Topic: WorldNetDaily
Elizabeth Vliet -- the WND-fave doc who's tied to the far-right-fringe Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- demonstrates her ignorance about transgenders in an April 12 WND column:
Indecent exposure (males exposing genitals to women in public is the most common occurrence), sexual battery, assault, molestation, sex with minors and rape are all crimes in almost all jurisdictions. It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to see that telling men they can suddenly decide they “feel” like a woman and thereby use women’s bathrooms is a slippery slope to more of all types of these sexual crimes. How does the “feeling” of a gender dysphoric man take priority over the safety of your wife, daughter, girlfriend, mother, sister or friend?
Vliet adds: "Just recently, a Seattle man began undressing at a public swimming pool women’s locker room when a group of young girls were changing for a swim team practice. He was not arrested, as a result of Washington’s new law allowing 'transgender' men to use women’s restrooms. I use quotes around the term transgender because this man had no outward identifying statements or attire to suggest he thought of himself as a woman."
Actually, that was apparently a protest against the gender-equity law-- and since the man "had no outward identifying statements or attire to suggest he thought of himself as a woman," he was in violation of it.
But she's not done. She thinks she's an expert on the subject:
Let’s look at real-life issues. I am a practicing physician with specialty training from the Johns Hopkins Sexual Medicine Consultation team. I have treated people seeking help for many sex and gender issues: gay/lesbian, pedophilia, transvestism, gender dysphoria, voyeurism and serial rapists. At the time transgender patients have undergone surgery to become their new gender, it is then appropriate to use the bathroom facilities for their gender reassignment. Until then, common sense and public safety should require those with male genitalia (regardless of self-perception) use men’s bathrooms, and those with female genitalia should use women’s bathrooms.
Several striking common denominators emerged from many years of treating patients in this area of medicine:
- The unpredictability, and at times uncontrollability, of sexual drives to engage in behaviors potentially harmful physically and/or psychologically to others.
- The complete lack of empathy for the victim shown by sexual predators, whether “mild” predation of voyeurism or the obviously serious and criminal acts of rape and assault.
- We cannot predict who will engage in sexual assault, or when they will do it.
- Statistics show that women and girls are overwhelmingly the victims in such cases of sexual predator actions.
Did the Johns Hopkins Sexual Medicine Consultation team really teach Vliet that homosexuality and transgenderism is equal to being a pedophile or serial rapist, complete with similar psychological pathology, as Vliet suggests? Somehow we doubt it. The Johns Hopkins Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit examines many sexuality-related issues, which it clearly separates by type.
If Vliet actually retained what she learned from the unit, she would not be thinking there's no difference between being transgender and being a serial rapist. But, alas, Vliet's misinformation continues:
Speaking as a physician, separate bathroom and locker facilities for men and women helps provide physical and psychological safety, particularly for women and girls, from those who would do harm by giving into their sudden urge to rape or molest others. While such safety issues may apply to men as well, it is far less probable that a female enters a men’s restroom and starts molesting males, who are typically bigger and stronger and better able to defend themselves.
In fact, exactly zero transgender people have molested people of the opposite biological gender in bathrooms under gender-equity laws.
Vliete closes with the rant: "The election of 2016 is becoming about far more than “politics” as usual: It is about restoring common sense in the public arena, public safety and enforcing laws that are designed to maintain civil order and civility for ALL, not just a favored few in the minority group du jour."
But should we be concerned about civil rights for all and refuse to discriminate against a minority we may not like or understand? Not according to Vliet, apparently.
