he hearing room of the Judicial Committee in Annapolis, Maryland, was overflowing with all sorts of unusual looking people hours before the hearing on a bill to add “sexual orientation” to the list of protected categories was to begin. It would be a very long day. After many people had testified giving their various positions on the issue, the Judicial Committee took a break.
Conrae Fortlage and I left the hearing room to “freshen up” in the ladies’ restroom. When it came time to wash our hands, I finished quickly and waited for Conrae inside the bathroom by the door, a few steps away. Conrae lingered slowly, applying lipstick and fiddling with her hair. She seemed to be staring in the mirror for an unusual amount of time. I paid little attention to the person dressed in a purple ladies pants suit with a white blouse standing next to Conrae — or to Conrae’s behavior which was out of character for her, but instead my thoughts were on the testimony I would be giving soon.
As we left the ladies’ room, the door shutting behind us, Conrae began to tell me that the person standing beside her in the bathroom was actually a man. Conrae said she first noticed that the person was unusually tall for a woman, then, while looking in the mirror, she had focused on his unusually large Adam’s apple — and other features normally found in a male. She noticed that the person was wearing a woman’s wig.
There was a strong police presence throughout the building that day, so Conrae and I approached the first officers that we saw, just a short distance from the bathroom. She reported that there was a man in the ladies’ restroom and requested that the officers confront him. The officers said there was no way they could check if it was a man or a woman and went on to say, as far as they knew, that there was no law preventing a man from using a ladies’ bathroom.
Conrae asked the officers if it would be OK for her to use the men’s room if she cut her hair short and wore men’s clothes. It was obvious that the officers had no intention of confronting the man or pursuing the matter. The officers asked us what we expected given the issues of that day. The hearing was about to restart so we rushed to the hearing room.
Conrae and I took our seats in the second row as the hearing resumed. Almost immediately, she was called upon to give her testimony. Conrae was still trying to compose herself from the “bathroom incident” but it was no use. As she began to speak, she deviated from her prepared testimony, instead testifying about the man who dressed in women’s clothes and used the ladies’ room.
“Could I please have a little privacy when I use the bathroom?” Conrae pleaded with the assembled lawmakers. The Chairman of the Judicial Committee questioned Conrae’s ability to know if it was, in fact, a man posing as a woman. “I’m not naïve!” Conrae replied, noticeable agitated. “What if I had my little girl with me?” Conrae continued her protest of the man in the ladies’ room until the short two-three minutes allowed for each person to testify had expired.
This is exactly what we will get (and worse), if Congress passes ENDA (Employment Non-discrimination Act). The Dems have made its passage a goal this year...Read the rest of this article.
