Author: Stella Williams
Found in section: Opinions
Transgender bathroom options shouldn’t be “festival seating”
In current American society, there are still misunderstandings and a lack of open-mindedness in terms of standards for gender roles and acceptance of sexuality in a diverse world of people.
Many contemporary approaches to this problem, including the Maine Human Rights commission’s proposal to allow transgender students access to the bathroom of their choice, only seem to offer a solution to societal prejudice.
The proposal, which applies to children in preschool all the way up to college level, is currently not being pushed by the commission as it had been last month, and this is for the better.
Most importantly, the Maine Human Rights commission fails to take into consideration the repercussions for the part of their proposal that states that students who wish to use different bathrooms would not need documentation to prove they are transgender people. If this proposal were to hypothetically pass as law, any male or female could enter the opposite gender’s bathroom any time and for any reason.
With this reasoning, the proposal does not acknowledge the probable occurrence of a student with malicious intent entering a bathroom or locker room that does not correlate to his/her anatomy. While this may not be as immediate a concern for the preschool and elementary levels, it is a serious issue for middle schools and up.
President of National School Safety and Security Services Ken Trump voiced his own opinion about the proposal. “The reality is, every day we’re seeing more and more cases of exploitation of children and others, and this would be creating an environment where the risk is increased for that exploitation,” he said in an interview with Fox News.
Using the “right bathroom” is currently something closely enforced by societal norms, and keeping male and female bathrooms separate should be continued. For example, not only would I feel uncomfortable sharing a bathroom with people with male anatomy, I would feel unsafe.
In general, the whole male population is not as understanding of, or sympathetic towards, the female anatomy, and vice versa, as would be required of such a merging of the sexes.
Taken as a whole, this proposal would only waste money and court time that could be used for proper solutions. For example, lawmakers and commissions such as the Maine Human Rights commission could work for legislation that would require schools to provide bathrooms and locker rooms for transgender students of both gender identifications.
American society itself does not yet contain such understanding and maturity to provide more than separate bathrooms for transgender people at this time. However, the government is very capable of achieving legislation to provide transgender bathrooms, and, in order to give transgender people the security of safe and comfortable facilities, it should.
Good thing Washington State law, as well as Bellevue College policy, which follows Washington State law, takes a more humane and rational approach to trans-people using their identified gender restroom facilities.
If someone doesn’t like trans-people using the “wrong” restroom, gather a petition together and get it on the ballot for the next election. Until then you and every other person who has no clue what they are talking about can take your opinion, form a whiner group, and vent once a week.
Your assertion that if trans-people were allowed to use the restroom of their gender identity that it would lead to actual men/males going into the female restroom to assault women is total B.S. Why would a man/male not do that now, anyway? What is to stop some piece of crap rapist from walking into the ladies room and victimizing a female today on Bellevue College campus? You actually believe that the door, which is not locked BTW, serves as some sort of rapist barrier that would only be brought down by the inclusion of trans-people using their appropriate gender restroom? I would like some statistics on that please. Please, update, post somewhere in your article data that when trans-people are allowed to use their gender appropriate restroom the rate of rapes in the ladies room goes up.
I have an idea that would better suite the safety of females on campus. I am an advocate of a citizens right to carry firearms. State law does not bar citizens to lawfully carry on campus, but the campus policy does. Why don’t we petition to have that ban lifted, then form a policy that requires all females to carry sidearms on campus. That way, when one of these piece of crap rapist males decides to victimize a campus student we have a means of defending ourselves, especially while in the restroom.
I have an idea, since this is actually an article about segregation. I propose that all white people have their own restroom facilities, and all people of color have their own restroom facilities also. Separate but equal–isn’t that what they used to call it?
I also propose that the cafeteria, classrooms, locker room facilities, and drinking fountains be segregated also.
If anything else comes to mind I will gladly post additional items.
Sara Mae Brereton (current student)
sarabtswa@yahoo.com (if you agree with this segregation article, as well as race segregation, fell free to E-mail me. If you disagree, feel free to E-mail me. I am not coy about my personal views.)
“However, the government is very capable of achieving legislation to provide transgender bathrooms, and, in order to give transgender people the security of safe and comfortable facilities, it should.”
I had to respond to the above. I feel the above line deserve its own response. So what you are saying is that for the “safety and security” of trans-people, the government, either local or Federal government to take part in segregation?
The first argument was that some assumed “penis” was going to be utilizing the stall beside you–and that makes you feel unsafe. Now you are saying that it is for the safety of trans-people.
I will give you a little peek into the life of a transsexual female. When you begin taking estrogen hormones, and testosterone blockers your “penis” begins to shrink and stops working (getting erect). Your sex-drive tends to diminish, for most trans-women the sex drive almost goes completely away. Some trans-women have their testicles removed (bilateral orchiectomy–i.e. castration). Other trans-women who have the economic means opts for SRS where the penis is constructed into a vagina.
What I would like to know is how you would stop a trans-woman from using the ladies room…how would you know they have a penis between their legs? Would there be a security officer posted at each of the ladies room entries and as we all passed by the security officer would grope our crotchel region? Is there some sort of technological gadget that can sniff out unwanted penis from entering the ladies room?
So many question, so few answers in the article.
I would also like to comment on the photo. Nice picture of a bunch of men wearing crappy wigs and some sort of string skirts. As if trans-women look and dress like that.
I wonder what the response would be if I wrote an article about black men raping white women, and in the article I posted a photo of a black man with an afro, big lips, eating watermelon, sporting Glocks and listening to gangster music, ducked down in the bushed in the middle of the night, salivating at the mouth to rape a delicate white woman. Let me guess, that would be overtly racist, right! And then I proposed in the article that black men be banned through legislation from being near bushes or even looking at white women or walking around after 8 p.m. Then reminded my readers that my real intent by the article was for the safety of the black man.
As if your photo depicting trans-women as men in dresses isn’t offensive and perpetuates the misinformation out there that trans-women are really buff dudes with bad wigs and short skirts. That photo perpetuates misinformation, and possible violence against trans-women. The photo and article is overtly sexist, phallic-supremist (as if the penis is the ultimate symbol of penetration and something to be feared), trans-phobic, and degrades the actual struggles trans-people go through by being born into a life that is wrought with incongruency.
Sara Mae
I am going to get hell for this, but I figured as much. Especially since someone would be allowed to even write a segregationist article for the Jibsheet, but only because it targeted trans-people–trans-women specifically, since of course you focused on the safety or “real women.” If this article were about race, it would not have even made it to print, guaranteed!
I am sure there is going to be someone thinking, when reading what I have posted, “she better not be comparing the plight of the negro man in white America to some purported ‘man in a dress.’” Damn right I am. The reason–it was not many decades ago that being gay or even being a trans-person would land you in a mental facility where the trans-person would be subjected to subversion therapy, electric shock therapy, lobotomized, castrated, and if the trans-person managed to not be hospitalized they would have to deal with being beaten, raped and even murdered out in society. All the while the garbage that would perpetrate those crimes would either have the legal system to back them up or could cry that the trans-woman came onto them and in turn receive a lighter sentence by homophobic juries.
LGBT people have suffered for hundreds of years under the reign of a white, heterosexual, male dominated, phallic worshiping society. We have been lynched, dragged behind vehicles, tied to fences and beaten to death, raped and murdered because of misinformation, bigotry, homophobia, hetero-supremacy, and targeted by religious leaders who claim the higher moral ground while promoting the eradication of LGBT-people.