Tomorrow Will Be Different

by Sarah McBride

  I had known Karen since my days working for Jack’s 2008 campaign. She had endorsed Markell. Her spouse, Vikki, and I had taken to each other so much that I had started to call her my “campaign mom.”

  Other senators saw that I was crying, but Karen was the one who walked over to comfort me. And as my parents continued their testimony, she sat down next to me and held my hand. I think she knew exactly what was going through my mind. She knew the indignity of having to plead for your most basic rights. As another LGBTQ person, she never had to say that. Her presence and her actions were clear enough.

  When you come out as an advocate to a legislative body, it’s difficult to feel empathy or even sympathy from those you are lobbying. After trying to explain your basic humanity to people over and over and over again, it can make your own government feel entirely foreign to you. And when you look around and see no one like you in the legislature, that foreignness is compounded with a profound sense of loneliness. It’s enough to dissuade even the most dedicated activist from believing that their government is capable of truly seeing them.

  That one, subtle interaction with Karen was enough to demonstrate that my pain was acknowledged and, most of all, understood. I stopped crying. And ever since, that simple gesture has served as a constant reminder of the importance of diverse representation in elected office.

  There’s a saying that goes, “If you’re not at the table, then you’re on the menu.” That helps to explain the substantive need for diverse representation, but Karen’s action reflected its symbolic importance. A government cannot be “of the people, by the people, and for the people” if wide swaths of the people have no seat at the table, if large parts of the country feel like there is literally no one in their government who can understand what they are going through.

  Fortunately, more and more out LGBTQ candidates are being elected to offices, from city council to the U.S. Senate. To this day, though, only one openly transgender person has been elected to and then served in a state legislature. And none have been elected to Congress. Yet.

  As my parents wrapped up their remarks and Mark Purpura, a co-president of Equality Delaware, stepped up to the microphone, you could feel the empathy for my parents in the room. You could see it in the faces of the legislators, even the ones who were going to oppose the bill. In my parents they saw themselves. Unfortunately, empathy is not enough to win everyone over.

  Now standing at the lectern, Mark outlined the legal history and purpose of the bill but spent the majority of his time rebutting the dreaded “bathroom predator” myth.

  In the days leading up to debate in the General Assembly, the Delaware Family Policy Council, Delaware’s chapter of a national anti-LGBTQ group designated by watchdogs as a “hate group,” had released a dramatic online ad. The black-and-white commercial featured a bearded middle-aged man with sunglasses following a young girl into the bathroom at a park. The ad closed with the ominous text “Is this what you want for Delaware? Tell your Delaware legislators to vote NO on Senate Bill Ninety-seven today.”

  The ad would be laughable if it wasn’t so offensive and, sadly, effective. The crux of the objection to our bill was that our nondiscrimination law would allow predators into women’s bathrooms to prey on children. And in the absence of a stronger understanding of trans people and identities, fearmongering and scare tactics fill the void, embedding themselves as rational ideas in the public imagination.

  Anti-equality activists had performed rhetorical acrobatics, saying it was not transgender people they were talking about, but someone “pretending to be transgender.” The scenario—a completely unfounded one—allowed for a shield from accusations of bigotry, but in the public’s mind, the nuance was lost. They just remember “transgender” and “predator.”

  Mark addressed this lie head-on. “That is just categorically false. There is no interpretation of this bill, legally, that would permit that conduct. That conduct is currently criminal and it would remain criminal after the passage of this bill.”

  The Republican leader in the State Senate, Gary Simpson, stood up, clearly prepared to be the defender of the myth. “I have been inundated over the last few days with emails that are just filling up my inbox,” he launched, seeming incredulous that he had to deal with this issue. “And ninety-eight percent of those are women that are afraid that it will permit—or not stop—sexual predators from using those public accommodations.”

  Senator Simpson was referring to emails from supporters of the Delaware Family Policy Council. After the DFPC’s executive director, Nicole Theis, and her supporters had come off as too venomous in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing the week before, they decided to remain quiet during the full Senate debate and allow conservative legislators to carry their water.

  Senator Simpson asked Mark, “How will this bill prevent that from happening? And show me in the bill language where that scenario will not be permitted.”

  “Well, I think the answer is, that language is in the criminal code,” Mark calmly offered back. “The language that prohibits it is in the criminal code. And today if a predator goes into a bathroom and commits a crime, then that is prohibited. And this bill does not change that. This bill does not permit someone to pretend to be of a different gender identity and go into a bathroom and commit a crime.”

  Simpson shot back, “You’re saying the bill does not allow it or does not promote it, but how does it stop it? You said that the bill doesn’t allow someone to dress as a woman just to do that, but it doesn’t stop it?”

  Mark, again, patiently responded, explaining that the nondiscrimination law provides no cover to a person committing a crime. Delaware had passed protections based on sexual orientation a few years ago, but that law didn’t allow or facilitate a man intent on harming a boy in a restroom to do so.

  With the questions taking a nosedive into the bathroom conversation, Senator Henry interrupted by calling Beau Biden’s deputy Patty Dailey Lewis to testify. Patty had testified in front of the legislature before, but never for something as high-profile.

  “First, let me just say that the attorney general does support this bill and that the attorney general would never support any legislation that would put children at harm,” she began.

  After she reiterated some of the points Mark had just made, Senator Simpson leapt back up and challenged her: “It seems logical that if we are telling people that they can go into the opposite-sex bathrooms, that it would be that sexual predators would do so.”

  “It does not permit sexual predators in—” she began responding, when Senator Simpson interrupted her.

  “Well, certainly it doesn’t permit sexual predators, but it allows people who are sexual predators to do it,” he retorted, the first half of his sentence contradicting the second half of his sentence.

  “No, it does not,” Patty shot back. “A sexual predator, regardless of their excuse to be in any room, is not permitted to harm someone. And to take that argument a step further, we have people on the sex-offender registry—not transgender folks, but [nontransgender] folks—on the child-protection registry and the sex-offender registry today that are permitted to go into bathrooms. The same bathrooms with the kind of people they have offended against.”

  Her point highlighted the opportunism of these arguments. For all the talk of sexual predators accessing restrooms, these senators were holding transgender people’s right to safely access a restroom to a higher standard than the current ability of actual, certified sex offenders to access restrooms.

  Senator Simpson, increasingly argumentative, repeated various versions of the same question. Exasperated, he closed with, “Women don’t want a man in their restroom! This bill allows it!”

  “It allows a transgender person—” she began.

  “Or a man wearing a wig and a skirt,” Simpson interjected, interrupting her again.

  Patty corrected him. “That’s
not a transgender person.”

  Simpson asked how she would prove that. Patty jumped at that question. “We’re talking about the utilization of a restroom, which for most of us will take a mere two to four minutes. If a person goes in and does something that violates the criminal code, that’s different than them needing to use a restroom that’s there.”

  “But does it condone the possibility of a predator saying they are transgender?” Simpson retorted.

  “If you were harassing someone,” Patty tried to explain, “it wouldn’t matter if a female was following the child into the bathroom or a male was doing it. It is not permitted.”

  Not understanding how the crime he was talking about would still be illegal, Simpson again retorted, “And then when you confront the person, that’s his alibi. ‘I perceive myself as a female.’ ”

  Maintaining her composure, Patty tried again to reason with the senator. “But that ‘alibi’ isn’t to the offense, it was to why you were in that room. If it was a female predator going into a female bathroom going after girls or a male predator going into a male bathroom to go after boys, the fact that they are going after a child in and of itself is the offense, it’s not where they were doing it. A teacher who goes after a child in a school can’t say, ‘I’m a teacher so I’m allowed to be here.’ It doesn’t matter that you were allowed to be there.”

  The debate was going in circles, but by now Simpson, either realizing he was beating a dead horse or understanding the absurdity of his points, sat back down and another conservative senator, Colin Bonini, stood up.

  Senator Bonini is an imposing figure and, while younger than most of his colleagues, is as conservative as they come. He is a contrarian through and through. Even when a vote is twenty strong in favor, he’ll be the one dissenting voice.

  Bonini rose from his desk in the back row and, with a raised voice, asked Patty the same questions the other senators had just asked. When she reiterated her responses, his voice raised even higher. “I have never been so offended by testimony. She’s not answering truthfully!”

  An audible gasp went through the chamber as Senator Bonini effectively accused Patty of perjury. Patty Dailey Lewis had spent twenty-eight years defending the interests of children against predators. She was a well-respected attorney, fair-minded and thoughtful.

  A Democratic senator jumped up. “Mr. President,” the senator said, addressing Matt Denn, the presiding officer, “that’s an inappropriate comment.”

  Matt Denn responded from the dais, instructing Bonini to refrain from such language, a rare admonishment of a senator for disrespectful behavior.

  I was fed up by this point. I wanted these senators to say these arguments to my face. I asked Mark and Lisa if I could speak again and they passed a note to Senator Henry: “Call Sarah up.”

  A minute later, I made my way back to the podium, now more angry than nervous. They had insulted Patty. They had figured out every possible way to insinuate that transgender women are men. They had painted basic protections for transgender people as a threat.

  “You heard some of the questions raised today. Would you like to make a comment?” Senator Henry asked me open-endedly.

  As Senator Henry spoke, I again looked up into the gallery at the faces of the transgender people and their families who had come to watch the debate. My heart ached that they had just spent an hour hearing a debate about their dignity and rights devolve into an argument about pedophiles and predators.

  I thanked the senator for the opportunity to come back up, and in a tone probably a bit too heated, I called the arguments logical fallacies. “There are fourteen states and a hundred cities and counties that have public-accommodations laws that allow transgender people to utilize restrooms in accordance with their gender,” I said forcefully. “And there has not been a single documented instance of a transgender person or a person claiming to be transgender going into a restroom or going into a locker room and doing anything that harms people or assaults people.”

  My train of thought was momentarily broken as I noticed Andy make his way into the back of the chamber. The Senate had started discussing our bill a bit earlier than anticipated, and because he was driving up from Washington, Andy had missed most of the debate. Like our first date and that day in the White House, I was immediately struck by how handsome he looked, how suave he seemed as he walked with his hand confidently stuffed in his suit pants’ pocket to one of the open seats next to my parents with a proud smirk on his face.

  I snapped back into the moment, invigorated by Andy’s presence, and continued with my rebuttal. After a long, heated, explicit, and vivid debate, I was nervous that even a senator or two on the Democratic side had potentially been swayed, or at least made more hesitant to vote for our bill. I wanted to use an analogy that would make them fully understand just how absurd these points would be judged by history.

  “These are the exact same arguments that have been utilized in every single battle for basic protections and human dignity. They were used to deny equal rights to gay people. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now.”

  Some might wonder why we put up such a defense over bathrooms on our side. Why not just exclude them from the bill to diminish the opposition? Those questions miss the point that bathrooms are just an excuse. If it were not bathrooms, our opponents would find something else to object to. And clearly they are willing to concoct any kind of scenario, no matter how absurd, to oppose our protections.

  But even if the opposition was rooted entirely in “bathrooms,” that doesn’t change the fact that it is vital that these nondiscrimination protections include restrooms. As the gendered space most frequently accessed by every person, they are particularly dangerous for transgender people. Two years before our debate, an online video had surfaced of a violent attack against a transgender woman after she tried to use a women’s restroom at a Baltimore area McDonald’s. The woman was beaten so severely she appeared to suffer a seizure.

  Unlike the dramatic bathroom scenarios imagined by our opponents, the video of the beating of that transgender woman was a real and vivid assault in a bathroom and representative of an all-too-common experience. One study found that 70 percent of transgender women in one community reported being verbally harassed, denied access, or physically assaulted in a public restroom. And because of that discrimination—and the fear of it—transgender people are often forced to avoid bathrooms altogether, sometimes causing medical issues because we are forced to hold it for so long.

  But it’s also important to remember that when we are talking about trans equality generally and nondiscrimination protections specifically, we’re not just talking about bathrooms. The bill also impacted employment, housing, insurance, and all public spaces, not just restrooms. And with the exception of my initial testimony and my parents’ testimony, the hour-long floor debate had revolved entirely around restrooms. I didn’t want the senators to lose the forest for the trees, so I made sure to highlight some of the discrimination experienced outside of restrooms.

  “Lisa, Mark, and I know someone who was hired for a job at a grocery store. They were given the job, put on the schedule. The moment the employer found out that they were transgender, they were fired.

  “I know a young transgender woman who recently transitioned. She had patronized a restaurant for years, and the moment she came out and she went to that restaurant, they said to her, ‘You can never come back here.’ ” I leaned into the microphone. “ ‘Ever.’ And there is no legal recourse for her in this state. Fourteen states have these laws and there is not one issue. And to suggest that it would happen in Delaware is disingenuous and not based in reality.”

  I headed back to my seat, still seething. I had exchanged tears for anger, and I was worried I had been too hostile.

  “Was that too much?” I whispered to Mark.

  “No, that’s exactly what they needed,” he assured me. “
Plus, I think it’s exactly what those kids in the balcony needed. They needed to see someone like you stand up to that bullshit.”

  The few Republicans who stood up again, including Senator Bonini, now offered far more muted opposition, focusing, instead of on bathrooms, on liability around discrimination claims. Their protests, harsh and forceful before, had turned almost sheepish, their tone resembling that of a recently admonished child.

  The striking change in the tone of the debate underscored for me the centrality of trans voices in these efforts. When transgender people stand up, when our voices are heard, when we confront these myths about bathrooms head-on, we can make the politics of fear and division, of discrimination and misinformation, ineffective.

  After roughly two hours, Senator Henry finally called for a vote. Lisa, Mark, and I sat with pens in our hands and a tally sheet with every senator’s name and boxes for “yes,” “no,” “not voting,” and “absent” next to each of them. We needed eleven votes to pass the bill, which means we needed to hold every senator who told us “yes” prior to the debate.

  Denn instructed the clerk to call the roll. Senator by senator, the clerk called each name.

  “Senator Blevins?”

  “Yes.”

  We began checking the boxes on our tally sheet.

  “Senator Bonini?”

  “No.”

  Then one not voting. Another yes. Another no. Two more yeses. Another not voting. The roll call continued, the yeses and nos alternating with almost each name. Finally, it concluded. I squeezed my mom’s hand and looked expectantly at Mark and Lisa.

  “Mr. President,” the clerk reported, “the roll call on Senate Bill Ninety-seven is eleven yes, seven no, two not voting, one absent.”

  We had done it.

  “Having received its constitutionally required majority vote, Senate Bill Ninety-seven has passed the Senate,” the lieutenant governor announced. As his gavel hit the dais, the gallery erupted in cheers.