The news about the Canadian transgender teacher teaching shop class with ridiculously large, fake breasts has already made the rounds in the news. Plenty of people have expressed outrage, or snickered at the over-the-top photos, or smacked their forehead in disgust.

What hasn’t been discussed is safety equipment. I’ve worked in plenty of industrial environments, from shipyards to metal shops, and have had my share of flying metal objects that cracked safety helmets, broke safety glasses, and in general tried to kill me in a variety of unique and interesting ways. If Tik-Tok is any indication of the trajectory of our society (and one shudders at THAT thought), we should be teaching teenagers how to properly use safety equipment.

And yet, this Canadian teacher is not doing any of that.

Let’s start with the skirt. Unless you are a secretary, nobody in a shop wears a skirt. Even most secretaries in shops wear a long maxi skirt, especially if they have to walk out of the office for any reason. If you’ve ever had a burning piece of metal touch your skin, or brushed up against something sharp, you’ll only do that once or twice before you become best friends with your jeans. Let’s be honest, you can wear some pretty sexy jeans if you want, all while still protecting your legs from being impaled by the splinters flying out from a nearby cutting saw.

The other reason skirts aren’t a good choice is because rotating machinery tends to grab loose items, and having your skirt violently ripped off your body by lathe is just not appealing. Jewelry, especially necklaces and earrings, are also at risk of being forcibly ripped from your body. Hair is the same way. This Canadian teacher should have her hair (wig?) up in a bun, or at least in a ponytail secured with a hat, and most certainly not in her face. Not only is it at risk of being ripped out of her head, but it impedes her ability to see what she is working on.

Speaking of seeing things, I see no gloves or safety glasses.

Seriously, WTF?

Gloves and glasses are an absolute necessity when running a saw. I can’t tell you the number of times my miter saw has kicked up a chunk of wood that smacked me in the hand or the face. It sucks when it happens, but at least I can STILL SEE OUT OF EACH EYEBALL in the end. If you open any user manual, the first section will tell you to wear gloves and eye protection. Heck, the company that provides insurance for the school should be calling and complaining that this teacher is placing them at significant risk for an insurance claim.

All this makes me view this as a dumb, attention-grabbing prank. If this teacher cared about her students and also happened to be transgender, she would be dressing appropriately for class, teaching her students how to properly run saws and other equipment. As a teacher, she should dress appropriately anyway, and if she had large breasts like that (and some women do), she should at least wear a bra.

Which brings up my final point, and that is if the transgender community wants to be taken seriously, they are going to have to divorce themselves from these attention-grabbing idiots. It’s not dissimilar from the Westboro Baptist Church, a very small community that doesn’t represent anything close to mainstream Christian theology. Plenty of transgender individuals want us to believe that they are normal members of society, and truth be told, plenty of them are. But just like the Westboro Baptist Church, people should call out bad behavior when they see it, and most transgender people should join them in saying “This behavior isn’t normal.” Just because a teacher is transgender doesn’t mean we should allow that person to run roughshod over basic safety protocol and dress codes. Until we see more pushback on these people, its going to be harder for most people to normalize transgender individuals in society.

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Back when John McCain was running for President, I just couldn’t get myself to support him. He was weak on all the issues I cared about, and I had never been impressed with his career as a Senator. I certainly wasn’t going to vote for Obama, so that year I voted Libertarian. I even got to meet the Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr, at a political event, and we had a solid 5 minute discussion about Navy issues, his background and what he wanted to do as President.

Obviously, John McCain got stomped in the election. When Donald Trump ran for office, I thought about voting Libertarian again, but the candidate was…disappointing. Between the jokes about being a “Big Johnson” and not being either candidate, there really wasn’t much of a platform on issues. So ultimately I voted Trump, thinking he was the least worst of everyone.

Thankfully, Trump ended up being a pretty awesome Republican. Trump also revealed the super ugly side of the Far Left. One after effect is that it seems everything became political, and it was “my way or the highway.” The ability to thread a needle and balance delicate issues is becoming increasingly difficult, and that is destroying the “live and let live” attitude that underscores much of Libertarian views.

A good example is the transgender bathroom issue. There are plenty of women that don’t want to see male genitalia in a bathroom. That’s a pretty reasonable request. Heck, I don’t want to see other men’s genitalia in a locker room. The dudes that walk around butt naked (if you’ve been in a locker room for any length of time you know who I’m talking about), I only ever think, “Did ya forget your towel?”

At the same time, would you want to see a person that looks very much like a girl in a male locker room? I know I would find that weird. Most people probably think its odd that someone can simply claim to be transgender and walk right into a female restroom, and worse still engage in despicable behavior that shouldn’t be tolerated regardless of gender. Most people have also probably seen at least a few transgender individuals that they would honestly think are women.

A Libertarian would probably be ok with states having different rules as we find a way that helps people navigate this issue. I would suspect that over time, states would settle on rules that allow transgender individuals that have officially switched there birth certificates over to use locker rooms, while creating more avenues to punish bad behavior in the bathroom. We would likely wind up with a system where transgender people fade into the background and aren’t really an issue.

I’m not saying its the right answer, but its an answer that might work for a majority of Americans.

That could work, but it won’t happen. The Far Left has planted a flag that says “You’ll get male genitals in a female restroom and you’ll like it!” Rather than accepting any limits, they want no limits. Not surprisingly, the immediate response is to craft bathroom laws and other ruling that pushes back with equal force.

Thus, you get forced to take a side, and Libertarians too often sit on the sidelines on this and other issues. You don’t get to be neutral anymore when one side is extreme and won’t stop. That’s not going to garner votes, and it’s not going to solve these problems. That’s why I’m glad Trump took over the Republican party, rather than starting another Bull Moose party, which would have resulted in a solid Democrat President for years to come.

Until we stop politicizing every aspect of life, we’re not going to be able to find reasonable solutions to complex problems.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.