‘Pedophiles are coming!’ Transgender policy opponents embrace anti-LGBT rhetoric
As supporters of North Carolina’s harsh anti-LGBT legislation embrace discredited, homophobic rhetoric to defend the new law, a similar scene is playing out in the Granite State.
Last week, the Union Leader reported fliers reading, “Pedophiles are Coming!” had been posted on windshields around Candia urging residents to attend a school board meeting to oppose a proposed policy intended to “ensure the safety, comfort and healthy development of the transgender or gender nonconforming student.”
The fliers warned the policy would allow boys and girls to use the same bathrooms and showers and included the name of Ann Marie Banfield, the education liaison for Cornerstone Action who has been leading the charge against the policy.
Banfield told WMUR that she is not responsible for the flier and does not know who is. While acknowledging that she is opposed to the proposed policy, she said “she would never condone that type of message.”
It is, however, exactly the type of message Banfield previously voiced to oppose legislation that would have extended anti-discrimination protections to transgender Granite Staters. AP reported Banfield, in a 2009 appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, “testified she was angry that lawmakers would consider protecting potential predators from walking into women’s locker rooms or bathrooms.”
This go round, Banfield warns instead that the proposed new policy would force children “to share restrooms, showers and even hotel rooms with the opposite sex.” In her blog, Banfield writes, “Now bureaucrats in Washington D.C. believe they can determine who enters the bathroom with your son or daughter, even if that person happens to be of the opposite sex.”
State Rep. John Burt (R-Goffstown) rushes in where Banfield fears to tread. In a spirited response, Burt ridiculed the anti-LGBT discrimination policy, mocked racial sensitivity education and blasted the public schools.
"If your ‘young daughter’ goes to a public school and is white she will be so riddled with guilt for being white she won’t dare to say anything,” Burt wrote on Facebook.
“Have you looked at what is being forced in Public schools?” he asked.
“If you are white, the public schools are telling the kids they should be shamed. They have white privilege. Their parents have been mean to other groups,” the three-term representative explained. “My step-daughter went through this in Goffstown 5-6 years ago. I would guess it is [worse] today.”
“So if [your] ‘young daughter’ [sees] a naked man at a locker room she will just look down and walk away. Because this is what the schools are forcing onto the children,” Burt concluded. “The children are not allowed to judge another person.”