Daily Herald opinion: The disturbing responses to efforts to accommodate gender differences

This editorial is a consensus opinion of the Daily Herald Editorial Board.

In a disturbing reprise of the too-common vitriol over drag performers, threats of violence have emerged over potential policies acknowledging and accommodating transgender people.

Responding to ugly confrontations at stores in the South, Target decided to pull some of its merchandise ahead of Pride month. One of the items is a swimsuit tailored for a trans woman who has not yet had gender-affirming surgery.

Earlier this spring, Anheuser-Busch InBev had many conservatives foaming at the mouth because it enlisted a trans social media influencer to promote Bud Light.

The nerve of these for-profit companies wanting to appeal to many segments of the population. It's as if they want to make money off more than straight, cis people.

Southern legislators are easy targets for criticism, but we can't hold all Illinois lawmakers up as paragons of tolerance, either. Last month, the state Senate passed an amended version of a House bill to give businesses and public institutions the option (Read that again: the option) to provide multioccupant all-gender bathrooms.

Under the Senate's version, all-gender bathrooms would have to have lockable, floor-to-ceiling stalls, and urinals would not be allowed.

As Capitol News Illinois reported, discussions were jovial during committee debate, with a cliché joke by Andalusia Republican Sen. Neil Anderson about leaving the toilet seat up. But once the bill reached the Senate floor, the tenor changed.

Citing his concerns about when his 10-year-old daughter uses a public restroom, Anderson raised the specter of violence by making a threat himself. "If a guy walks in there, I'm gonna beat the living piss out of him," Anderson said on the Senate floor.

Anderson's comments echo a familiar trope that people who identify as trans really all are grown men seeking to prey on little girls.

That's absurd.

Under the Senate revision, the stalls in a multigender bathroom would eliminate the chance of seeing anyone else's private areas - which, as women certainly know, is how bathroom stalls work even if they don't run floor to ceiling.

Trans people just want to answer the call of nature like everybody else. They want to buy swimsuits like everyone else. And they want to drink beer like everyone else.

Maybe the next generation will realize that and not resort to dog whistles and threats.

And wouldn't that be a relief?