Transgender’ man pleads guilty to videotaping women in Target
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| Illinois Target Store (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
A gender-inclusive policies to secretly
videotape women inside a Target changing room.
Sean Patrick Smith, 46, entered a guilty plea to a felony count
of video voyeurism on Monday before Idaho District Judge Joel Tingey.
Smith was arrested in July at a Target store in Ammon, Idaho, for peering
over the partition with his cell phone and recording an 18-year-old female
changing into swimwear. The young woman was completely nude at the time,
according to her mother, who pursued Smith as he fled the store and tore out of
the parking lot.
Smith later admitted to investigators that the transgender
changing room policy gave him access to record several young
women undressing, according to police records.
"Just because the man puts on the dress does not mean he is
no longer sexually attracted to women," said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth.
Smith said that he made the videos for the "same reason men
go online to look at pornography."
Both Smith's roommate and his ex-wife verified that the
43-year-old biological male is transgender and identifies as a woman,
contributing to his divorce. However, Smith is still sexually attracted to
women.
When the transgender restroom battle first broke into public
consciousness, several LGBT activists and others in the media said laws granting men access to
women's intimate facilities posed no threat, because no transgender person had
ever been convicted of voyeurism in jurisdictions that legally forces
businesses to make such facilities pan-gender.
LaBarbera called Smith's arrest "an inconvenient fact for
pro-transgender liberals."
Target is still dealing with the backlash over its transgender
restroom and changing room policy. Its stock has tumbled from $83.50 a share on
April 19 to $68.25 as of this writing. In August, it agreed to add a single-stall
locking restroom to every Target in
the nation, a policy pro-family advocates say does not do enough
to protect women and children from
would-be sexual predators.
"Common sense and maintaining safety for women and girls
dictate that we keep biological men out of female restrooms and locker rooms --
period," LaBarbera said. "We must not do anything to make it easier
for predators to victimize women."
