SYRACUSE -- The day after a CNY Central story in which Assembly candidate Rick Guy slammed what he calls the  "bathroom bill", advocates for transgender people are speaking out.

"It isn't a choice for us. it really isn't" said Faye Brooks who is a member of EON, "Expressing Our Nature". Brooks takes issue with Guy's characterization of transgender people who became the subject of the Genda Bill.

The bill which passed the Assembly but remains stalled in the Senate would grant civil rights protection to transgender people. Rick Guy calls it the "bathroom bill" because he says it would also apply to "public accommodations" which includes bathrooms and locker rooms. "They're fiddling with a bathroom bill, making it a hate crime for someone to interfere with a man dressed as a woman going into a woman's bathroom. Imagine that your daughter was in there." Guy told CNY Central's Jim Kenyon on Tuesday. 

In campaign literature, Guy says the bill allows "predators who say they feel like a woman trapped in a man's body" into bathrooms.

Faye Brooks says she will use the ladies room when she attends the fair or goes to the mall. "No one talks to me. I never had anyone ask me to leave... I haven't had parents run away with their children."

Kim Dill, director of SAGE Upstate, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, says the Genda bill is more about outlawing discrimination in housing and employment, than whether transgender individuals should have access to public restrooms. "This has been passed in more than 100 cities across the country and none of these problems have come up. I can't think of one example. What I can think of is discrimination against transgender people being fired, being discriminated against, being harassed, being killed." Dill said.

Guy brought up the "bathroom bill" to claim his opponent Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli was more concerned with this issue than passing the state budget on time. "These are things we don't want to be dealing with right now. People in Central New York want to deal with the economy and jobs."

Magnarelli responded by saying the Genda bill never was a distraction to the budget process and accused Guy of being "anti-gay, anti-woman and anti-human rights."

Faye Brooks says ten years from now politicians won't even be talking about whether transgender people should be allowed in a bathroom.