Going back to Old Fashion Cuban style or, re-thinking the bushes

It was Monday morning and while this Cubanita was trying to wake up her brain after some quite busy days off, I had my cafecito on the right hand and started opening the local paper with my left.

First image that struck my still sleeping eyes are two consecutive doors in what it seems to be a public restroom. Underneath the door on the left is a little girl. Underneath the door on the right is a grown-up man. What’s wrong with this?, I thought.

And, Bang! Right there I read for the first time about an anti-discrimination bill signed by Colorado Governor Bill Ritter (Democrat, by the way) about a month ago, that for some reason that I don’t know mixes up opening the access to public bathrooms to any sex with expanding the protection against discrimination.

A bill that, for another whole bunch of reasons that I don’t know, can not be revoked and/modified by Colorado voters.

Ehemmm… Excuse me?

Then I started to rush the words out of my mouth, telling MDH about it. And he was like: “What the heck are you talking about?!”. And mami on the other side, with her old saying: “That’s what happens when you live with all that libertinaje”.

I strongly reject all kind of discrimination against anything and anybody and consider myself an open-minded woman. I grew up in a society so repressive where the individual was so dominated in all senses, that I agree, with all my heart that any individual should live the way they want without having anybody else judging them.

But sharing the bathroom and my private needs with men or whomever is now allow to enter any public bathroom or locker room is for me, let’s say, like another whole 20 bucks…

For what I’ve read so far, the new bill goes above and beyond with what will be considered an act of discrimination against somebody, but it’s mostly focused in sexual orientation. The official name is Colorado SB-200, but the bathroom issue has come to widely rename it as the “bathroom bill”.

All but one single state congressman that approved SB-200 are Democrats; in a state legislature mostly dominated by burros (Ah!, the beauty of nicknames) in a state considered as “swing state” for the upcoming presidential elections. The ACLU, of course, could not be absent.

This bill even has serious implications regarding publishing something that someone could considerate as discriminatory, targeting religious and Christian teaching and values… what’s next?

Should we flush our First Amendment rights in the same bathrooms we share with individuals with any “sexual perceived image”?

Some groups getting ready to fight it allege that this could be an open invitation to sexual predators and mirahuecos to log a heck of overtime. Those who approved and support the bill said that evidence has proven their arguments wrong.

Then, I can’t help to think when we are in a family going out or something, when my Mom, myself or both enter a public bathroom and my husband usually wait for us outside, close to the door.

What will he feel, do, think or say if any day in the future, while we are inside the restroom, he sees a man like him entering the place where were are conducting our private business? What will happen if we have a daughter and she is the one entering the public restroom?


Don’t even want to think about it.

Good thing that we live in a campito.
We’re definitively going back to the bushes.