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Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google Lobby Against Texas 'Bathroom' Bill (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Executives from some of the globe's leading technology firms are demanding that Texas not adopt "discriminatory" bathroom legislation. On the table in Texas is a law similar to one enacted -- and later partially repealed -- in North Carolina. The tech companies have aligned themselves with critics of the bill who believe the legislation is unfair to the transgender community. "As large employers in the state, we are gravely concerned that any such legislation would deeply tarnish Texas' reputation as open and friendly to businesses and families," the companies wrote Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. "Our ability to attract, recruit and retain top talent, encourage new business relocations, expansions and investment, and maintain our economic competitiveness would all be negatively affected." Pending Texas Senate legislation would prohibit transgender people in Texas from using restrooms matching their gender identities. The House on Sunday passed its own bill that would apply the bathroom limitations solely at schools. The tech companies, however, aren't threatening to pull out of Texas, like some did over the same issue in North Carolina. The letter sent to Gov. Abbott was signed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon chief Jeff Wilke, IBM head Ginni Rometty, Microsoft President Brad Smith, and Google's Sundar Pichai. There were 14 companies -- including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Silicon Labs, Celanese Corp., GSD&M, Salesforce, and Gearbox Software -- signing on to the letter. "Discrimination is wrong and it has no place in Texas or anywhere in our country," the companies wrote.

9 of 587 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Go Wherever you want by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can be hurt or killed in the men's room or thrown in jail if you use the ladies and even be registered as a sex offender in states like Arkansas if caught

  2. Re:Public controls public bathrooms by lgw · · Score: 2, Informative

    Straight men dressed as women commit rapes in women's bathrooms. This is more common than men who get sex-change surgery.

    There's no way to allow "trans women, but not male perverts dressed as women" into bathrooms. If you want to keep the sex offenders out, you keep all the men dressed as women out.

    No one is complaining about post-op transsexuals here. It's not about " transgender". It's about a penis in the vagina room.

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    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  3. Re:Who cares about bathrooms? by Solandri · · Score: 3, Informative

    The real issues involve transgender people being perceived as duplicitous and being treated as if they're perverted.

    No, that's the reasoning among those who only consider the scenario which supports their ideological beliefs.

    If you consider all possible scenarios, you realize it's possible for a perverted heterosexual (presumably male, though it'd be sexist to assume so) to go into the bathroom of the opposite gender by pretending to be transgender.

    The resolution for the whole thing points to unisex bathrooms, with a separate partitioned area for urinals, and the stall walls extended to go from floor to ceiling so you can't peek over/under them. That would also settle the arguments about there needing to be more toilets allocated to women because they take more time so the lines are longer at womens' bathrooms. Though I suspect there will be pushback by businesses since walls extending to the floors will increase the amount of janitorial labor needed to clean multi-stall restrooms, and extending walls to the ceiling will require each stall to have its own vent.

  4. Re:Public controls public bathrooms by mi · · Score: 1, Informative

    arrest people under any of the hundreds of other laws that such behavior would violate (assault, indecent exposure

    Neither of these two can be prosecuted pre-emptively.

    loitering in a restroom with intent to commit lewd acts

    It is not "loitering", if the offender follows the victim there. And that "intent" can not be proven until after the assault — there is no reliable mind-reading. With the law on the books, police can book the pervert. Without it, he can not be touched until an assault takes place.

    1.6 gallons is actually plenty of water for flushing a toilet if the toilet is designed correctly and the drain pipes actually slope downwards at a sufficient angle

    Yeah-yeah. And a man can go to a man's problem.

    And trust me when I say

    Nope, not trusting...

    there were plenty of badly designed toilets before 1992

    Maybe. But they were compensating for design flaws with the larger amount of water. But now that option is inexplicably removed — as if we're not in a free country...

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    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  5. Context around the law (from a Texan) by Gizzmonic · · Score: 4, Informative

    As a Texan, I've been reading about this bill for almost a year now. Here's some context around it:

    1) Texas still has some of the most molester-friendly groping laws in the nation (anything short of penetration is a class C misdemeanor, you won't even go to jail for it). This bill does nothing to address it.

    2)The driving force behind the bill is revenge on the federal government for dictating that transgender students can use the restroom of their identified gender (a policy that is strongly supported by local school districts). That's why the bill only applies to government buildings (and a subset of those, at that!).

    3)The bill's author, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (not the sportscaster) got his start as a bargain-bin Rush Limbaugh. He realizes that the "social conservatives" lost the fight against gays, and he's using this to target a smaller, even more vulnerable minority.

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    (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
  6. Re: Who cares about bathrooms? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1, Informative

    No, you're trying to wrap up blind prejudice as sense, but it won't work.

    The law as it stands right now will not prosecute that bloke with a beard over there from using the gents, but will prosecute pervy mc pervpants from creeping over little girls in the ladies. And there might be a problem with pervs, but there isn't a problem with then claiming they're transgender.

    Under your new law a great big bloke with a big beard can wander into the ladies and claim he had to by law since he was born female.

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    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  7. Re:Public controls public bathrooms by silentcoder · · Score: 3, Informative

    So instead you're going to force this dude into the ladies room ?
    http://i216.photobucket.com/al...

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    Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  8. Re: Public controls public bathrooms by silentcoder · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yes, it's been extensively studied. The suicide rate goes down for transgender people who are
    1) Accepted by their family and community
    2) Allowed to transition
    3) With minimal societal discrimination and rejection.

    In fact, it goes down to the normal average for their age groups.
    Furthermore studies consistently reveal that their trans-status has nothing to do with the suicides, does not make them depressed and does not lead to any psychological problems whatsoever.
    Societal RESPONSE (especially from family) to that status can, however, cause severe depression and this is what drives that high suicide rate.

    The science is pretty abundant that they are correct in their identification, that there are more than two sexes and FAR more than two genders and that your gender and sex may not be the same. The science is also pretty abundant that trying to convince them they are wrong (what YOU want therapists to do) will kill a lot more of them, a lot faster.

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    Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  9. Re: Who cares about bathrooms? by goose-incarnated · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, you're trying to wrap up blind prejudice as sense, but it won't work.

    It's a clash of ideologies. The majority of women by a large margin are going to object to men using their bathroom.

    Women didn't get their own bathroom because men were afraid of cooties - they got their own bathroom because they wanted privacy from men.

    They take their tops off in the bathroom. They discuss feminine issues in the bathroom. They occasionally even change clothes in the bathroom. They do not want to do all of this in front of men. They tend to be okay doing it in front of other women, though.

    The are two possible solutions:
    a) Make all bathrooms unisex (good luck getting women to give that up), or
    b) Require that anyone who is obviously male use a male bathroom and anyone who is obviously female use a female bathroom. You have a beard? Go into the mens. You're wearing lipstick and fill out a bra? Go into the womens. You're androgynous? Go into either.

    The "solution" of saying you are what you identify as is stupid. It's better to say "You think you're male/female? You'd better look like one"

    --
    I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.