Rarely has there been a less self-aware meme than this one. It shows two real child molesters who molested young girls, and then a photo of Dr. Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the caption “Not a child molester”. And the left uses it as an argument in favor of letting all three into bathrooms, pretending that the first two will self-segregate themselves from taking advantage of the new policies, and that the third is the hated target of those who oppose men in women’s restrooms.

It’s an almost perfect encapsulation of the left’s argument style. First, Tim Curry’s character in Rocky Horror almost certainly was a child molester. We just didn’t see it on screen because there were no children in the movie. But according to the song, Eddie went straight from Teddy Bears to threatening his father with a switchblade to having sex with Furter; it isn’t unlikely that Eddie was underage when Furter started having sex with him. And Furter, who was hell-bent on sex with everyone, everything, and at all times, regardless of consent, would almost certainly have tried to have sex with children had there been any in the movie.¹

But even assuming that Furter’s initial dealings with Eddie were all above board², and that Furter would have respected the boundaries of any children he met in an isolated location, Furter raped Brad and Janet, he murdered Eddie, and then he served Eddie for dinner.

Dr. Frank N. Furter shouldn’t just be kept out of women’s bathrooms. He should be kept off of earth.³ He’s not a good spokesperson for transgenders unless the left defines transgenders as murderous, cannibalistic rapists.⁴

Perhaps they do. This may just be another example of the soft bigotry of low expectations that infests the policies of the left. Whether it is promoting policies that assume minorities are mentally inferior and can’t compete with whites, that women are emotionally inferior and will swoon at the mere mention of opposing views, or that blacks are morally inferior and should be excused from punishment for crimes of aggression, praising a transgender cannibal rapist fits right in to the left’s view of the lesser peoples they are trying to “save”. Just as they think of minorities as inferior and naturally violent, they may well think all transgenders are Frank Furter.

But even using a fictional rapist, murderer, and cannibal as the spokesperson in favor of unisex bathrooms isn’t the craziest part of that meme. The two nonfictional rapists were men who had sex with young girls. They are precisely who is going to go into women’s bathrooms if we are no longer able to question men who walk into women’s bathrooms. They are exactly who is being targeted by laws such as North Carolina’s. The law isn’t about fictional singing rapists. It is about nonfictional rapists who take advantage of whatever they can to target their victims.

This is the original meme: the left thinks Dr. Frank N. Furter is an argument in favor of opening women’s bathrooms to men. Ignoring Furter’s crimes and that all three would be allowed in women’s bathrooms if the Federal government’s rules are used.

The left desperately wants to avoid an honest examination of the tradeoffs of opening women’s restrooms to men. This is uncharted territory: most child molestation victims are women, and adding a new, isolated venue for such attacks should only happen after an honest appraisal across society of the tradeoffs involved, a balancing of the safety of children and at-risk women against freedom of bathroom choice.

The left is trying to cut off any such discussion of those tradeoffs by accusing their opponents of wanting to keep Tim Curry out of women’s bathrooms rather than the Jared Fogels and Josh Duggars who actually matter.

This is a typical tactic of the left: ascribe evil motives to those who disagree with them rather than address the tradeoffs and compromises of their policies.

Besides being dishonest, this tactic is typically short-sighted and one-dimensional; they don’t want to even consider that relaxing long-standing restrictions will enable abusers to more easily take advantage of their victims.

Perhaps those tradeoffs are worth it, but the left wants to pretend they don’t even exist.

In the United States we are lucky enough that we have a method for testing tradeoffs: leave it up to the states. Some states will require unisex bathrooms as the federal government and many activists want. Others will do what North Carolina has done, and require that people who want to use the other bathroom change their birth certificate. Some might try to enforce a lesser requirement that men to try to look like women before using the women’s bathroom.

Some may decide that all bathrooms be single-occupancy. There’s another meme going around that Port-A-Potties at concerts and other public events have always been transgender friendly, and this is true: because they’ve always been single-use. The meme neglects to mention that, comparing single-use potties to multi-use restrooms.

Other states might go with requiring parents to accompany under–12, or under–14, or under–16, children for their protection, much as many places are now banning free-range children in neighborhood parks or on sidewalks. Some may even decide to install cameras to protect both children and adults.

And there is also a lot to be said for the status quo before this controversy, in which anyone who looks like a woman can go into the woman’s bathroom and vice versa. It was only when the left started agitating for actual men and boys to have access to the women’s restrooms that this became an issue.

That’s why we have states, to be able to try different solutions to problems that have tradeoffs, and then compare the results. The fact that the left wants to avoid any examination of the tradeoffs indicates that perhaps they really do think their policy will result in more violence against women.

But whatever the solution is, I recommend against mainstreaming cannibalism. If that means discriminating against fictional mad scientists from the Transylvania galaxy, so be it.