During Seven Minute Interview Family Research Council Legal and Policy Issues Director Cannot Bring Himself to Say ‘Women’s Room’ or ‘Men’s Room’
Travis Weber cannot or will not say which public restroom Jennifer Finney Boylan should use. Professor Boylan is a transgender woman who on “Hardball” Friday night said her birth certificate identifies her as a man. Weber, the Director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, sat before MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and repeatedly refused to state specifically which restroom he thinks Boylan should use when out in public.
“Travis, tell Jenny what bathroom she should use?,” Matthews asked.
“Yeah, well, you know, I’m not sure…,” Weber responded. Weber is an attorney. He “focuses on all manner of legal and policy issues pertaining to religious freedom,” and has litigated federal civil rights cases, according to his FRC bio.
“Well, just answer that question,” Matthews requested.
“I think people –,” Weber continued, until Matthews interrupted.
“She said she would not be comfortable, or, could cause some problem if she walked into a men’s room,” Matthews noted. “Should she walk into a men’s room?”
“I think we can do things the way we’ve done them for decades, and people can use bathrooms according to biological sex, with specific accommodation made for people who have a genuine issue,” Weber said, not answering the question.
Matthews again, interrupting, asks specifically, “What should a transgender person who identifies as a woman do, what bathroom should they go to? Just keep it simple,” Matthews again requests.
“They can use the bathroom of their biological sex except when there’s a genuine issue and an accommodation can be made.”
“What does that mean?,” Matthews asked.
Mentioning gender dysphoria, Weber then launched into a claim that “the law allows for people to show up and say, ‘My gender expression is the opposite sex.’ This allows for abuse and all of a sudden you have a lot of problems.”
Weber then incorrectly claimed, “a boy who says I’m expressing myself as a girl – locker room’s open to them, under the Obama decree today.”
He went on to insist that “boys around the country” will be saying, “I’m a girl today.”
Asked when it’s ever happened, Weber first claimed “it’s happening in school districts out in the mid-West.” He then described a lawsuit in the Chicago area where girls and their families are suing because actual transgender students – not boys who say, “I’m a girl today” – are using the restrooms of their gender identity.
Asked where a boy has abused the rights of transgender dignity, Weber ultimately pointed to a gender neutral policy in the University of Toronto, in Canada, where “a guy was in there filming the girls.”Â
Which, again, has nothing to do with transgender people or policies.
Boylan chastised him for having to go outside the country to try to find a legitimate example of a problem, which he was unable to do even then.
“This is a solution in search of a problem,” Boylan said, of laws like North Carolina’s HB2, which bans trangender people from using public restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
After Boylan asked Weber and others to “open your hearts,” and offer “the respect and dignity that we all deserve as citizens of this country,” Matthews again asked Weber the question he cannot and will not answer.
“What should Jenny do if she’s visiting North Carolina? Should she go to the men’s room?”
“Well,” Weber begins, as he is literally squirming.
“You’re dodging the toughest question,” Matthews observes. “What do you want people to behave like? What should she do? She should go to the men’s room?”
After Matthews’ repeated asking, Weber says, “She can use an accommodation bathroom that’s a single-use bathroom that would protect the privacy interests…”
“That’s gobbledegook,” Boylan responds. “That means nothing.” She says because she has an “M” on her birth certificate, forcing her to use the men’s room makes her unsafe.
“Transgender people do not deserve to be made more unsafe,” she continued, saying that transgender people are a “small but unfairly maligned group of people. We wish to be left alone. We wish to be treated like anybody else. And that’s what the Obama administration’s policy does.”
Weber said he agrees with Boylan about being treated with love and respect, but by the end of the interview, he still would not say – or could not say – which restroom she she use.
It should be noted that Weber’s employer, the Family Research Council, is a certified anti-gay hate group. On Friday, FRC president Tony Perkins called for President Barack Obama to be impeached for directing all public schools to allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity.
Watch above.
Kathy Griffin weighed in after the show:
More responses via Twitter:
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Image: Screenshot via MSNBC