He fails to appreciate that according to the rules of transgender politics, these policies mean any person could enter any bathroom, changing room, or locker room and freely do and observe what is done in such places. Anyone. There is no criteria—medical, legal, physical, or psychological—anyone must meet to be accepted as officially transgender. It is solely up to the person making the claim, and no one can question him or her about it.

These new bathroom policies, besides increasing government regulations, also require that every woman and girl get used to having men invade.

Our good friends over at NRO presented what they say is a conservative case for opening up public restrooms and locker rooms to either sex. Although written by an incredibly smart man—Josh Gelernter—the article seems to miss the nature of the issue itself, and by some margin.

His lead-off was not surprising: Conservatives should be cool with transgender folks doing what they want because “conservatism is the mind-your-own-business ideology.” He calls to the stand Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, who desires that their legislature not consider a trans-bathroom protection bill because “the last thing we need is more government rules.” Putting aside that this feels more like the desire to avoid a nuclear hot potato masquerading as a principled stand, let’s consider the veracity of this line of thought.

First, both rationales are faulty to a fault. Second, Gelernter ricochets quickly from these into endeavoring to show how inadequate the concerns over gender-free bathroom and locker room policies are. It’s easy when you reduce the whole thing down to “It will let predators in” as the primary concern. This is naïve.

De-Gendering Private Spaces Is a New Government Rule

Let’s address the “mind-your-own-business” part first. That is not conservatism. It’s a muscular libertarianism. Good conservatives are more than comfortable telling people they shouldn’t do certain things, and have been for quite some time.

The faithful conservative resists all kinds of behaviors: being a communist, sexual libertinism, creating broken families, not carrying one’s weight, not taking personal responsibility, etc. It’s not conservatives who sport “Don’t Like Abortion? Don’t Have One” bumper stickers on their cars. Conservatism is more like “Work Hard, Be Responsible, and the Newest Ideas Are Not Usually the Best Ideas.” Conservatives conserve. This means conserving the idea that male and female are not subjective feelings, and when opening and removing their clothes outside the doors of their own homes, the sexes should be segregated.

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