The story so far
Earlier: The ACLU and other groups filed a lawsuit to block North Carolina's law limiting transgender people's choice of bathroom use.
The latest: The head of Georgia's ACLU stepped down in protest of the group's stance on the law.
What's next: A top ACLU official circulated a memo to staff saying restroom rights are often center stage in civil rights battles and that other minorities have had to wage similar such fights.
The head of Georgia’s ACLU chapter stepped down in protest of the civil rights group’s support for efforts to let transgender people use bathrooms that match their gender identity.
Maya Dillard Smith said Thursday she resigned because she was met with hostility when she questioned the organization’s stance on the policy, adding that she risked being branded a homophobe for raising her critique.
“There are real concerns about the safety of women and girls in regards to this bathroom debate,” Dillard Smith told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It seems to me that instead of stifling the dialogue, we want to encourage a robust debate to come up with an effective solution.”
Many Georgia conservatives have aired similar concerns, but Dillard Smith adds a new voice to the mix. She said she’s had misgivings about the bathroom debate since her young daughters shared a restroom in Oakland, Calif. with three transgender women who she said had deep voices.
“My kids were visibly frightened. I was scared. And I was ill-prepared to answer their questions,” she said. “I’ve been asking those same questions, and now I want to raise an honest conversation about them.”
Smith’s resignation comes amid escalating tensions over transgender rights that were ignited when North Carolina adopted a law that requires transgender people to use the public restroom at schools and other public places that matches the sex on their birth certificates.
The ACLU and other advocacy groups quickly filed a federal lawsuit to block the law, calling it an open attack against a minority group that is "falsely portrayed as predatory and dangerous to others." The U.S. Department of Justice and North Carolina later filed near-simultaneous lawsuits over the legislation.
The Obama administration triggered a new round of litigation in May with its directive urging public schools to let transgender people use bathrooms matching their gender identity. Georgia and 10 other states challenged the directive, which could potentially cost schools that ignore it federal funding, saying it flouted local control.
Conservative state lawmakers are angling to give Georgia new powers to block the directive next year.
The ACLU declined to comment on Smith’s resignation, citing personnel matters, but a top official circulated a memo to staff arguing that restroom rights are often center stage in civil rights battles. James Esseks, director of the organization’s LGBT & HIV project, said other minorities, including blacks, gays and the disabled, had to wage similar fights for equality in bathrooms.
“It’s no accident that this issue is surfacing now, as protections for transgender people increasingly become part of the national conversation,” wrote Esseks, adding, “Opponents of transgender equality are seeking to exploit the public’s lack of knowledge about transgender people to incite fear and stop any further progress for transgender rights or more broadly for LGBT rights.”
Dillard Smith, who joined the ACLU in 2015, encouraged the Georgia chapter to take on aggressive cases on other fronts. The organization vigorously fought for the Ku Klux Klan’s effort to “adopt” a stretch of highway in North Georgia and blasted legislation that could make it harder for Georgia women to get abortions.
She has launched a new website dubbed "Finding Middle Ground" with a goal of hashing out a compromise over the bathroom debate. The video features her daughter sounding skeptical about "boys in the girls bathroom" as slides questioning how to stop "predators from preying on kids in bathrooms" without being labeled a homophobe.
“I don’t want them to be uncomfortable anywhere,” Dillard Smith’s daughter, Micah, 10, said in the video. “But what about me, too?”
The video has come under fire from gay rights advocates. A story on Project Q, an Atlanta-based website focused on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, took issue Thursday with language in the video that it said equated transgender people to "perverts" and "predators" – including Smith's daughter saying "there are some boys who are just perverts."
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