Remember the girl who was raped in the school bathroom

[Ninurta]

Seems reasonable. Gender neutral bathrooms are great and many schools have one but… history has shown that Jim Crow “separate but equal” segregation isn’t a viable solution.

Restrooms have played a role in virtually every civil rights movement in the United States. Controlling the way people use—or are not allowed to use—restrooms has been a tool for degrading people of color, excluding women from traditionally male jobs and keeping people with disabilities from accessing public accommodations and employment.

The public humiliation often involved makes it especially hard to confront restroom discrimination and educate the general public. But the same basic principle holds true for transgender people and those who have confronted this issue before: Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity, including while involved in such basic human activities as using a public restroom.

Somehow, on some level, I knew race would eventually be introduced into a non-racial issue. It's not a valid analogy because I know very few blacks with Caucasian skin, nor very few whites with sub-Saharan African skin. The entire crux of the debate here is the physical attributes of the transgendered people in question - whether they have the physical attributes of their identification or not. It's pretty simple to me, but I am a simple-minded man - one simply goes to the bathroom that is equipped for the plumbing one possesses. In lieu of that, a third category of "unisex" bathroom would not be a bad idea to accommodate students who are either gender dysphoric or who just don't care. Some do, and that is as much an issue for them as it is for the transgendered students.

The whole point of inclusionary bathroom policies is so that students won’t be othered, outed or stigmatized which leads to discrimination putting these kids at risk and undermining their social and academic development. Transgender students should not be singled out as the only people using any particular restroom as the goal is to integrate them into society rather than isolate them from it. Typically, students report access to gender neutral bathrooms is inadequate often being too few or located too far across campus to allow sufficient time between classes to be accessed, but I agree it’s still a better solution than forcing a trans girl into the boy’s bathroom or a trans boy into the girl’s.

A University of Michigan study reports eight in ten young people aged 14-24 years polled (79%), say that bathroom use by transgender people should not be restricted. The younger generation doesn’t really care. FYI, The Williams Institute at UCLA estimates there are approximately 150,000 transgender students in the 13-24 age group in the US.

I postulate that if that is so, that 79% of younger folks simply do not care, then the unisex bathrooms would not be restricted to merely transsexual students, they would also be frequented by the 79% of other students who just don't care, by virtue of the "unisex" or "gender neutral" designation. If that is the case, there is no gender discrimination nor stigma. If access to gender neutral bathrooms is inadequate, then that should be addressed. It would benefit not just the transgender students, but that 79% majority of others as well, by providing easier and closer access to a bathroom the could use. I mean, really, when you gotta go, you gotta go, and easier access for all concerned could not be a bad thing.

And you are correct, there really IS a significant number that just don't care. Once upon a time, when I was in college at a community college, a couple of girls decided I needed a hair cut, an operation I am in perpetual need of, it seems. Anyhow, they decided that the best place for that operation was the women's restroom (easy cleanup, tiled floors). I was of course reluctant, (as this was 40 years ago) because I have an aversion to being arrested and I was studying Criminal Justice to be a cop at the time - a bad combination - but they finally talked me into it. I was truly amazed at the number of women who walked in, saw me there undergoing my haircut, and shrugged and went about their business. Now, there WAS the occasional shriek of "there's a MAN in here!" just before their flight in abject terror, but they were not in the majority even then.

So I understand that it is not an issue for some, but also realize it IS an issue for others, and all need to be equally accommodated under the law. Unisex bathrooms as an option alongside traditional restrooms is the only solution I have been able to come up with.

Transgender students can face many barriers to acceptance at school, and requiring them to use a bathroom that is designated especially for them is tremendously stigmatizing. A school’s insistence that they be segregated from their peers also sends a message that the student’s gender identity is not real or valid. This represents an official refutation of the child’s sense of self. Coming from the very adults charged with protecting them, this can be devastating to the child’s sense of safety.

Red herring - not designated for transgenders ONLY, but as "unisex" or "gender neutral", for anyone. No stigma there, if 79% of the rest of the student body are using it, too.

If forced to use a private space, many transgender students will simply not use any bathroom at school, compromising their health and interfering with their ability to focus on learning as they monitor their water intake, avoid foods that will make them thirsty, and/or try to wait until they get home to go to the bathroom. Make no mistake about it: Not allowing a transgender student to use the restroom consistent with their gender identity causes harm — emotionally, physically, academically, and socially. It is not a matter of discomfort. Explicitly denying a transgender student access to the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity endangers their health and well-being.

Understandable. I am acquainted within my own little sphere with women who simply refuse to use a public restroom, regardless of gender designation of it. That's not a problem limited to transgendered people. It's gotta be a problem, physically, for those women just as it is for the transgendered students in question.

Teenage years are tough for everyone, not just trans kids, and I can see no reason that one's "rights" should be allowed to run roughshod over the "rights" of any other.

What “rights” are being “run roughshod” over exactly? Would you care to elaborate?

Here is a lengthy but pretty good analysis and constitutional review of these “rights”.

Constitutional Privacy and the Fight Over Access to Sex-Segregated Spaces

The right to use a bathroom, a very basic "personal space", without fear or trepidation. So far as I know - I have not yet read the link - there Is no Constitutional right to go to the bathroom. that is a basic human right (and necessity) that, at the time the Constitution was written, I presume was a foregone conclusion, not necessitating a Constitutional guarantee for.

And who exactly are the people at risk here? There is no evidence that inclusionary bathroom policies result in an increase in assault or threat to non-trans people on the other hand, a report by the US Department of Justice said transgender people are the ones most at risk of sexual assault and harassment. Citing recent studies of transgender experiences, the report said one in every two transgender individuals are sexually abused or assaulted during their lifetimes.

Considering how this debate is clearly aligned with political and religious affiliation, with people married to their particular ideology and the current state of left/right polarization, it is a shame to see the lives of children who are already in distress used as a cudgel with little regard for how they’re affected.

To quote someone far smarter than me, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

To address your other concern - political and religious affiliations - those ARE Constitutionally guaranteed, unlike the right to use a bathroom.You may be confusing "rights" with "Constitutional guarantees", They are not the same thing, but it is a common misconception.  I am of the opinion that gender neutral bathrooms in addition to traditional bathrooms are the only way to accommodate all parties concerned, which really is just about everyone who ever has to use a bathroom, now isn't it?

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