The National Center for Transgender Equality is proud to announce that it will open a new state-of- the-art laboratory in the basement of its Washington DC headquarters to create transgender people who do not need to pee. The project is being funded with a $1,000,000 grant from the Florida State Legislature, which has spent much of the last few months considering a bill that would make it illegal for transgender people to use public restrooms.
NCTE’s Mara Keisling noted, “This partnership with the Florida legislature just makes sense. Trans people are always being harassed or attacked in bathrooms. Honestly, most of us don’t feel safe. And now with state lawmakers attacking us legislatively, we thought we’d try to solve this bathroom problem once and for all.”
In addition to Florida, the legislatures in Texas, Kentucky and Missouri have spent valuable resources attacking trans people for just being part of society and doing what everyone does. According to Steve Crisafulli, Speaker of the Florida State House of Representatives, “We were just so embarrassed wasting so much time and taxpayer’s money stigmatizing these Floridians for using public restrooms. The challenge is that many of our members mistakenly think there is a problem with trans people peeing, so why not save money and put a million bucks into making sure there is no problem? It’s a win-win. And since we don’t really ‘do’ science here in Florida, why not hire the transgenders themselves to do it.” He joked “they’re pee-ple too!”
The laboratory will be staffed by five scientists, headed by NCTE’s new Director of Science Dr. Michael Hughes, who is also a prominent transgender photographer and bioengineer. Dr. Hughes has been studying the issue for several months and will now have a real lab and real resources behind him.
Keisling added, “This project may not help existing trans people, but maybe the next generation of us won’t need to fear people who won’t mind their own business in the bathroom.”
