Trans Teen Sparks School Walkout in Missouri

Parents Forum
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From the New York Daily News:

A transgender teen has sparked controversy at a Missouri high school after using the girls locker room to change. More than 150 students walked out of Hillsboro High School in St Louis on Monday in protest because Lila Perry, 17, used the locker room ahead of gym class. But another 40 students expressed their support for Perry, who has identified as female since the age of 13. The protests follow a school board meeting last week to debate whether Perry had the right to use the ladies’ facilities in the school.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/trans-teen-sparks-school-protest-girls-lockers-article-1.2345292

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Welcome to the future.

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Personally, I wouldn’t mind if a gay man or a transgender female used the same restroom as me, but I can see both sides of this issue. On the one hand it’s not fair to make girls share the restroom with a ‘she’ that is physically a ‘he’. On the other hand, the transgender in question shouldn’t be expected to share a restroom with the sex that he has no affinity toward. I don’t know, the option of unisex bathrooms maybe something to look into as our modern-day schools move forward.

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Once again, and not for the last time, our country will endure some growing pains as we adapt to this social movement.

This particular aspect of it would be less painful if we weren’t so uptight about nudity in general.

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I don’t think it has anything to do with nudity. It’s the idea that a man can inhabit a female body or vice versa that so many of us have a hard time wrapping our head around.

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Lordy, both my kids went to/go to colleges where the bathrooms are shared. In the case of one (Yale) it is because there are so few rooms per “bathroom unit” in the old residence college that it just makes sense to have them gender-neutral (rather than forcing the bathroom-unit halls to be single sex). In the case of the other (Swarthmore) the kids decide at the beginning of the year how they want to arrange things, and often decide on gender-neutral either for reasons of “enlightenment” or for convenience (not my business). Nobody really cares. It’s mainly habit that makes us think that the idea of someone of the opposite sex (however you define that in this case) in “our” bathroom is unacceptable. I’ve also seen in articles on this particular news story that there is an enormous amount of misunderstanding of trans people. (That is, comments saying that “he” shouldn’t use the girls’ bathroom until “he” has surgery. Not realizing that surgery is not the end game for many trans folks).

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Why the wig if she’s known for 3-4 years now? She isn’t as convincingly feminine as most of the ones we seem to be seeing. Maybe that helps to explain the lack of support. Along with the fact that this is Missouri.

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@sylvan8798 If you read a little further down, the article says that she has identified as female for 3 years but only came out publicly as transgender this past February.

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It’s not about the wig.

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Very sad. I wish her the best and hope she has top notch support. She’ll need it.

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“…that so many of us have a hard time wrapping our head around.”

I don’t know if this will help anyone else, but the way I “wrapped my head around the issue” was by considering all the minuscule events that must happen just so in a developing embryo. One of my children was born with 2 “abnormal” features. Both are really just “cosmetic”, no big deal in the scheme of things. However, they were the result of some minor error in message or timing during the developmental process. One little group of cells, bound to develop into part of the circulatory system, for some reason migrates to a location where it is not “supposed” to be…and you get a pretty remarkable birthmark. Some aspects of gender identity also are the result of developmental processes, regulated by hormones (etc…I am not qualified to speak to the details, but I hope you get the idea). Think of all of the tiny changes that can happen…a little too much, or not enough, of a particular hormone, or the timing is slightly off, and that developing child’s brain is on a path to “girl”, even though that y chromosome is present. With everything that has to go just right at every stage of development, it’s truly amazing thing!

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" I don’t think it has anything to do with nudity. It’s the idea that a man can inhabit a female body or vice versa that so many of us have a hard time wrapping our head around. "

It is 100% to do with nudity. If she cannot get that a pre-surgery trans woman should be allowed to change in a gender neutral bathroom due to the physical differences in bodies and underclothing, she’s got a problem.

The comment was:
““I wasn’t hurting anyone and I didn’t want to feel segregated out,” Perry told KMOV.”

Think of this as a medical condition (which it is, according to psychologists).

Is it a reasonable accommodation to have a student (=minor not adult) change in the girls locker room? The answer is not up to her, it is up to the school. If they have a facility for her to change in, she changes in it. Do you think that people in wheelchairs want to use ramps that go in the back of a building by a dumpster? No, they don’t. But if that is their reasonable accommodation, then they suck it up.

She chose not to use the reasonable accommodation, which was the gender neutral bathroom. She does not have the right to take away the choice from others to change in a single-gender locker room. This is not college, this is HS.

Libertarianism at its best: her rights are more important than everyone else’s rights. I want to drink coffee in the teacher’s lounge. Don’t I have a right to do so? But I want it!

All the school needs to do is get a doctor’s note that says “my patient must change in the girls locker room” and they have to do it, right? But what about all the other parents, do they have a right to get doctor’s notes that say “my patient should not be exposed to near-naked bodies that appear to be the opposite gender”?

And I don’t agree that mixed gender bathrooms are the same thing. Most colleges I know of have a sign that you can flip for “girls” or “boys”, and you knock if it says the opposite gender, and if someone is in there, you ask if you can use the bathroom if you are the opposite of their gender. It is common decency. It is not a free-for-all with boys and girls stripping to their underwear or taking showers with both genders milling around.

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So much for the vaunted open mindedness of millenials and teens…So sad. So first-world-problem (caring about who is or was in your locker room).

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“It is 100% to do with nudity. If she cannot get that a pre-surgery trans woman should be allowed to change in a gender neutral bathroom due to the physical differences in bodies and underclothing, she’s got a problem.”

Are you aware than many trans people NEVER go through surgery? It’s not always about “lady’s parts” and “men’s parts”

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“Use that separate but equally nice bathroom” has been done before. Didn’t go well…short memories in this country.

Being Trans is not a disability. They don’t need an “accommodation”. Trans kids are normal kids that deserve basic human dignity and respect. Is that too much to ask? It is really necessary to make them feel like freaks? Because I’m guessing they get enough of that treatment already.

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@WhataProcess, nicely said.

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I cannot imagine how it must feel to be trapped in a body in which you don’t belong. I cannot imagine trying to parent the child who feels he/she is in the wrong body. I don’t know how to fix the bathroom issue. But, we must think about the persecution that these human beings feel. The same goes for all of our “differences”. Walk a mile in someone’s shoes and then try to find a solution. It’s not an easy one… I know. But, just imagine being that child!

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Obvious, “she” looks like a boy wearing a wig on the photo and has not undergone any surgery. I certainly understand why other people have concern about this. The only thing the school can do is to set up a gender neutral or special room for “her”. Gender is not just something your declared. There is some physical criteria to it.

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^do you have any idea how condescending those quotes you put around “she” and “her” are? As I said earlier, “woman parts” and “mens parts” are really not part of it.

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I have been in the company of two people who have transitioned over the years, one very close and one professionally, and I have mixed feelings about this. In the case of the people with whom I had day to day interaction, both were open, respectful and considerate, which meant that there was never a second of controversy surrounding either. One transitioned in a professional environment not known for compassion and the other in a religious community. Both gave love and consideration, so both received love, consideration and support in full measure. Neither would ever have used the word bigot, and neither ever, ever, ever would have been undressed during the transition in the company of anyone who could have been uncomfortable, and 16 year old girls could reasonably be uncomfortable in the presence of male genitalia in a female changing room. When undressed in the company of others, man and woman parts are absolutely part of it. In the cases of both of those people, if you weren’t told, you would never know that they had transitioned, and I think both are happy and successful. There is something to be said for not doing everything that you think you can do at all times. Sometimes it’s good to move slowly and be aware of the other people impacted.