JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny south Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!
RUSH: Right here I have it in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, an editorial listed as opinion in the Charlotte Observer.
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RUSH: No, no. I wasn’t finished talking about that. I was just getting people ready for it. Greetings, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, Open Line Friday, half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair. Charlotte Observer in an editorial. Girls and women just need to get over their fear of the male genitalia in their locker rooms. All of this is silly, they say. This is crazy. Women have this inordinate fear of male genitalia and they ought get past it, ought to get over it in bathrooms and locker rooms.
This is the same publication that probably backed up everything Rolling Stone lied about on “the rape culture” all over campus in this country. “What happens when a biological male who identifies as a female uses the women’s restroom?” Well, for one thing, it’s really weird. Number two, it’s odd, and number three, it’s… (sigh) “The question,” says the Charlotte Observer, “is at the core of a struggle — and a suddenly intense debate — over the rights of transgender individuals.
“That battle transcends what happens in bathrooms, certainly, but the issue has prompted a wave of unnecessary fears and unnecessary laws, including North Carolina’s HB 2. This week, the Obama [Regime] tried to get in front of the clash, first with a Department of Justice lawsuit over HB 2, then on Friday with a letter to US school districts ordering them to acknowledge and accommodate transgender students. The letter doesn’t carry the weight of law, but it does carry a big stick — the implied withholding of federal dollars from school districts that don’t abide by the [Regime]’s guidelines.”
This is not “guidelines.” They are mandates. When school districts are totally dependent on federal money, and that federal money is threatened to be removed if you don’t do what we say with your bathrooms, then what do you think the schools are gonna do? “That threat is sure to bring more heat to the bathroom debate, but eventually the decree should have the opposite effect. It will bring acceptance, as these measures do, by showing that the answer to what happens in bathrooms is a lot less fearsome than the question.”
This is not about what happens in bathrooms, Charlotte Observer, and it’s not about transgenders. That’s why everybody’s so upset. Everybody knows this is just yet another vehicle that extreme liberals are using to undermine and overthrow and transform the founding culture of the United States. That’s what this is. It’s not civil rights. People aren’t going to bat for one-tenth of 1% of the population here from a civil rights standpoint. This is called blowing up centuries of tradition. The same thing with gay marriage.
That’s all this is about. It’s disguised as being a civil rights issue to grease the skids of passage. It’s disguised as a civil rights issue to intimidate people into silencing their opposition to it. It isn’t about transgenders, it isn’t about bathrooms, and it isn’t about… Well, it is about marriage, but it’s about blowing it up. Anyway, back to the Charlotte Observer: “Republicans in North Carolina have made the most of those fears, framing HB 2 as a law that protects the safety and privacy of women and children. Those safety issues are political fiction…”
What’s political fiction is that this has become an issue. What’s political fiction is that all of a sudden a bunch of transgenders are feeling really, really put upon — and really, really discriminated against — over bathroom usage. That’s the manufactured fiction. That’s the created drama. That is the narrative, if you will. That’s the soap opera script for the day, for the week, for the month. All people in North Carolina are doing is reacting to it!
Everybody was minding their own business and there wasn’t one bit of a problem until you guys at the Charlotte Observer came along — and, of course, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Everything was fine until you decided to gum up the works. What do you expect, people just to lay down and accept this stuff? Of course they’re gonna react and they’re gonna act, but we get positioned as somehow these on-the-march, anti-freedom people. We’re minding our own business trying to lead our lives the best we know how, and every day we wake up and find that we’re under assault.
And now it’s bathrooms and we’re told we’re the oddballs and we’re discriminating and we’re this and we’re that? Anyway, the Charlotte Observer. I’ll get to the meat of the… Uh, get to their primary point here. “Republicans in North Carolina have made the most of those fears, framing HB 2 as a law that protects the safety and privacy of women and children. Those safety issues are political fiction. Non-transgender men wouldn’t have been allowed in women’s bathrooms under the Charlotte ordinance that HB 2 killed, and the 200 or so cities with similar ordinances have had no incidents involving bathroom predators.”
You mean there are bathroom predators?
Yeah, we had a story just last week of one.
Everybody knows they’re out there.
Anyway, “[T]hat leaves the issue of privacy and the oft-stated notion of women and girls sharing bathrooms and locker rooms with someone who has different genitalia. It’s an image that’s uncomfortable even for some who are sympathetic to the transgender cause.” Here’s the pull quote: “Yes, the thought of male genitalia in girls’ locker rooms — and vice versa — might be distressing to some. But the battle for equality has always been in part about overcoming discomfort — with blacks sharing facilities, with gays sharing marriage — then realizing that it was not nearly so awful as some people imagined.”
So you young women — you girls and adult women — who are being told every day by people like the Charlotte Observer that you are likely to be raped on any American college campus you choose, are now being told, “Get over your fear of the male genitalia if you happen to spot it in a bathroom. Yes, it might provide some discomfort, but just like African-Americans had to deal with being segregated, you can get over it, too.”
So now women and their fear, in the words of Charlotte Observer, of the male genitalia and being advised, just get over it. Has anybody ever told African-Americans, “Hey, you know what? Slavery? Get over it.” Anybody ever said that? I don’t believe so. I don’t… Has anybody said to African-Americans, “Just get over it?” Did anybody tell… Now, did somebody tell white Southerners at some point back in the 1800s after Civil War, “Just get over it?” Yes, they did.
In this case, women who use the women’s room are being told to get over it if a guy walks in. “Yeah, it can be discomforting. Yeah, but so have a lot of other tough things that we’ve had to overcome in America in the past.” Do you ever ask yourself, folks, why…? See, we always get put on the defensive, and I refuse to go there. I’m not gonna be on the defensive. Do you ask why in the world 99.9% of the population should have to transform, reform, my friend, moderate to one-tenth of 1% of the population?
Do you ever ask yourself why in the world and who in the world decided to pick up an issue that affects one-tenth of 1% of the population and make it a cause celebre and make it a dominating cultural issue and make it an issue that they use to illustrate how, in their minds, America sucks, America discriminates, America’s unfair, America is prejudice, America is biased? Because one-tenth of 1% of the population of men or women who think they’re the other want to use a bathroom of their choice one day?
You ever ask why we have to stop everything we’re doing and turn this into the equivalent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? I ask it that way to illustrate that this is about much more than transgenders and bathrooms and all of that. And the fact that the everyday Drive-By Media left and related organizations has gotten behind this every bit as fervently as they did gay marriage should tell you that it’s about much, much more than what the issue is supposedly about.
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RUSH: Let’s go to Target. This is incredible. “Retail giant Target is losing sales and may be on track for another major stock-drop in the second quarter, analysts say, amid a growing boycott caused by the company’s transgender friendly policies. The company’s second-quarter sales, from April to June, may drop as much as 2 percent compared to the prior year.” That’s according to Target executives.
“The earnings prediction comes a month after the left-leaning company announced April 19 that it would allow men claiming to be women to use the women’s bathrooms and changing rooms at its stores. The decision has sparked a boycott petition effort that garnered over 1.2 million signers in only a week.
“Target executives deny the pro-family consumer boycott is making a significant difference. But, according to TheStreet.com, the business-news website: ‘”We have seen a noticeable slowdown post-Easter,” Target CFO [chief financial officer] Cathy Smith said on a call with reporters. Target’s CEO Brian Cornell, who was also on the call, blamed the slowdown on unfavorable weather trends in the Northeast and volatile economic trends. Cornell also said the company has not seen a “material” impact to its overall business from the protests, but has seen some hit to sales in a “handful” of stores. He declined to quantify the extent of the hit.'”
So between the Obama economy, Amazon, and the fact that Target feels the need to regurgitate their minority political beliefs out loud, instead of just selling what people want, it’s gonna be interesting to see. But this boycott apparently is having a momentous impact on Target.
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RUSH: By the way, I have heard, I can’t remember where I heard it, but I heard a great solution to this bathroom business. It’s a perfect solution, and it will not be adopted. And the fact that it would never be agreed to by the people pushing this issue ought to illustrate exactly what this is about. You know what the solution to it is?
Let’s say that we have a real problem. Let’s construct a hypothetical, that there is a genuine, real, everyday-got-this-country-in-a-hell-of-an-argument problem because there are so many transgender people, so many people born as men who think they’re women and so many people born as women who think they’re men, they’re all over the place out there, and it just doesn’t feel right with members of the opposite sex going in the men’s room or the ladies’ room. And so we, as a compassionate society, want to solve the problem.
Of course none of those circumstances are real. It is not a legitimate, big issue. It’s been totally manufactured. Do you know what I heard? This thing really has its origins in North Carolina, and I heard the main, shall I say, thruster, the organizer or the person that is behind this movement, the bathroom legislation or the bathroom initiative in North Carolina, is a convicted child molester who spent two years in prison. Had you heard that, Snerdley?
Now, apparently the Charlotte Observer knew it. Apparently the Charlotte Observer knew and colluded that the person pushing this whole idea of letting transgender people pick their bathrooms is a convicted child molester who spent two years in prison. He molested young boys while he had a youth pastor type position in a church. And he’s the guy pushing this. And the Charlotte Observer apparently knew and never mentioned it until a bunch of bloggers forced them to, to admit that they knew that’s who was pushing this.
So these catcalls: “You are just racist, bigoted. All of these fears of imaginary things, things that are not happening, you’re standing in the way of equal rights.” Well, no, they are happening, is the point. We know that there are pedophiles out there. They’re all over the place. We know that there are child molesters all over the place. Parents worry themselves sick over it. But somehow we are to be assured, “Oh, no, that won’t happen in the bathroom. What makes you think that?”
Anyway, here’s the solution, and it would never be agreed to. But if it’s a real problem, if it were to be, if it actually is, if it’s a real problem, there’s a simple, simple solution to this. And that is a bathroom with one toilet and one sink and a door that locks. Bingo, problem solved. Transgender person can choose that. We call it a unisex bathroom. We just put a sign on it says “bathroom.” And whoever goes in there, male or female, can lock the door, and nobody can get in, anybody can use it. (interruption) That won’t work? Well, I know. That’s my point.
They’ve tried it and it doesn’t work because it illustrates that that’s not what this is really all about. You see, my whole point, that’s not what this is really all about. And some of the objections, “Well, you need more than one toilet. For crying out loud, we’re talking about public places.” That’s the point. There aren’t that many people we’re really talking about here. It’s one-tenth of 1% of the population, but even so, okay, two rooms, take your pick; but there’s one toilet, and the doors lock.
And then people say, “Well, that’s not going to stop somebody from grabbing somebody and taking them in the bathroom with them.” I know, but I’m trying to come up with a compromise. The notion that idea is rejected ought to tell everybody what’s actually going on here, or at least give everybody some indication.
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RUSH: Here is Dagmar in Bladensburg, Ohio. Great to have you on the program. Hi.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. It’s great to talk with you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I think that these poor students in these schools… I feel for ’em. I pray for ’em every day, because if I were one of those girls in that bathroom, I wouldn’t want some guy dressed as a girl coming into the bathroom. I would feel unsafe.
RUSH: No, no. You’re supposed to get used to it now. You supposed to overcome that. That’s an antiquated notion of discomfort that shouldn’t any longer be a factor in your life. You’re supposed to be able to overcome that. The Charlotte Observer says today: No matter how old you are, get over it.
CALLER: But that’s not the way it is! In reality, they are what —
RUSH: The problem is… That’s exactly it. Dagmar, “the way it is” is what’s wrong. “The way it’s been” is what’s wrong. And “what it is” is gone, and what it should have been all along — and what we’re gonna make it be — is what’s happening.
CALLER: This is the same thing they’ve been doing since fifties: Give ’em an inch and they take a mile. It’s incrementalism, where they start.
RUSH: Now you’re right about that.
CALLER: You know, you’ve gotta have bathrooms for boys and girls, but other bathrooms — ’cause then what they feel comfortable with —
RUSH: It’s exactly right. It never ends.
CALLER: It never ends.
RUSH: There is no end. None of this is ever solved. You’re exactly right. There is no end, and they never go away. Every proposal, every identified “problem” and “solution,” there actually is never a solution.
CALLER: No, because they need more and more control over us, and that’s why they keep doing this. Give ’em an inch and they always take a mile. I’ve been in the Target bathroom in Newark, Ohio. And, yes, there was a man in my bathroom. I saw him walk in as I was getting ready to come out of my stall. I closed the door. I’m thinking… He wasn’t dressed as a woman. He was dressed as a man.
RUSH: Dagmar, let me ask you this. What if you…? In that exact circumstance, what if the guy told you he was having his period and wanted you to get out?
CALLER: I would have said he’s crazy!
RUSH: Well, folks —
CALLER: They don’t have a period!
RUSH: Wait a minute. I did not make that up. I’ve got it right here at Mic.com: “Here’s What It’s Like to Have Your Period When You’re a Trans Man.” It is a story about the trauma of having your period as “a trans man” in the men’s room and somebody walks in and you don’t know what to do.
CALLER: Yeah, they have bathrooms for men and they have bathrooms for women. They also have a family bathroom. Why can’t you just have a bathroom that’s either gender — like you said, where it’s one stall, one sink — if you go in there? I’d feel comfortable in that bathroom.
RUSH: That wouldn’t advance the cause.
CALLER: That’s what this is all about! It’s all about transforming America into something that it wasn’t ever supposed to be. Our Founding Fathers are in their graves spinning with all of these infringements upon our rights.
RUSH: You’ve never read all the transgender references in the Federalist Papers?
CALLER: No, I never have. They’re not there; that’s why I haven’t read them. You know, this is just another big power grab. It’s… Oh, and go with Obama a little —
RUSH: Let me tell you, it’s more than that. Seriously. It’s a power grab; there’s no question. But this has so many elements, psychological elements. It’s got ideological elements, political elements, social, you name it. But inmates are running the asylum in practically every venue in this country. To one degree or another, the inmates running the asylum. Dagmar, thanks for the call. Folks, I was not joking. I was not joking. It’s… What is the name of the website? Actually it’s Mic.com, and here’s the headline:
“Here’s What It’s Like to Have Your Period When You’re a Trans Man.” So it’s like… What they’re asking here is: What if you’re in the men’s room and you get your period? That’s what this article is. “Last month, a new line of period underwear for trans men reminded us that women aren’t the only people who menstruate. Called the ‘boyshort,’ Thinx released the line, which is designed to be gender-neutral, in response to negative feedback about the brand’s female-centric tagline:
“‘Underwear for women with periods.'” So trans men were offended that this company manufactured underwear for women on their period and demanded that they, trans men, be included ’cause they menstruate, too. So that’s how the boyshort came to be. “In the campaign, model Sawyer DeVuyst discussed the reality of living with a menstrual period as a trans man, stating that menstruation is a ‘safety risk.’ ‘You’re in a men’s room and somebody hears you rustling a paper in the stall because you’re changing a tampon — that outs you,’ he said.” I’m reading from the article itself.
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RUSH: There’s another website out there, folks. This is called Everyday Feminism. “My Period and Me: A Trans Guy’s Guide to Menstruation.”
You know, sometime back in the early nineties we got a call from a guy who claimed to be a male lesbian, and we just cracked up. We thought that was the funniest thing, a male lesbian. He started explaining to us what that was. We are so far beyond that now. A male lesbian seems halfway normal.