Lance Berkman Attacks Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance

Oh, Lance Berkman…please leave your intolerance to guys like Torii Hunter.

On November 3, Houston residents will be voting on the city’s recently proposed Equal Rights Ordinance which will allow, among other things, transgendered people to use public bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. Makes sense, right?

Wrong.

So what does this have to do with Berkman? The former Astros slugger and, coincidentally, one of the game’s greatest switch hitters of all-time (zing!) has come out against the ordinance and has even gone so far to record a PSA encouraging people to vote “no”.

“No men in women’s bathrooms, no boys in girls’ showers or locker rooms,” Berkman says in the radio ad. “I played professional baseball for 15 years, but my family is more important. My wife and I have four daughters. Proposition 1, the bathroom ordinance, would allow troubled men to enter women’s public bathrooms, showers and locker rooms. This would violate their privacy and put them in harm’s way.”

Troubled men? Yikes.

But here’s the thing about Berkman’s crusade…guess how many times the scenario he’s laid out has happened?

None.

Zero.

Zilch.

According to the Advocate, “there has never been a verifiable reported instance of a trans person harassing a cisgender person, nor have there been any confirmed reports of male predators ‘pretending’ to be transgender to gain access to women’s spaces and commit crimes against them.”

That’s right, if you are a woman, you are statistically more likely to get struck by lightning during a shark attack on an airplane than you are to be attacked by someone pretending to be woman in the bathroom.