Well.. yeah, at least sort of. Because that contradiction is what lead to the "Fake therapy dog" problem. Because the difference between "dog" and "seeing eye dog" was not well codified into the law and we just kind of trusted people to game the system and then... they did.
And now we have a group, the Fake Therapy Dog Fandom basically, that is actively fighting codified what is and isn't a proper "service animal" into the law specifically so they can subvert the system.
So? All laws have borderline and ambiguous cases, which people often attempt to test. That's why there are courts and judges and stuff, and why legislatures keep passing new and revised laws. Perhaps, if company policies and/or social feedback doesn't correct the improper usage, supplemental laws will be needed. In the meantime, the blind person (and the epileptic, and the veteran with PTSD) get to eat in the restaurant without the stress of being denied the assistance of their service animals.
Restrooms (and changing rooms, etc., but I'll continue to refer to restrooms as a proxy for all relevant spaces) segregated by sex existed as meaningfully defined facilities in MA law long prior to the trans rights act. In fact, a special exception to state laws that established equal rights for women had to be made to allow them to continue to exist. A restroom segregated by sex is one that has or may have certain characteristics, such as a sign reading "Men" or "Women" or some (possibly whimsical) synonym, and equipment designed primarily for the toilet needs of that sex. One of those characteristics
used to be that only people of the designated sex were permitted to use it. The new law
changes the effective legal definition of the legal phrase "segregated by sex" to include an exception, that people may also use the segregated restroom designated for the sex that aligns with their gender identity.
So, there are still plenty of restrooms all over the state that are segregated by sex according to the new effective statewide definition of that phrase. (Along with others that have never been, or are no longer, segregated by sex.) They still have signs on them that say things like "Ladies" and "Gentlemen" or "Buoys" and "Gulls" (now
that I'd make illegal, if I could!) or triangle-person-icon and rectangle-person-icon. They are now for the use of people of the designated sex
or people whose gender identity aligns with the designated sex. People who are not of the designated sex
and whose gender identity does not align with the designated sex may not use them. That's how they're segregated.
You might object that the phrase "segregated by sex" no longer accurately reflects its new legal meaning. Now, that situation is not at all unusual in law, and law practitioners generally don't care much. ("Your honor, how can you call it a 'house of ill repute' when it has five stars on Yelp?") But even if it needs to be changed, the law that brings about the change isn't the place to do it, because it must refer correctly to previous laws that used the same phrase. One might as well object to:
This Act renames French Street to Freedom Street.
... as an impossible contradiction because it references the street by a name that no longer applies.
Argumentation from popularity may be a fallacy, but argument from legitimate authority is not. Legislators and Attorneys General and interest groups who are involved in drafting laws are legitimate authorities on how laws are phrased, which is why I mentioned them. Appealing to "some legislators have sometimes passed evil discriminatory laws" as a counterargument to that is a fallacy, though. Though I don't care enough what name that fallacy has to bother looking it up.
Indeed, this whole discussion on this thread is looking increasingly ridiculous, as a lot of hand-wringing about how fundamentally impossible it is to establish trans rights, or how horrible the consequences of doing so must inevitably be, flies in the face of everyday reality in a growing number of U.S. states. Somehow, against all the laws of logic and physics (or the ideological pretenses of same), my wife still uses ladies' rooms at work and at movies and restaurants, I use the mens', transgender people use the ones that best suit their gender identities, or undesignated facilities if they prefer and if they're available, and no one is upset about it. There is a provision in the law for authorities to investigate and prosecute cases of misuse of gender identity claims for improper purposes (so no, it wouldn't be a "hate crime" for them to do so). The number of investigations that have been necessary under that provision so far is zero. One would think the legions of stall-stalking creeps out there could do better.
When a current, progressive, effective, and very widely publicly supported law is attacked as being logically impossible, doomed to failure, and/or comparable to racial segregation laws, because its text includes the words "sex" and "gender" in some ideologically imperfect way, well, thank you for helping me to understand
why this seems like such a goddamn insurmountable challenge for everyone else.
