November 15th, 2013

The following is the editorial “To This We’ve Come” by David Pickup, MA, LMFT published on the PFOX website: Last night, under the sponsorship of the venerable Los Angeles Press Club, the Screen Actors Guild, FreeWillUSA and Rage, a panel discussion event, “LGBTs in the News: There’s more to our story than discrimination and marriage,” was held in the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood. The advertised purpose of this event was stated as: “A great opportunity for journalists to improve their coverage of the emerging issues of a diverse community, growing in mainstream acceptance.”

Many topics were discussed about how professional journalists could accurately report on these emerging Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender (LGBT) issues in our country and the world.

However, in my opinion, the most important revelation came from Alexis Arquette. Formerly Robert Arquette, and now a transgendered woman, Alexis is a member of the well-known Arquette family of actors.

Here’s the revelation: Alexis and an LGBT supporter were discussing AB1266, the now-infamous “Bathroom Bill” in which California legislators and Governor Jerry Brown have made it illegal to discriminate against any child in the public school system who identifies as a transgendered person. In short, this law makes it legal for boys and girls who choose to identify as the opposite gender to enter into school bathrooms and locker rooms of their newly chosen gender. When asked by the LGBT supporter about a little girl being frightened or hurt about boys entering into the bathrooms and locker rooms of girls in public schools, Alexis Arquette stated, and I quote, “Well…she’ll just have to get over it.”

Editorial Comment:

In listening to Alexis Arquette state this judgment, as callous and incredible as it is, I realized that this must certainly be the attitude of the broader LGBT community. As such, this represents an egregious lack of consideration for children who would honestly be traumatized by the gender confusion that AB1266 will bring onto the larger population of California’s children. I believe that the majority of parents and children are invested in the knowledge that secure gender identity is fundamental to emotional health. Listen to Arquette’s words again… “Well, she’ll just have to get over it.”