 1296 that consisted of Wade Pogany, Associated School Boards of SD; Robert Monson, School Administrators of SD; Mitch Richter, SD United School Assn; Diane Miller, Large School Group, Libby Skarin, ACLU-SD; Janae Hansen, National Assn of Social Workers, Nikki Gronli, LEAD; Mary McCorkle, SD Education Assn; Nicole Allen, representing herself from Sioux Falls.
Speaking for the bill were Florence Thompson, SD Parents Involved in Education; Katherine Rice, Citizens for Academic Transparency; Tina Mulally, SD Citizens for Liberty. Some of them seemed to confuse school restrooms with public restrooms.
In their discussion, committee members felt this issue was best left to the local schools and this bill targeted a vulnerable population [Equality South Dakota, press release, 2018.02.12].
The other two potty-panic bills await their first hearing. Senate Bill 160, Phil Jensen and Stace Nelson’s effort to ban instruction in gender identity (which I still maintain will prohibit schools from labeling bathrooms “GIRLS” and “BOYS”) still has no committee hearing. Jensen and Nelson’s SB 202, the bathroom-warning-label bill, goes before Senate State Affairs tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. Equality South Dakota says it doesn’t favor SB 202, but “we are not taking any action to oppose it. We are hoping that it will die of its own stupidity.”
Alas, if mere stupidity were fatal, Governor Daugaard would be making a lot more appointments to legislative vacancies.
I think the percentage of sexual assaults by straight white born biological males is well over 90% of the total. I believe they are the ones who should be strictly limited to only one designated bathroom, preferably far from all the others. Maybe internment camps are in order? I think there is still some available space in the Nevada deserts.
Great idea, Debbo! Imprison all innocent white males for the crimes of total strangers! While we are at it, let’s lock up all the people who believe in god because those dirty old preachers like to touch underage genitals and because much more violence is perpetrated in the name of god than any other cause, including sexual gratification of those dastardly straight white born biological males that you obviously view as the devil.
Hey, Ryan, I think you just made Deb’s point. The potty-panic bills seek to discriminate against and villainize lots of innocent South Dakotans. Your sensitive reaction to Deb’s satirical suggestions shows how much worse our transgender neighbors must feel when faced with the real attacks waged by legislators like Jensen and Nelson.
I’m sure people who are being discriminated against and villainized feel pretty crappy. I don’t think that means the response should be to discriminate against and villainize others. My sensitive reaction to Deb’s satirical suggestion was in itself also satirical, and you have helped make my point, too, Cory.
It seems trendy and acceptable lately to discriminate against white men as a whole because some white men are pieces of crap. I’m sure some people of every other race are also pieces of crap, too. I know for a fact some women are pieces of crap. I think people who try to push stupid legislation like this are probably crappy people, or just dumb people, but I don’t think it’s OK to judge an entire gender or race based on the actions of a few members of that group, do you?
I don’t think it’s OK for anybody to take advantage of anybody else or blame innocent people and victims for a perpetrator’s bad actions. Hopefully most people can agree with that. If everyone sits quiet while people like Debbo discriminate against innocent people, it will never be possible to have actual equality. You can try to justify why it’s OK to discriminate against white men all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s hypocritical and creates a double standard. But that’s what hypocrites actually want, after all. They don’t want equality, they want superiority.
No, Ryan: you and I aren’t being discriminated against. We’re just losing our white male privilege and moving toward a more equitable society. Deal with it.
HB 1296 and its companion bills are overt attacks on the equal status of fellow citizens. No such attack is being waged on white males. Let’s stay focused on the truly aggrieved parties here.
Lighten up, Ryan. What are the chances Debbo’s ideas ever become law? Wasted whitey’s deserve to have discrimination shoved their way for decades and centuries of white privilege.
Happy Valentine’s Day to all, except Grudz. I am not sure about Grudz.
I would happily “deal with it” if “it” was equality. I don’t want anybody treated poorly due to their race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other trait or characteristic that has no bearing on what type of person they actually are on the inside. I support real equality. Some people, like Debbo, pretend to want equality but what they actually want is revenge against a whole gender and race of innocent people for the actions of a small percentage of the group. That is not equality, and if you think that desire for revenge is a positive way for our society to move forward, consider me happy to disagree.
“Losing our white male privilege” is fine with me. You saying that is a silly distraction to make yourself seem progressive. To me, that sounds similar to Neal Tapio saying he is the only true patriot who wants to help wounded veterans (by discriminating against innocent people, by the way). The problem is I see right through your comments, just like you see through his. This is not about white male privilege. This is about stereotyping and discrimination that you feel is OK because it is being offered by your friend. That kind of blind allegiance is one of the big problems in this country. You seem to defend people who discriminate against white men because you think white men deserve it in some way. I’m just suggesting that ideas like that are dangerous to the goal of equality. It’s not OK to treat black women poorly just because they happen to be black and female – and it is equally not OK to suggest that people should treat them poorly. Why is it OK to treat white men poorly, or suggest that they should be treated poorly, just because they happen to have that Y chromosome and skin tone?
I don’t really know how to articulate my last point, but it seems lately like everyone wants to stand up for everyone else because “they didn’t chose to be born as a ___________ (whatever).” I think that’s good – we should all stand up for people if we can. But the difference seems to be that lots of white-haters and men-haters appear to have the idea that white men chose to be white men. We were just born this way, too. I don’t think white men should be blamed for the actions of other white men, just like it’s not fair to blame all black men for the deaths of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.
You can say it’s dumb for me to defend equality because I am a white male, but I think it’s dumb to defend discrimination because the party doing the discrimination happens to NOT be a white male.
You can say it’s dumb for me to defend equality because I am a white male,
Damn right I could, but I didn’t and haven’t done so. What’s the attraction of stacking mass hysteria on a scenario that will never happen? Why torture yerself? Why torture others?
You’ll notice I didn’t blame all whites, just all whitey wingnuts- the phony kristian ones.
(Hey, could everybody do me a favor, go to the Home page, and hit Refresh/Ctrl+R on your browsers? My caching settings have gone ape and folks haven’t been seeing all the new posts I’ve put up since my visit to Pierre Monday and Tuesday. You should see five new posts published this morning. Thanks!)
mike, for pete’s sake. I’m not worried about actual internment camps. I don’t think Debbo’s comments will come to fruition in the real world. I’m not hysteria-stacking. I’m arguing the point of view that led to the comment in the first place. There’s no chance half the ridiculous crap that is discussed on this blog will ever happen, but we still talk about it. It’s discourse. Jeez.
Ryan, my comment was satirical, to make a point. No more, no less. Cory’s first comment is a succinct and accurate explanation of what I was about. You went directly to victim mode and dealt with it by calling me a hater. That’s your issue for you to deal with.
Yup, I get satire. I’m just calling double standard on the current popularity of this kind of satire, which would be called out as ignorant if the race or gender of the characters was different.
If you get satire Ryan, and you understand that it is satire due to the power imbalance, and you know that if women were the privileged gender my comment would have been unacceptable, why do you get so upset about it, call it discrimination and a desire for revenge, etc? What is it for you personally that makes gender issues so hot button?
Ryan, you could say 10 times as much using a tenth of the verbiage you put out there. I cannot follow your train of thought as it appears to meander like an unditched creek.
Or are you being paid by the word count?
Debbo – it’s not that gender issues is a particularly hot button for me. This just happens to be the only topic on which we have both commented recently. I try to call BS on stupid things that I see regarding gender, race, education, religion, politics, and pretty much any other topic. It just so happens that I strongly disagree with everything I have seen you post, which just so happens to mostly be about gender issues. How about this question, Debbo – I have learned through this blog that you work or have worked with women who have been through some rough stuff in life. I think that’s great. Do jokes about spousal abuse, rape, and misogyny make you laugh? Does it make it more or less funny if the person telling the joke is a nice guy who would never actually DO something like that? I’m guessing you don’t find that kind of satire to be amusing. If, however, you have a sense of humor not limited by your life experience, let me know – I’ve got some fantastic jokes for you.
mike – sorry my posts aren’t as short and eloquent as yours. Would it make you happy if I used only the nine or ten words you seem to have in your vocabulary, such as kristian, drumpf, wingnut, whitey, and liberal? You saying the same thing over and over sure adds a lot to the conversation – thanks for all of the thought and effort that must go into your limited-verbiage name-calling posts.
Ryan, you windy, bloviating bag of hot air. Kiss my derriere. When you finally come up with something worth my time to respond in a princely manner, you’ll get both barrels. Until then, keep them word counts up if it makes you feel good.
Ryan, what you say and what you do, don’t match.
[Compare the two preceding responses. I prefer the tone of Debbo’s.
I’ll repeat (I’m sure I’ve said this under other posts): I generally will no discount an argument due to length. I hold myself to no word limits in my posts, despite the voluminous recommendations to bloggers that they keep posts short. DFP is a free-form forum. Anyone who wants to respond with 500 words instead of 50 is free to do so. ]
You are correct, sir, however, a full length comment with geometrically impossible twists and stunts that cause me, at a minimum, 5 migraines, is worth pointing out.
You are correct, sir, however, a full length comment with geometrically impossible twists and stunts that cause me, at a minimum, 5 migraines, is worth pointing out.
I thought I was quite restrained, for mr.
mike – i could care less if you read my comments or not. If you get a migraine from reading more than thirteen words in a row, go see a doctor, you’re probably having a medical emergency. If you can’t follow my train of thought, go read some Cat in the Hat. I refuse to care about your critiques of my writing just because you struggle to form or understand a complete sentence. You being a fan of my writing would be an insult. Stick both barrels where the sun doesn’t shine.
Debbo – you know nothing about me other than what I say on these posts. You have zero experience with “what I do” so forgive me for also not caring about your attempts at criticism. If you have an example of me doing something different than what I say, please share. Otherwise, if you just don’t like when people disagree with you, that’s fine, but you ought to get used to it. You have a lot of opinions that I think a lot of people would find easy to disagree with.
You refuse to care and then prattle on for a week how it doesn’t bother you. Okay.
If iowa libarys ever become the topic du jour @ DFP, I will undoubtedly have something to say about them.
I’m happy you were able to get through two whole paragraphs today – progress is progress, eh?
The website is to blame for the delay, the refresh issue must have had an impact on this thread because I didn’t see the most recent comments until today. I only “prattled on” for about two minutes, despite the numerous unique words in my post.
The library issue is on another thread. That blog post was about anti-transgender type legislation, and your comments were indicating that south dakotans are handicapped in their thought process, so I was just wanting to get your thoughts on handicapped iowans regarding the same topic. It seemed to me to be related/relevant/topical. Sorry if I made your head hurt again.
[Ryan, I’m sorry about that delay! I’ve noticed some weird caching issues kicked in a couple weeks ago (just in time for my trip to Pierre. I hope the new stuff keeps flowing smoothly!]
Cory, I certainly don’t blame you or mind technical issues one bit. I know how it goes. You provide a great resource for current, local news and conversation, and I don’t take it for granted – I didn’t intend that to sound like a complaint, just a defensive position against mike’s jab.
Ryan, I was talking about what you say on these posts. Thats the “what you do” I was referring to because that is all that I know. I’m making no assumptions.
You react sharply to gender issues, especially if something regarding maleness and masculinity is questioned, then deny being upset. You’ve been very consistent about that throughout this thread. That doesn’t match up.
Ryan, blow it ou…… my comment was a friendly poke at Grudz, who pokes fun at iowans because he feels like out of staters have no right to voice their opinions on South Dakota issues.
But, if you want to take it personally, be my guest.
Your comments don’t match up, Debbo. Reacting sharply to issues is not the same as being upset, however I never denied being upset anyway. I mentioned in my previous post, and I stand by the comment, that I call BS on stupid crap that people post regarding all sorts of topics. People being ignorant sexists does bother me. People being racist does bother me. People bother me from time to time on a whole host of issues. Sometimes I sit quietly and let people be bothersome, and sometimes I speak up. Probably just like everyone else.
mike – i made the original comment about the library petition thing as a good-humored poke at iowa because you are often fond of questioning south dakotans on all kinds of issues. I don’t take jokes about south dakotans personally because I very much disagree with a lot of the political and social culture in south dakota, too, I was merely using the topic as a way to show that ignorant humans somehow walk upright all over the world. I also just read that a democrat in Florida is pushing a law to require the display of “In God We Trust” at every single school in Florida. Their reasoning is that school shootings are bad, so people need to be told that God is trustworthy, because those are somehow related in that person’s head. That person is an idiot. If we had a “mike from florida” who posts on this blog daily and picks on south dakota daily, I would have linked that article to him, too. Friendly pokes go both ways.
Ryan, your denials to me and others just aren’t working, but I can see you’re determined to stick with them. Well, that’s your choice. Good luck.
What are you even talking about, Debbo? My denial of what isn’t working to do what? I have explained my position, and your position is different. That doesn’t make me in denial, it just means we disagree.
Friendly pokes go both ways.
No they don’t. Mine are humorous and well thought out.
Others are needlessly cruel and cringe inducing.
Lady Debbo rocks.
Orange City’s little godalmighties are griping about 160 articles out of over 64000 in the library and are seemingly more concerned about LGBTQ info than they were with the teacher with nearly 160 counts of sexual misconduct in the same town.
That can happen when whitey leads with his religion.
Sorry if I was cruel mike. Whitey and his religion is no different than any “POC” and his religion. Glance around the world and tell me whitey is to blame for religious persecution in China, India, the middle east, Africa, Central America, and South America. Light skinned religious nuts aren’t the problem, religious nuts are. You just happen to live closer to white nuts than brown ones.
Whooo-hoo and yay for the “died in committee” part. Pffft on the so-called legislators who spend their time in the legislature worrying about potties etc.