Durkheim
Weber-Verstehen
Durkheim believed that society and religion went hand in hand, that they were virtually inseperable. He claimed that “the idea of society is the soul of religion”. He went on to talk about how religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices related to sacred things. These practices are what united people into one moral community. A community where everyone adhered to the same rules and regulations and beliefs.
Using his theories about religion, one could analyze how in the case of the bathroom bill, the individual who is transgender feeling comfortable to go into the bathroom of the gender they identify with is too much of a threat to society and their views. Society now, believes that everyone should go into the bathroom of their biological gender. In this instance, the bathroom has in a sense become something “sacred” and the idea that transgender people can choose which bathroom they go into is breaking the rules. It is ruining the “sacredness” of the bathroom.
Weber believed that ideas have power. He believed that ideas could allow people to stand up for whatever idea it is they believed in. Verstehen, is the understanding of the motivations that individuals attach to their actions. Weber believed there to be four motives to justifying actions and those were values, tradition, instrumental (how it would effect the future), and effectual.
One can take these ideas and examine why people were imposing the bathroom bill, which prevented transgender people from going into the bathroom of which gender they identify with. One can conclude that the idea of trans people picking their gender instead of the gender they were born as, definitely goes against these peoples values of gender. Trans people have not had rights in the past either, so this movement is something that is very untraditional and new. This bill is instrumental in the fact that its implementation is preventing this from happening now and into the future. Thereby they are preserving their traditions and values by taking this instrumental action. Finally, this is effectual because many people are thinking of the problems that could arise if say anyone can claim to be the opposite gender and walk into the bathroom of the opposite sex. Looking at the news articles, this can even extend to as far as looking at the possible economic issues this bill can cause.