usmbguest5318
Gold Member
The major parties fielded as candidates for a seat in the VA House of Delegates Bob Marshall (R), the 73 year-old 25 year incumbent, and Danica Roem (D), the 33 year-old challenger. Roem won.
What's interesting about the two candidates is that Marshall had proposed to severely limited transgender people’s access to public bathrooms. His proposal not only resembled North Carolina’s notorious HB2, but was markedly more draconian in that he sought to punish a trans person who changes the gender on his or her birth certificate by stipulating that what bathroom one uses be determined by the sex listed on their “original birth certificate.” The bill he proposed also requires public school principals to notify a child’s parents within 24 hours if he or she asks to be “recognized or treated as the opposite sex,” to “use a name or pronouns inconsistent with the child’s sex,” or “to use a restroom or changing facility designated for the opposite sex.”
Roem, on the other hand, could not be more opposed to Marshall's proposal, who declared himself Virginia's "chief homophobe." She is the country's first openly transsexual winner/holder of a seat in a state legislature.
What do I take from that victory? I infer that people in conservative-leaning "purple" districts don't really give a damn about what bathroom transsexuals use and that they are, blessedly, not at all fanatical about the matter as are some USMB members and non-members of the citizenry who are like them. It remains to be seen whether people in predominantly "red" districts are, by and large, similarly nonplussed by the matter.
I cannot say whether the VA 13th District's outcome is a bellwether for the tanssexual bathroom issue -- which is to say that making it a "platform plank" is unlikely to abet a conservative's goal of winning an election -- for though VA's 13th District isn't a D.C. suburb and has been, at the state level, historically conservative, it's got a good deal of highly educated and reasonably well informed people (liberal and conservative) in it. Indeed, it's entirely possible that preponderantly more provincial places are comprised of conservatives for whom the "bathroom" issue nat be more galvanizingly beneficial to conservative candidates.
What's interesting about the two candidates is that Marshall had proposed to severely limited transgender people’s access to public bathrooms. His proposal not only resembled North Carolina’s notorious HB2, but was markedly more draconian in that he sought to punish a trans person who changes the gender on his or her birth certificate by stipulating that what bathroom one uses be determined by the sex listed on their “original birth certificate.” The bill he proposed also requires public school principals to notify a child’s parents within 24 hours if he or she asks to be “recognized or treated as the opposite sex,” to “use a name or pronouns inconsistent with the child’s sex,” or “to use a restroom or changing facility designated for the opposite sex.”
Roem, on the other hand, could not be more opposed to Marshall's proposal, who declared himself Virginia's "chief homophobe." She is the country's first openly transsexual winner/holder of a seat in a state legislature.
What do I take from that victory? I infer that people in conservative-leaning "purple" districts don't really give a damn about what bathroom transsexuals use and that they are, blessedly, not at all fanatical about the matter as are some USMB members and non-members of the citizenry who are like them. It remains to be seen whether people in predominantly "red" districts are, by and large, similarly nonplussed by the matter.
I cannot say whether the VA 13th District's outcome is a bellwether for the tanssexual bathroom issue -- which is to say that making it a "platform plank" is unlikely to abet a conservative's goal of winning an election -- for though VA's 13th District isn't a D.C. suburb and has been, at the state level, historically conservative, it's got a good deal of highly educated and reasonably well informed people (liberal and conservative) in it. Indeed, it's entirely possible that preponderantly more provincial places are comprised of conservatives for whom the "bathroom" issue nat be more galvanizingly beneficial to conservative candidates.
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