I never met or spoke to a trans person (knowing that they were trans) until I was 48 years old. Not counting myself.
My State is discussing a ‘bathroom law’ as we speak. A classmate of our congressman asked for a meeting with him to show the human side to this law. (He transitioned to female). Our representative refused to meet with her.
Do egislatures in these states not care about their constituents who are hurt economically by their legislative actions? Or do they just think people will just forget and start doing business with that state again?
http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Boycott-over-LGBT-law-impacts-more-than-just-the-7938470.php
Massachusetts (my state!) has guidelines for public schools on how to include and affirm trans students. Hopefully this pdf will help some users understand the practical application of these laws.
http://www.doe.mass.edu/ssce/GenderIdentity.pdf
And somehow we still have one of the best public school systems in the country 
The problem is (and I blame the media for this one, they just love tsimmis to stir up) that there is this idea in legislators heads that the moral majority or whatever those types are make up a huge part of the electorate, the same way politicians pretend that the 60 million catholics in the US follow the Bishops and thus kowtow to them, when that isn’t true. The answer is that a certain type of politician relies on and has relied on wedge politics, the same ones that used race 30, 40 years ago, then got on the ‘family values’ game, are grasping at issues they think are winners. Why of all things bathrooms evoke such an image in people’s heads I don’t know, with transgender folk, especially transgender women, it often can be one of the biggest issues coming out at work…
And a lot of it is people don’t understand what being a transgender person is, some assume it is some kind of fetish (doesn’t help a tenured professor at Northwestern claimed that transgender women were a bunch of fetishistic crossdressers on a sexual high looking at themselves blah), others think that basically being transgender is a transgender woman who wants to wear heels and hose and makeup but otherwise are a man. The Caitlyn Jenner coming out didn’t help, she makes it look like some just one day decides they are a woman, has a ton of surgery, puts on the designer clothing and so forth, when the reality is very different (even for her, this was a long time coming, but you wouldn’t know it the way things played out). Anything people tie to sexuality, even when it isn’t, causes panic in some, and I think that is a large part of it, when I hear this called a lifestyle, when I hear it called a choice, to me that is code word for this is some kind of fetish or whatnot. The irony of all this is that bathrooms can be one of the scariest things to a transgender person, especially a woman, and the furthest thing they would want to be is an exhibitionist, but that is what some women seem to think, especially with this talk of dangly bits and so forth.
@snowbunny thank you for posting the MA school policy.
The religious right also says that the transgender person is “spitting in the face of god” presumably because god made them either F or M and they are rejecting what they were made as. As to why they have to impose their religious doctrine on everyone else, it’s easy. God destroyed all of Sodom and Gomorrah, even though all of the citizens were not gay, because the rest of the citizens tolerated the gaiety. If you tolerate, you’re in as bad a situation as those who actually ARE.
MA Dept. of Ed goes far beyond the notion of transgender people:
“Gender nonconforming youth range in the ways in which they identify as male, female,
some combination of both, or neither”.
This is the state that photographs people with colanders on their head for their National IDs.
Not everyone identifies as male or female. Massachusetts acknowledges this. Good for them.
I know several gender non-conforming (in some way shape or form) people. Most will either go into the bathroom of the sex where they will receive the least attention (ie the sex that they outwardly “appear” to resemble the most) or go into a uni bathroom. These people receive enough harassment- the last thing they want to do is call attention to themselves.
Should the students who do not identify with either sex be entitled to form their own athletic teams? It would be a discrimination if they will not have their own teams. Athletics in schools is very important.
Maybe they’ll just put the co in coed teams.
Really, we don’t have to sit around trying to scare up with the most ridiculous scenario. We can just live our lives, accept people, and have more unisex bathrooms.
Yes!
My European friends think it’s creepy in the US that toilet stall partitions expose your feet. If stall partitions were floor-to-ceiling, then coed bathrooms would be feasible. Coed bathrooms would also equalize potty parity. But people who “stand” to pee sure as heck better raise the toilet seat to do so. >:P
I vote for large coed bathrooms, and smaller single-sex supplementary ones.
So people are freaked out because they might glance at someone’s feet?!?
Cartoon showing what you should be concerned about when a transgender individual enters a bathroom:
https://thenib.com/what-to-do-if-a-trans-person-enters-the-bathroom-169099fbabcf#.ytegr71fg
This is not strictly about barrooms. This law is applicable to the showers and lockers. I would not feel comfortable being naked in the same shower / locker with somebody who have opposite sex parts. Yes, I know that I am weird and it is unnatural not to enjoy such company. But that is how I was brought up, not to be in the naked company of such person and frankly that is how my kids and grand kids are brought up. So, say, that we are a huge minority and others would feel absolutely comfortable in this situation. I still feel that my rights and others who feel the same way as I do, are violated by this law. This law is forcing people like me not to use public showers at all, which means in my specific case, not to be going to the public gym on a daily basis which is a huge part of my daily routine, which allows me to stay healthier in my old age. I understand the part that I am not important, that I am nobody in comparison, but I am not alone who feel this way, I can guarantee you that. In addition, I do not understand how straight men who are not transgender at all, will be stopped from entering women’s bathrooms, locker, showers and the other way, how straight women will be stopped from entering men’s bathroom / showers / lockers? How is it possible? They can just say that they are transgender, what is going to stop them? I believe, that public gyms will lose their business…
You aren’t alone MiamiDAP. If you believe Huff Post and Slate it really is “All about” the religious right…but it’s not and Huff Post and Slate are notorious for their biases. I think the religious right is a convenient target and the religious right is an easy target. Bottom line and I’ve said it before…It’s a zero-zum game, if you grant privacy rights to one side of the argument, you take them away from the other side. While transgender persons have legitimate privacy concerns as so many have said over and over and over here, so may non-transgender persons, who may be asked in the future to disrobe, shower, and perform bodily functions in the presence of those with body parts different from their own.
It is flat-out implied in this thread that my privacy desires are illegitimate and my personal feelings just have to be born from some strange fear of people “not like me” or worse, implied deep inside that the religious right has taken possession of my mind, body and soul. Fortunately no one has implied that I was dropped on my head as a baby.
More unisex bathrooms/changing rooms is not an answer because nonconforming youth cannot be required to use them as it would be a discrimination. They should be able to use any bathroom they feel like on a given day. This is what MA law says. Schools are required to work with the conforming population and their parents who may object to explain to them that they are just stuck in the 20th century. There should be no compromises.
You MOTB and MDAP are not important and should just check your privilege. Ditto the rest 99% of the population. The good thing is that when you go to the MA next time you can put on your tiger suit and a colander on your head and also use any bathroom you want.
Hah, when you have to resort to spewing vitriol you are not enhancing or advancing the discussion and kind of drives my point home actually.
Nature discriminate, and it is the fact, not opinion. If it did not, then we all would have the same body parts, but we do not. If If we do not discriminate, then we are going against the nature and it is dangerous in itself. I do not know anything about religion, while I am going to services on a weekly basis, I cannot say that I take this issue as a religious one and others will feel differently, again, because we are different, there is nothing wrong with being different. However, no matter what is your reason for feeling so, you cannot overcome feeling of being violated when you are forced to be naked in the same room, whatever it is, bathroom, locker, shower. The reason that people like me, which I understand from this thread, are a great minority, feel violated is because we were brought up this way which apparently was not the case some many tens of thousands years ago, when people did not cover their private parts while living in the caves. If it is required for us to go back to feeling OK while being naked with the everybody, then we have to start bringing our kids this way. We have to stop covering our private parts while in public and that will remove the feeling of being uncomfortable. However, it will take at least a generation. And people like me, my kids and grand kids are lost for this experiment. Again, I understand the part of being unimportant, but it does not remove the way I feel and it does not remove my right to speak freely about it. The first amendment is applicable to even very unimportant people like me, or the constitution has been changed to exclude me?
I predict that the practice of using religious beliefs or personal discomfort as justification for passing laws that deny other people their rights is eventually going to come to an end. And yes, a number of people are going to feel “uncomfortable.” There is no way around it. My personal opinion is that the tide is turning. Eventually, laws such as HB2 will be decided at the Supreme court level, and they will be struck down. People are going to be upset, just as people were upset when blacks, women, and gays fought for and won various rights.
People said that gay marriage would never become legal. Those people were wrong. It’s just a matter of time before the rest of these types of laws are struck down. Like it or not, protections for LGBTQ are coming down the pike. If not soon, eventually. Our young people will make sure of it. JMO.