‘Shocking’ campaign tactic in Kalamzoo won’t acknowledge transgender identity

As a sidebar to my story from earlier today that begins with the new (but old) TV ad from opponents of Kalamazoo’s anti-discrimination ordinance, here’s something else to ponder.

A flier from opponents that’s also been making the rounds focuses on related, but less shocking dooms-day scenarios regarding, of course, transgender women.

In large type, it asks this question: “Should these men be allowed to discriminate against the privacy rights of women and children?”

Underneath the questions, there are photos of six transgender women, along side blurbs about particular situations, all ending with the same statement. “VOTE NO on Ordinance 1856, the so-called ‘gay rights’ and cross-dressing ordinance!”

The blurb next the photo in the upper left corner goes like this:

“ACLU of Michigan threatened to sue Fitness USA in Lansing unless it allowed this man – “Naomi” Snyder – to use the women’s shower and locker room. Don’t let this happen at health clubs in Kalamazoo.”

I talked with Jay Kaplan, the ACLU of Michigan’s LGBT project staff attorney, and asked about that particular case referenced in the flier.

“It’s a total misrepresentation,” he began. Then this explanation from the 2001 case:

Fitness USA has male days and female days, and Snyder had undergone sexual reassignment surgery and she was requesting to use the gym’s facilities on women’s days. Not the locker rooms, she was willing to get dressed and shower at home. She just wanted to attend the gym on days it was open to females.

Kaplan added that the ACLU never sued because Fitness USA didn’t have a problem with the request. For good measure, Kaplan calls Kalamazoo’s Ordinance “good civil rights legislation.” He added, “We support the ordinance. We think it’s important that people be treated fairly.”

Also on the flier, Michigan Equality co-director Julie Nemecek, a prominent LGBT advocate in Michigan and also a transgender woman, is referred to as “this man” and with her first name in quotes. That’s similar to how Nemecek is mentioned in a post on the start page of the American Family Association of Michigan’s Web site:

Cross-dressing activist John (now “Julie”) Nemecek of Spring Arbor

I asked Kaplan, of the ACLU, what he makes of Nemecek’s opponents unwillingness to acknowledge her gender.

“In my own opinion, it’s ignorance and ugliness,” he said. “They will stoop to as low as they have to go. It demonstrates a total lack of understanding as to what it means to be a transgender person. That they are something weird, something less than human. It’s just a lack of respect for the human dignity of these individuals.”

Regarding the same flyer, Kalamazoo County Treasurer Mary Balkema – one of the leaders behind the group opposed to the ordinance – offered a spirited defense of it on Grand Rapids NBC affiliate WOOD on Oct. 20. In short, the flyer is meant to be an attention-getter. Holding the flyer in one hand, Balkema told the Channel 8 reporter this:

I’m a politician and I know how to campaign. And it is an attention getter. And it’s supposed to because it’s shocking and it should shock you to see a man in a skirt in a woman’s bathroom. It should be shocking.

Balkema has declined numerous interview requests from Michigan Messenger this month.

In a related development today, opponents of the ordinance have unveiled another TV ad — this one focusing like a laser on the Fitness USA case involving Naomi Snyder. According to an e-mail sent out from the American Family Association of Michigan, the ad “is running today (Friday) through Monday.”

Kalamazoo voters go to the polls on Tuesday Nov. 3.