Letter: Artist, columnist promote bigotry

It was drearily predictable when two of The Gazette's house right-wingers, Mallard Fillmore 'artist” Bruce Tinsley and columnist Walter Williams, spouted right-wing political correctness in dismissing transgender people.

Both men lampooned the idea that a person's sexual 'identity” can differ from their physical sex. Both men should recognize that 'identifying” as a Christian has absolutely no relationship to a person's genes, and is a protected category under state and federal civil rights law.

Neither man makes a rational argument, based on secular law or even simple human decency, that lesbian, gay, transgender, or queer people do not deserve civil rights protections. Instead, like Donald Trump, they chose to pander to base, unreasoned, inhumane prejudices.

I cannot imagine being unhappy in my own body; that is why I defer to trans men and women, for they have to shoulder a burden that I do not. I would remind Williams that, as yet, there is no hormone regimen or surgery available to transform him into a springbok; such treatments are available should Williams decide he is a woman trapped in a man's body.

Tinsley has not matured in the 20 years since he joked about 'the pencil-neck pansy GI Joe doll.” Both men promote bigotry. Shame on The Gazette for giving them a platform.

Jeff Klinzman

Coralville