What’s so conservative about big-government bathroom bans?

We sure wish Gov. Pat McCrory would explain it to us. Only a nanny state bent on meddling in our private lives, after all, could produce such petty tyranny.

McCrory announced this week he would file a friend-of-the-court brief supporting a Virginia school board that denied a transgender high school student access to male bathrooms.

Gavin Grimm sued the Gloucester County School Board in federal court, alleging violations of his 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the law and Title IX, the 1972 law that bans gender discrimination in American public schools.

Grimm, who identifies as male, used the boys’ restroom at his high school until some students and parents complained to the school board. A new policy effectively bans transgender students there from using shared bathrooms and directs them instead to use “alternative private” facilities.

The case is now before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, whose rulings are binding on North Carolina. McCrory opted to file a brief on his own after publicly urging Attorney General Roy Cooper to do so. Cooper, who is McCrory’s presumptive Democratic challenger in the 2016 governor’s race, declined.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson signed on in support of the school board. The U.S. Department of Education and American Civil Liberties Union are backing Grimm.

McCrory cast the issue as a bid for local control of local schools, issuing a news release decrying “mandates being forced on the people by Washington and the Obama administration.”

Invoking the power struggle between local-level government, which is more accountable to the people it serves, and the distant federal bureaucracy is conservative catnip. In this case, however, it’s a shrewd ploy. McCrory’s argument remains ideologically inconsistent.

Government overreach is bad whether it comes from Capitol Hill or City Hall. Local elected officials can trample personal freedom just as easily as the feds. And that’s exactly what’s happening in Virginia.

Gavin Grimm identifies and dresses as a teenage boy. He wants to use the restroom that corresponds with his gender identity and appearance. To us, that’s a personal prerogative that harms no one. It should be left to the individual, not usurped by the county school board.

Critics’ only real hangup seems to be that Grimm’s restroom choice makes some students and parents uncomfortable. That’s no legitimate reason for school officials to interfere.

The Constitution guarantees the exercise of individual rights, not the comfort, endorsement and acceptance of the majority. As is often said in defense of unpopular speech protected by the First Amendment, there is no right to be free from things that offend or disturb us.

Grimm isn’t asking for favoritism or special treatment.

“All I want to do is be a normal child and use the restroom in peace,” Grimm said.

Grimm wants the government to leave him alone. That’s something true defenders of liberty should understand.

Instead, McCrory is spending taxpayer money to support busybody bathroom bouncers.

Gavin Grimm
https://www.yourdailyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/web1_gavin_grimm_june_11.jpgGavin Grimm

A Daily Journal editorial