Changing Rooms

Fox News Host Smiles Vapidly While Guests Trash Transgender Women

On Fox New this Sunday, anchor Shannon Bream invited ex-Macy’s salesperson Natalie Johnson to explain why she wouldn’ let a transgender woman use the ladies dressing room at the national retailer.

In the segment, Johnson reiterates her position that, because of her religious beliefs, she just couldn’t stand by and let this person try on an outfit—despite the fact that Macy’s policy clearly allowsnatalie-johnson-fox-news trans people to use the dressing room of their choosing.

Bream starts off fairly well, objectively delivering the details of the story without calling the customer “he” or “him.” Until the middle of the interview, that is, when she says, “Were you told if you couldn’t comply with allowing him into the dressing room, you wouldn’t be with company policy, and you’d have to leave?”

Secure that she had a receptive audience, Johnson responds: “Yes, I did disobey the policy, because allowing a man into the women’s fitting room was putting my female customers in jeopardy.”

Wait—Johnson initially said it was her religious beliefs that prevented her from recognizing transgender people. Now she’s pulling the “I was protecting the customers” card?

Ugh.

Johnson had her own cheerleader on the show, Matthew Staver of the Liberty Council, who managed to put some polish on her ill-conceived bigotry: “This is clearly a man, not someone who’s gone through surgery or various kinds of hormones,” he explains. “The only thing is he’s got lipstick on. [Johnson] did not know that the policy would go so far as to literally allow men to go into a women’s fitting room and thus put these women at risk.”

Apparently this changing-room situation is becoming an epidemic at the department store: Today, the Council released a statement  from another Macy’s salesperson—anonymous, of course—dealing with the same crisis.

“Another Macy’s employee has contacted Liberty Counsel and shared about repeated issues with men using the women’s fitting rooms. This individual asked to remain anonymous out of fear of losing her job. The employee said she constantly has to ask men to leave the women’s fitting rooms. In addition, she has been asked numerous times by mothers who have daughters in the fitting rooms to please ask the men to leave the women’s dressing rooms.”

There’s an obvious difference between a horny straight guy sneaking into the changing room to see an inch of flesh and a trans woman who just wants to try on a Donna Karen sweater dress. And anyone with half a brain should be able to make the distinction. If that’s too hard for Johnson and her ilk, though, maybe Macy’s can do what the Gap, Express, H&M and every other store in America does: use unisex changing rooms.

What, do they need a settee to have a fainting spell on or something?

Source: Equality Matters

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