Why parents of kids with special needs are fighting ‘bathroom bills’
(iStock) Erin Mast doesn ’t relish taking her teenage son, Carter, into the women’s bathroom. He has a mustache, and at 5 feet 11 inches, he towers over his mother. The 13-year-old draws stares, glares and lately, confrontations. “Leave your retard home if he can’t go to the bathroom by himself,” a stranger snapped at her a few weeks ago. Carter Mast has autism and he has what are called “high support” needs. He requires a caregiver for a variety of daily activities, including use of the restroom. If he’s out with his mom, that means he needs to use the bathroom with her too, and his mom stands firm . “People say awful things,” Mast says of residents in her small Upstate New York town of Sodus. “But I’m going to take him to the bathroom, no matter what people say.” What scares Mast more than the comments, though, is the threat of legislation such as House Bill 2, a law passed in North Carolina last year that required people to use the restroom matching the sex or gender they were...
