Mr. Schulman,
On Tuesday, you announced that PayPal, where you are the president and CEO, was no longer going to open a new operations center in Charlotte, N.C., because “legislation has been abruptly enacted by the state of North Carolina that invalidates protections of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens and denies these members of our community equal rights under the law.”
I have a few questions for you about PayPal’s decision.
- North Carolina’s new law would ensure that public multi-occupancy bathrooms—not bathrooms controlled by private companies or individuals, such as the PayPal bathrooms—correspond to a person’s biological sex as listed on his birth certificates (which can be changed). Why does PayPal object to that? Does PayPal believe that providing LGBT Americans “equal rights under the law” requires allowing people who are biologically male to use women’s bathrooms?
- What is PayPal’s response to sexual assault survivors like Janine Simon, a Washington state resident who talked with The Daily Signal about Washington’s new bathroom regulations that permitted people to enter bathrooms of the sex they identify with, not biological sex? She said: “I’ve had my first panic attack in 10 years now knowing in my state there are only certain bathrooms that I will be able to enter safely.”
- What is PayPal’s response to Kaley Triller, another sexual assault survivor, who wrote in The Federalist last year: “Don’t they know that one out of every four little girls will be sexually abused during childhood, and that’s without giving predators free access to them while they shower?”
- Does PayPal believe that Triller is a bigot? She also wrote: “I am not saying that transgender people are predators. Not by a long shot. What I am saying is that there are countless deviant men in this world who will pretend to be transgender as a means of gaining access to the people they want to exploit, namely women and children.”
- In your statement, you spoke of PayPal’s “strong belief that every person has the right to be treated equally, and with dignity and respect.” Do you believe that a rule allowing people who remain biologically male to enter a women’s bathroom treats Ms. Simon and Ms. Triller with dignity and respect?
- The new North Carolina law also requires cities and localities to follow state rules regarding employment. As Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Hans Bader described it, such a law “is good for businesses, promotes freedom of contract, and prevents a confusing patchwork quilt of regulation that varies from city to city and county to county.” Does PayPal intend not to have company operations in any state with such a law, even if it is a liberal state?
- You wrote in your statement that “the new law perpetuates discrimination.” Does PayPal intend to leave and/or not start company operations in states such as Oregon, where Aaron and Melissa Klein paid a $135,000 fine for not baking a cake for a same-sex couple, or New York, where Robert and Cynthia Gifford have been forced to change their wedding business because they won’t host same-sex weddings at their home? If not, why? What kinds of discrimination does PayPal oppose, and do they include discrimination that people of faith face in America?
- Does PayPal welcome employees who believe that sex is a biological reality determined by birth, or would it fire/not hire such employees who have or express those beliefs? What about employees who believe that marriage is exclusively between a man and woman?
I look forward to your responses. Because right now, it seems as though PayPal has decided it’s siding with extreme activists—and opposing those who believe that men shouldn’t be able to enter women’s bathrooms.
