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<p>[Transgender</a> Student in Women’s Locker Room Raises Uproar | ABC News Blogs - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/transgender-student-womens-locker-room-raises-uproar-221516308--abc-news-topstories.html]Transgender”>http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/transgender-student-womens-locker-room-raises-uproar-221516308--abc-news-topstories.html)</p>
<p>The college does have to follow state law, but perhaps it is time for the college to define some policies regarding how this is handled. It is possible to be sensitive to this student’s need and sensitive to the needs of the community at large at the same time.</p>
<p>If the issue is the young children, I do question why these young children would be in the sauna where they might experience such “exposure.” I have been in a number of places where young boys (older that I find appropriate) are allowed in the women’s locker rooms - they have the same “parts” as this transgendered student. If someone wants her banned, they should ban the little boys (or all ages) too. </p>
<p>The parent who complained has a 17YO daughter - please, you daughter is old enough to be told why this person is in the locker room, and to move on. She is not scarred for life! They’ve installed privacy curtains, a good move, but I hope it’s not pushed further.</p>
<p>The last sentence of the article is this:</p>
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<p>This bothers me because the locker room is shared with a children’s program. I guess in my opinion the person might be transgendered emotionally but certainly not physically and for that reason it bothers me. If it’s OK for teenage girls to shower with what physically is “male” then why have separate men’s and women’s locker rooms at all to carry it to another extreme. Again it’s all fine and good to be PC, but common sense needs to prevail. Hopefully the “privacy curtain” takes care of this.</p>
<p>I would not feel comfortable for the transgender woman to be forced to go into an environment where she may not seem safe (men’s locker room). After all, except for the genitalia this is someone who lives as a female. Until acts of violence against transgenders is no longer a concern in this country, my concerns for her safety override any potential discomfort that should be handled by the privacy curtain.</p>
<p>I have no problem with letting her use the locker room, as most on here would know, but I don’t think people of any sex, gender, or age should be exposed in a sauna. </p>
<p>I shared a locker with guys during basketball season. No one had an issue, but we also didn’t expose ourselves in front of each other. Adults shouldn’t be changing during children’s swim practices either. </p>
<p>Just put up some curtains and say no exposed genitals with minors around and call it good.</p>
<p>I wonder if there are some unisex private bathrooms in case the woman involved is uncomfortable.</p>
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Me too. I don’t get the need for public nudity even in a locker room. I also don’t think kids should be sharing with adults.</p>
<p>If good fences make good neighbors so should good curtains. The school should comply with the law. </p>
<p>I think there can be times when it is creepy for children to be in same locker room with adults even if they are of the same gender.</p>
<p>I also think it’s ironic that it appears OK for what is physically a male to be in the women’s locker room and women should just accommodate but it’s not OK to ask that person to use the men’s locker room and ask the men to accommodate. If you want to put a magnifying mirror on it (no pun intended) this person by the letter of the law exposed in public. Strange world we live in these days.</p>
<p>When I was a child I was always really uncomfortable in the locker room after swimming lessons even if it was all women. I have a vivid memory of being at a friends house as a child and the mom and daughter were changing for some reason and did so right in front of me, and when I seemed surprised, she said, “what? We’re all girls here!” I was just not raised that way. Some of my friends grew up bathing with their same sex parent until they were elementary age and to them it’s completely normal. I’ve always been told I was wrong to be bothered by that sort of thing and let it go. I avoid situations that require me to use an open locker room and just deal with it otherwise.</p>
<p>I agree that privacy curtains should take care of the issue. I understand why the non-transgendered women are uncomfortable, but agree that the transgendered woman using the womens locker room is the best option for everybody. I am pleasantly surprised that this is being handled the way it is.</p>
<p>ETA: momofthreeboys, I see what you’re saying but I’m not sure if there really is an irony there. The woman isn’t being asked to change in the mens room, most likely, because it would make HER uncomfortable. If it were a female-to-male transgender, by the letter of the law as they are choosing to enforce it in this case, he’d be in the men’s locker room and the men would be expected to accommodate just the same.</p>
<p>As a non-transgendered person I’ve always thought the use of unisex locker rooms in this instance is best for everybody, but I don’t quite understand what it’s like to be transgendered and why that may or may not be fair. I admit ignorance.</p>
<p>Mom, it’s for her safety. No irony. Safety should almost always trump everything else IMO.</p>
<p>^^I think all people are entitled to their privacy. I’m fine with gang showers, we had them in high school but basically I’m fairly modest. I would have been very upset if my college had co-ed bathrooms and I would have been very angry if i had been in the sauna at the time at Evergreen but I’ve also never been in a public sauna where people were naked.</p>
<p>My understanding of this story, which has been around quite a while, is that this trans woman did not deliberately “expose” her genitals to members of the high school swim team, as some parents who weren’t there (as well as certain groups that spend a great deal of time trying to whip up fear and hatred of LGBT people) apparently claim. If anyone saw anything at all – which is disputed – it was entirely accidental on both sides, before this woman was able to cover herself with a towel. Other members of the swim team have been quoted as saying they have no problem with her presence, and don’t understand what all the fuss is about. Privacy curtains sound like a good idea to me; I agree that nobody should be walking around nude in a locker room, trans or otherwise. </p>
<p>In any event, all trans women I’ve ever heard of who use locker rooms are extremely careful to cover themselves if they haven’t had genital surgery. Who wants to be the target of a witch hunt? Trans people are subject to enough prejudice and vilification as it is. (By the way, if someone is transgender they’re transgender regardless of whether they’ve had genital surgery, or otherwise transitioned medically, or whether they’ve even socially transitioned. A lot of people know they’re trans from early childhood, after all.)</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that if I were a female I wouldn’t want to see anyone’s vagina, either.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys, the reason she shouldn’t be required to use the men’s locker room (or bathroom) is that she isn’t a man. Do you know what the genital status is of every woman you pass on the street? Should all women be required to undergo a genital inspection before they enter a women’s locker room? As long as this woman doesn’t “expose” herself – which she didn’t, as I understand it – how would anyone know? </p>
<p>All of which is in addition to the fact that a trans woman in a men’s locker room or bathroom is subject to being beaten up or worse. Whereas nobody’s in danger from a trans woman being in a women’s facility. Despite all the attempts to instill fear of trans people, there are zero documented cases of a trans woman assaulting anyone in a woman’s bathroom or locker room. Whereas innumerable trans women have been physically assaulted, arrested, etc., regardless of what bathroom they try to use. </p>
<p>And the people who want to make trans women use men’s facilities never seem to come to grips with the fact that their own logic requires that trans men (i.e., men who were assigned female at birth and raised as female) be forced to use women’s facilities if they haven’t had genital surgery. I don’t think too many people would be happy if all the balding trans guys with beards were walking around women’s locker rooms all of a sudden!</p>
<p>lolololol</p>
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<p>Good point.</p>
<p>I have no problem at all with this student using the womens locker room. I think that the privacy curtains should have been there in the first place. </p>
<p>Years ago when my kids were young D was taking swim lessons at a pool where a woman used to stand under the hair dryer stark naked. That bothered me.</p>
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<p>I was raised the same way, and I feel the same way.</p>
<p>It became clear in the recent thread were we discussed hall bathroom assignments at a college that some of us were raised in a way that makes us uncomfortable with public nudity, and some of us take it for granted. </p>
<p>Personally, I see no reason for people in a public sauna to be naked. Wear a bathing suit or a towel. Put up some curtains so people can have privacy when they shower and change. End of story.</p>
<p>@Roman - I would agree with you for the most part but the people are using the pool so they HAVE to expose themselves to some extent in the locker room in order to get out of their wet swimsuits. It can be done discretely but it’s possible someone will see something. </p>
<p>I originally heard that the only place anyone saw the older student exposed was in the sauna, where the kids are not supposed to go, but then I read in an article that the older student was also walking around naked in the main locker room. Of course, journalists don’t always get the story straight so who knows the actual truth. I’ll be seeing my friend later this week (she has a daughter in the high school swim program) and I’ll ask what she thinks of it and try to get the actual story from her.</p>
<p>I live in Olympia (where this took place) and Evergreen is a school for different types of students and the transgendered student would definitely fit in there. There also aren’t any public pools in Olympia other than those at local high schools and Evergreen. In my opinion, if Evergreen wants to keep this from happening, the pool needs to be open only to those over 18 and they need to stop renting it out to groups containing kids. There is a private club that used to rent their pool space and maybe the groups could go there again.</p>
<p>As a parent of a 17-year-old, this is something she is going to have to face later in life anyway (my older daughter’s first dorm room was next door to the co-ed bathroom–that’s life). I would use it as a teaching moment–even on a younger child.</p>
<p>Msn, I was on a swim team for many years. Never was there adults changing in there. And there were always available privacy curtains. I would never change in front of a child and no adult should. </p>
<p>My issue isn’t with the changing, it’s with mixing adults and children.</p>