The Amherst County GOP Dinner this past weekend played host to the state’s three GOP gubernatorial candidates and while scientifically inaccurate answers could be expected from the two trailing candidates, the leading “moderate,” Ed Gillespie, shared a similarly base-less scare tactic against the trans community.

“This isn’t about bathrooms alone,” Gillespie (top image) said in a video sent to GayRVA when asked about how Virginia should handle bathroom use by transgender people in relation to North Carolina’s HB2. “It’s also about compelling teenage girls to share locker room showers with teenage boys. It’s about compelling teenage girls to have to stay in a hotel with a teenage boy on an overnight band trip. And the fact is, we have to make clear, that we are going to protect our children from that. We are not going to allow for that to happen.”

Gillespie’s parroted arguments continue the conservative right’s mantra on inclusive bathroom laws; that letting trans people use the restroom or other public services aligned with their gender identity will some how lead to sexual assaults. But that belief, as our president would say, is “fake news.”

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