Sometimes I have a hard time sifting through my email and determining what is real and what is not. I’ve received lots of rebates from the IRS, lots of offers to hold on to the fortunes of rich African widows I’ve never met, and lots of offers from lonely housewives. I just assume all of those are fraudulent. But, for some reason, I decided to investigate a strange claim made by a group of angry citizens from Montgomery County, Maryland.

The concerned citizens who contacted me made the odd claim that their county had introduced and passed a new “gender identity” bill. The bill had disturbed many women because it would allow “men” to have open access to women's and girl’s public restrooms, locker rooms and showers by simply stating that they self-identify as (read: feel like) a woman.

The bill, proposed by the Montgomery County Council, alters the state’s existing non-discrimination laws by adding the phrase “gender identity” in order to protect transgendered “persons” and transvestites. One would expect such a proposal from a committee of professors in the so-called social sciences or humanities at a public university. But it is particularly shocking coming from a body of elected officials serving outside the state of Massachusetts.

Opponents of the bill rightly criticize it for this vague definition of gender identity: “An individual’s actual or perceived gender, including a person’s gender-related appearance, expression, image, identity, or behavior, whether or not those gender-related characteristics differ from the characteristics customarily associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.”

Other criticisms include the bill’s failure to exempt religious schools, parochial schools, public schools, and daycare centers in their employment practices. In other words, all of them actually lose their right to make judgments about the appropriateness of hiring transvestites and transsexuals as teachers and caregivers. Perhaps those who fancy themselves to be unicorns or Martians will receive protection from “discrimination” in the near future.

Now that the county council has passed this bill and a county executive has signed it into effect, opponents are seeking the signatures of over 25,000 registered voters – and they must be collected within 90 days of the bill’s signing. This means the group has until February 16 to submit the names to the Montgomery County, Maryland Board of Elections in order to bring this issue up for a vote. Continued...