The Executive Director of American Civil Liberties Union Georgia chapter resigned over the organization's stance on the Obama administration's recent directive saying that schools are required to allow students to use bathrooms according to their gender identity.
Maya Dillard Smith's personal encounter with transgender people in the bathroom changed her opinion about the directive. She said in a statement that her young daughters got scared when they saw hefty transgender people enter the ladies' bathroom.
"I have shared my personal experience of having taken my elementary school age daughters into a women's restroom when shortly after three transgender young adults over six feet with deep voices entered. My children were visibly frightened, concerned about their safety and left asking lots of questions for which I, like many parents, was ill-prepared to answer," she wrote.
After the episode Smith became concerned about the safety of her young daughters, and launched a new website called 'Finding Middle Ground' that features a video where a little girl says, "Boys in the girl's bathroom? I don't know about that. There's some boys who feel like they're girls on the inside, and there's some boys who are just perverts." The video also included slides which spelled out point of view of those not siding with bathroom law.
"Bathroom safety is a real concern for ALL parents... not just parents of trans youth. So what are the SOLUTIONS that make all youth safe and comfortable?... How can we ask these kinds of questions... without being called a homophobe? Where are the safe spaces to have conversations that will keep trans people safe, little girls and boys safe, mothers safe and families safe?"
Smith told radio station WABE that ALCU did not entertain her questions about the bathroom ordinance.
"It became clear that we were principally and philosophically different in opinion," she said in the radio interview this week. "How do we educate ourselves if we can't ask those questions, engage in dialogue?"
She accused ACLU of "a special interest organization not unlike the conservative right, which creates a hierarchy of rights based on who is funding the organization's lobbying activities."
"Despite additional learning I still have to do, I believe there are solutions that can provide accommodations for transgender people and balance the need to ensure women and girls are safe from those who might have malicious intent," she said.
"I understood it to be the ACLU's goal to delicately balance competing rights to ensure that any infringements are narrowly tailored, that they do not create a hierarchy of rights, and that we are mindful of unintended consequences," she said.
However, she stressed the need to communicate perspectives and standpoints so that anyone's rights are not compromised.
"It's through communication that we develop empathy and understanding, and I think that our democracy requires us to allow for exchange of ideas, without people being labeled one thing or another," said Smith.
