Letter: Don’t demonize LGBT people
Opponents of House Bill 2 protest across the street from the North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh, N.C., Monday, April 11, 2016, during a rally in support of the law that blocks rules allowing transgender people to use the bathroom aligned with their gender identity. Credit: AP
LGBT people are no more likely to molest a child than anyone else [“Nothing is absolute in ‘bathroom wars,’” Opinion, April 28]. Anyone, regardless of sexuality or gender, can molest a child when the child is left unattended.
Ignorance is the basis of all of the hyped, unfair and harmful criticism of transgender people. Being a victim of molestation at a young age, I researched the subject to protect my own children. The major psychological associations say that being a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person is not in any way associated with pedophilia.
Pedophilia is characterized by people being attracted to children, as opposed to transgender people, who feel they were born into the wrong gender. These are two completely different conditions, and it is an absolute affront to transgender people to put them in the same category.
Transgender individuals have every right to use their gender-appropriate bathroom. If officials want to try to please everyone, then they should build individual, gender-neutral stalls.
Carolyn Mandelino, Massapequa
