GOP Going Down the School’s Pee Pot
The Lieutenant Gov of Texas was saying on my TV that now female students would have to shower with boys. It’s hard to have a debate with people that don’t know the truth and if they know it they don’t use it. When did the fairness to let transgender kids use the bathroom becomes the right of boys to shower with girls? This kind of talk works when people don’t know who the transgenders are but this doesn’t last long because people will get curious and find out. Soon everybody will know who a transgender is and then decide wether they deserve fairness and respect at the expense of ignorance and homophobia.
President Obama has picked the perfect time to enforce a law that has been in the books. Nothing new on the law except the enforcement of it. It started with North Carolina and spreading through Texas and most of the states that fought same sex marriage and equal treatment of the LGBT community by passing their own laws with have been struck down or are in the process of being sent the way of the ‘Martians are Coming’.
It’s going to be interesting how GOP Senators which have their seats on the line this coming election will deal with this hot potato. Are they going to join the laws being passed by some states which not only knocks down the civil rights laws already in the books and the fairness and dignity to be afforded to transgender kids which up to the moment had no problem with the bathrooms. LGBT equal protections have either been passed by the courts or by the federal government though executive orders. These governors and local lawmakers decided in some cases that if they were going to be irrational and unfair to the transgender kids, lets bring in the gays into the mix. These Senators trying to defend their seats are going to find a tough time getting elected as people begin to find out who their transgenders are just like when they found out who the gay kids where (their own kids).
In homophobic states it might not be tough to carry this type of water of denying the bathroom to kids but in most states this wont fly no matter what the main media might be saying through interviews and air time given to these states.
They are interviewing the states with the problem with transgender kids and adults but as you take this issue country wide these GOP politicians wont find friendly faces because polls already show that the majority of the nation wants transgender kids and adults just like gays to be treated fairly. There are politicians running for their seats in those states. Who are they going to defend? The states where homophobia still grows will see this as a protection from Transgender kids. They are so scare for people that are religious. Afraid of the Muslims the Transgender, Gays but they are compared to the whole nation a minority.
There only 8 senators which currently hold the majority in the senate, with this whole non issue based on homophobia and bias might just be the difference for the GOP to loose the senate. This summer and fall the GOP will have to defend “The Donald” without tax returns (first time ever) and his plan to deport Mexicans and Moslems and the bias against the transgender populace against using bathrooms but mainly kids in school. There comes a time in which the septic tank van only hold so much and then cracks and spills because it can’t hold anymore.
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What happens when a biological male who identifies as a female uses the women’s restroom?
The question is at the core of a struggle – and a suddenly intense debate – over the rights of transgender individuals. That battle transcends what happens in bathrooms, certainly, but the issue has prompted a wave of unnecessary fears and unnecessary laws, including North Carolina’s HB 2.
This week, the Obama administration tried to get in front of the clash, first with a Department of Justice lawsuit over HB 2, then on Friday with a letter to U.S. school districts ordering them to acknowledge and accommodate transgender students. The letter doesn’t carry the weight of law, but it does carry a big stick – the implied withholding of federal dollars from school districts that don’t abide by the administration’s guidelines.
That threat is sure to bring more heat to the bathroom debate, but eventually the decree should have the opposite effect. It will bring acceptance, as these measures do, by showing that the answer to what happens in bathrooms is a lot less fearsome than the question.
Republicans in North Carolina have made the most of those fears, framing HB 2 as a law that protects the safety and privacy of women and children. Those safety issues are political fiction – non-transgender men wouldn’t have been allowed in women’s bathrooms under the Charlotte ordinance that HB 2 killed, and the 200 or so cities with similar ordinances have had no incidents involving bathroom predators.
That leaves the issue of privacy and the oft-stated notion of women and girls sharing bathrooms and locker rooms with someone who has different genitalia. It’s an image that’s uncomfortable even for some who are sympathetic to the transgender cause.
The administration’s letter addresses that uneasiness head on, at least with regards to schools. The letter includes a 25-page attachment detailing “emerging practices” at U.S. districts that already are supporting transgender students. Along with policies on issues such as dress codes and transgender student records, the document provides examples of how districts address the privacy needs of all students in bathrooms and locker rooms.
In Washington state, guidelines urge schools to provide all students access to an alternative restroom or changing area. In New York, one principal determined that students could be given more privacy by having curtains installed alongside benches in locker rooms. In Kentucky, one district offered both curtains and private changing areas, plus separate changing schedules for students wanting privacy.
The measures follow a simple premise: Offer those who are uncomfortable a chance to be comfortable, but give choice to everyone instead of taking it away from some.
That Kentucky district and others have discovered something else that’s instructive, by the way: There have been no incidents involving locker rooms and bathrooms because of transgender policies. It is, eventually, a non-issue.
This is what the Obama administration nudged the rest of the country toward Friday. Yes, the thought of male genitalia in girls’ locker rooms – and vice versa – might be distressing to some. But the battle for equality has always been in part about overcoming discomfort – with blacks sharing facilities, with gays sharing marriage – then realizing that it was not nearly so awful as some people imagined.
Intro by Adam Gonzalez
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