In May of 2016, then President Barack Obama signed an executive order banning discrimination against transgender people. Since Congress did not vote on this, it’s more of a ” Presidential decree” than an actual law. As an example of the confusion this decree caused is a very disturbing meeting which took place at the Faith Baptist Church in Pasco County Florida on February 25, 2019. A large group of parents, grand parents and teachers came together for a meeting about a school plan to have boy and girl students share the same locker rooms, bathrooms and showers, “TOGETHER”. The parents at this meeting made it clear that they did not want this plan to be put into effect, but the school administrators and the LGBQT community (not present at this meeting) were firm in their position that this plan will go into effect.
There were teachers at the meeting who voiced their concerns to school administrators, and were told that they may loose their teaching certificates if they opposed this plan.
One parent stated that boys and girls need to be accepted as who they are, and they only get confused when they are told that gender is whatever they want it to be. This clearly violates basic gender differences between boys and girls. Some parents charged that this is an experiment that the LGBQT community wants to do with their kids, and that they are loosing their rights as parents.
But realistically, what are the students going to gain from running around naked with the opposite gender and raging hormones? How will this make them better citizens, or responsible parents or increase their grades? Most likely this will only lead to rape and unwanted pregnancies, that will in turn cause severe trauma to the students that will lead to the realities of parenthood or abortion. Elementary school age kids are just not mature enough to handle this.
From a legal point of view, this issue has been dealt within other parts of the country, and a general consensus was that transgender students must have their rights protected, but they must be “provided with separate facilities”.
Realistically, about one percent of the population is gender transition. But why does the other 99% of the population have to have their privacy rights violated to protect the rights of the one percent? Why is it said that providing separate facilities will not protect the rights of gender transition students?
The following quote from CNSNEWS.COM, gives the legal position:
“As law professor Eugene Volokh notes in the Washington Post, even liberal Justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg once emphasized that constitutional privacy rights require that separate bathrooms and locker rooms be provided for students of different sexes. Similarly, the Title IX statute itself allows sex-specific facilities, providing that “nothing contained [in Title IX] shall be construed to prohibit any educational institution … from maintaining separate living facilities for the different sexes.” 20 U.S.C. § 1686. The Education Department’s regulations implementing Title IX accordingly have for more than 40 years permitted the provision of “separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex.” 34 C.F.R. § 106.33”.
Currently, the LGBQT community does not think that separate facilities are enough to protect their rights. But how can straight students running around naked protect their rights? To try to resolve this, some of the parents present at the February 25, 2019 meeting went to the LGBQT school community and asked them this very question, but they did not get an answer, what they got were insults like: racist, bigot, homophobic etc. Clearly, this is not helpful.
Why is the LGBQT community doing this? Is this doing away with gender identity, so that transgenders can fit in better? Is it revenge for past discrimination? Is it just hatred for the straight community? If this is the problem, then the LGBQT has to realize that there has been a major cultural shift in the last few years. An example of this is the Pulse Night Club in Orlando Florida where a muslim shot and killed 50 gay people. The entire straight community grieved for them and honored them. The victims were given donations for medical treatment, funerals and any other problems they had from the shooting. This is clearly compassion from the straight community and proof that discrimination against gay people is long gone. So, why this anger against the straight community?
A possible solution may come from this. If you consider that separate bath facilities have been rejected because if transgender kids are to be treated equally, then all kids should equally have separate bath facilities. So, in this same line of thinking, all kids having troubles often go to a guidance counselor, so to then should transgender kids go to a guidance counselor if they are having troubles?
As for who goes to what bathroom. This can not be done based on “feelings”, because these are underage kids, they may feel like a boy one day and a girl the next day, then the day after that they may feel like “Rocky the Flying Squirrel”, so “feelings” can not decide what bathroom to use. To be fair to trans students and straight students; bathroom facilities can only be decided on what they are
“physically”. If there are any questions a doctor must be consulted.
Growing-up is hard to do for all students, straight or transgender, but it is clear that students that are different from other kids have a harder time growing-up, so they need help. Instead of confusing the entire student population with gender issues, maybe the only action for the transgender students is some serious counciling to help them deal with their gender issues.
Jose Lugo, editor DDTV.org