Also, great point, Nolotrippen. As I stated in a federal court brief, how does the V-chip protect us in public places like restaurants, schools, day care centers, hotels, stores, etc. where there are TV's on and shown to the general public, including children, but yet, we cannot access the TV's V-chip to program it. Also, many shows are exempt from rating and cannot be blocked by a V-chip. Nor do TV's under 13" screen size have V-chips, by law, yet those small TV's end up in the kids bedroom.

I have spent a lot of time the past couple years studying the V-chip professionally. And, guess what? It is absolutely worthless and useless. Simply doesn't work. And in great part, it doesn't work because it relies entirely on ratings assigned by who? You may know. The networks and creators of the programs! The ones who are trying to force their shows on all of us, mostly on kids. It has been proven in numerous studies that the networks deliberately mis-rate their programs to circumvent the operation of the V-chip anywhere from 68% to 90% of the time, depending which study you rely on. They do this to maximize ad revenue, which is lower the more adult the rating. So, they never use the TV MA rating for broadcast shows, even if the content meets that criteria. They lie, and mis-rate it as TV-14 or TV PG. And there is NO over sight! Cable networks like HBO have shown X rated movies and lied and said they are R rated, even though they have not been edited. The V-chip legislation needs to be repealed. It is a failed experiment gone awry.

For once, I am not going to delve in to the underlying issue of smut on TV, except to say it is evil. But what I really want to do is compliment Charlie Richards on such a great and superb article. I can't say it better.

ZoeBrain: What do you mean by "I was assigned male at birth"? I obviously know what you mean by "male", but "assigned by" whom? And how can you possibly not know that gender is determined sometime during pregnancy, not "at birth"? Yet the ordinance you support uses the same nonsensical term "gender assigned at birth", even though there is no such thing. You would make Kalamazoo the laughingstock of the U.S. Forget the song "I've got a gal in Kalamazoo". In the future, Kalamazoo would be known for "I've got a LGTB pal in Kalamazoo" or something. Simple answer: uses the women's room, which according to you, corresponds with your biology. It is not just a matter of "uncomfortable"; matter of irreparable harm.

jacobrhys-
I didn't say anyone has been assaulted. The victims are females in a public womens' bathroom, or a locker room, such as in a health club with communal gender segregated showers, when a biological male comes in , no matter how he is dressed or what he mentally "identifies" himself as feeling like at that moment. That would cause irreparable harm to the woman's ABSOLUTE right of privacy and free choice in the U.S. Constitution to not be seen in such a personal, private setting, possibly in a state of undres, by ANY biological male. "Intersex" persons, as you term them, have full access to the public bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their biology, whether it is what they were determined to be during pregnancy and born with, or perhaps what they have been surgically changed to (my opposition is not concrete for the latter, because of the surgery). But the idea that any man can walk into a woman's bathroom or locker room and plead a legal defense that is what they happened to identify with at that moment leaves ALL CITIZENS without access to ANY public restroom or locker room that is exclusive to their biology and is unconstitutional. Deal with it!

jacobrhys and momofthreeboys, none of your attempts at justifications make any difference - the victim is the child, woman or even man who simply goes to use a bathroom or locker room that is open to the public, and whether they know it or not, suffer irreparable harm if a person of the opposite BIOLOGICAL gender is in there while they are also. You cannot possibly question the absolute fundamental PRIVACY right of ALL citizens to use such personal facilties that are reserved for persons of the SAME BIOLOGICAL gender, as it has always been. Biological females have the most absolute right in life to not be seen by or see any biological male in a state of undress or using a bathroom, and vice versa. That supersedes ALL ELSE. Transgendered persons have a choice. They can dress as either a woman or man or whatever, if dressing differently makes them feel threatened. The only absence of choice comes from actual biology, which is determined during pregnancy. (Only a complete idiot could think the term "assigned at birth" in the proposal means anything. Sex is not "assigned", and it is not determined suddenly at birth, as the proposal most ridiculously defines).Vote NO!!!

Good , fair article. But the reporter missed a critical point. While Mr. Garcia is correct that there is a state law that supersedes local ordinances on public bathrooms, all that state law says is that businesses do not have to have a unisex restroom, and can have bathrooms designated as "Women" and "Men" without that being discriminatory. But state law does NOT address who gets to use which bathroom, or the private business' right to decide. The proposed Kalamazoo ordinance would legally punish any business that has public bathrooms available or public locker rooms (like health clubs) if they did anything to try to stop a man from going is or using a women's locker room, showers, or bathroom, or even if the business did anything to try to warn women who are in there that a man is about to come in. A male member of a health club could legally, with full immunity (as long as he kept his clothes on), walk into the women's showers while women are showering, and anyone trying to stop them would be the one charged with violating law! This is not conjecture - the same law passed in Colorado and this is all actually happening there!