Leftist activists blithely dismiss as bigotry completely legitimate concerns about pro-transgender policies. This includes concerns for the safety of young women who might have to use the restroom with men claiming to be women.
Earlier this summer, for example, the superintendent of Virginia’s Loudoun County schools claimed at a school board meeting that these worries were nothing more than a “red herring” to block progress.
It turns out, however, that a young girl in one of Superintendent Scott Ziegler’s own schools was allegedly attacked and raped by a gender-fluid student — a man who was wearing a skirt and using the girls’ restroom. Instead of acknowledging this assault and admitting that a student had already taken advantage of the bathroom policy, Ziegler and the other school officials tried to cover up the rape. They claimed she was lying and downplayed the crime, even to the girl’s own father, but also to other parents in the school, so they could keep their transgender agenda intact. And — big surprise — the suspect now faces charges of sexually assaulting a second female student just a few months later.
School officials’ response to this attack should shock everyone. Clearly, the educators responsible for the well-being of children don’t care about students’ well-being at all. But the assault itself should not come as a surprise: Hundreds of women have been attacked over the past few years by men identifying as women. And laws that allow men to invade female intimate spaces, where women are supposed to have privacy and safety, make these attacks much more likely.
Back in 2017, the Heritage Foundation documented several of these attacks. Here are just a few:
- In Toronto, a man posed as a transgender woman (“Jessica”) to sexually assault and criminally harass four women—including a deaf woman and a survivor of domestic violence—at two women’s shelters. Previously, he had preyed on other women and girls whose ages ranged from as young as five to as old as 53.
- In Virginia, a man presented as a woman in a long wig and pink shirt to enter a women’s restroom at a mall to take pictures of a five-year-old girl, her mother, and another woman.
- In Washington State, a man used a women’s locker room at a public swimming pool to undress in front of young girls who were changing for swim practice. When staff asked him to leave, the man claimed that “the law has changed and I have a right to be here.”
- In Toronto, two separate occurrences of voyeurism took place on campus after the University of Toronto implemented a policy of gender-neutral bathrooms. In both cases, male students were found using their cell phone cameras to film women showering. These incidents prompted the University of Toronto to revise its new policy.
In each of these cases, there’s a noticeable trend: Women are always the targets. Girls identifying as boys aren’t the ones waltzing into male locker rooms and assaulting or flashing young men. Women are almost always the victims, which means these transgender policies place women at a distinct disadvantage.
Loudoun County’s officials knew this. They pushed their transgender agenda anyway, and two young women were raped as a consequence of their negligence.
These policies must be stopped. They put women at risk in places where they ought to be guaranteed protection. And men like Ziegler are allowing it to happen.
