The introduction of the American transgender community and the issue of access to public bathrooms reminds me of how absolutely beholden to the extreme and the absurd the left has become.

Most of my life I have had to hear, ad nauseam, about how extreme and unreasonable the conservative voter had become.  According to the media, Hollywood, and the Democratic Party, the Republican Party had become a slave to the religious right and the Moral Majority.  Every four years, the Democrats would drag out the same tired old slogans about Republicans putting homosexuals in jail, outlawing abortion under all circumstances, re-introducing Jim Crow, and forcing old people to eat cat food by taking away their Social Security.  The United States has elected three Republican Presidents during my voting years, including Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes.  Never once was legislation introduced by a Republican President or Congress that called for curtailing Gay rights or closing down bathhouses and bars (in hindsight, closing the bathhouses during the onset of the AIDS crisis would have been a good idea) and the right to have an abortion has never been attacked by a sitting Republican President.  So who are the extremists after all?

The last few years, the LGBT (I'm leaving off the last few letters because I'm not sure if "sexually fluid" has been accepted as part of the identification) community has made tremendous strides in successfully passing legislation to protect Gays in the workplace and in the military.  The problems started when no one seemed to know when the campaigning should stop.  Our culture has had a certain argument forced upon us regarding the definition of a legitimate community.  Certainly Gays and Lesbians constitute a real part of the American family, but what about the "sexually fluid"?  Also, the leather community seems to believe it deserves a separate mention, as does the S&M crowd.  Sadly, Gay Rights organizations have wasted no time in taking up the fight for these groups.  I'm left wondering, why does everything have to be about sex, for goodness sake?  Previously, we had communities based on ethnicities.  Now we are told to respect the neighborliness of  "Jimbo, the Dildo Queen", who just got hired and shares a cubicle with you.  Get ready, because EVERYTHING about these people has to do with sex and how they like to have it.  Thank goodness I don't have that problem.  Sadly, you aren't allowed to have an opinion on any of this, otherwise you are a BIGOT and a Homophobe.  Sound familiar?  Its sorta like the a redux of the "your a RACIST" campaign.

Interestingly enough, the extremists on the left may have picked an argument that they can't win.  Early last year, we were introduced to the subject of the "Transgender" individual.  Former Olympic Triathlete Bruce Jenner announced to the world that he had spent the better part of his life in absolute misery, because he was a woman trapped in a man's body.  Most Americans were somewhat familiar with the phenomenon, but even liberal estimates put the percentage of transgender persons in our society at .03 percent.  Somehow this tiny number, carried like a flag of emancipation by the newly named "Caitlyn" Jenner, became one of the most important subjects in our cultural conversation.  At every opportunity, Caitlyn Jenner and other transgender activists spoke of all the suicides in our schools.  I graduated in a class of over 800, and we had no suicides in our school; neither did my sister and brother who graduated from the same school at different years.  I spent a bit of time asking everyone I came across the same question, regardless of age: "Did you have any suicides in your High School, and do you know if it was because of the transgender issue?"  The discussion never got off the ground, because no one could recall suicidal kids back in the 70s and 80s.  Isn't it interesting that the suicidal kids only pop up when the subject becomes common conversation?  I imagine someone with a bit of common sense might deduce that this was just another way for lonely  kids to get attention.  The issue really took off when the transgender community started demanding that anyone who self-identified as the opposite sex, be given access to the restroom for said opposite sex.  In other words, I could walk into the woman's restroom and watch ladies using the facilities, and the only excuse I need is to say, "I'm a woman inside".  There was an effort to convince the transgender activists that maybe this option should be reserved for individuals who had embraced life as their true sex, so that the person going into the women's restroom, masculine or not, would at least have the appearance of a woman.  As usual, this compromise was ignored.  Now, Target has adopted the policy of allowing persons who claim transgender status to use whatever restroom they like, and some school districts are preparing to make the change as well.  The Federal Government has waded into the debate, the Obama Administration quick to identify this subject as a "Civil Rights" issue.  Did anyone think to suggest the idea of a third, unisex bathroom?  Yes, and again, unacceptable to the LGBT lobby.

Its time to re-introduce common sense into the conversation.  This issue is so absurd, I don't know what else to say.  Was Bruce Jenner somehow injured by using the men's facilities all these years?  A couple additional facts about two of the more famous transgender persons in our society:  Cher's son Chaz, who previously we knew as Cher's daughter Chastity, refuses to complete the surgery and have the penoplasty (the creation of an artificial penis), because she wants to wait until researchers are able to create a penis that "works just like a real one".  We were led to believe that every minute of Chaz's life as a woman was torture, and yet he decides to keep his vagina, the one thing that most identifies him as a genetic woman?  Caitlyn Jenner seems to be having the same problem.  He refuses to have his penis removed because he wants to "continue using it for sex."  Its a bit confusing to me.  So he was suicidal all these years being stuck as a man, and yet he is holding onto the most masculine appendage on his body?  In truth, I'm beginning to think that all this, "I spent my entire life suicidal because I was stuck in the wrong sex", is a bit of the old, "me thinks thou protesteth too much".  Thankfully a number of states have taken then Federal Government to court over this issue.  Its time we returned sanity to our society, before the "Bronies" start asking for special bathrooms.