Remember the girl who was raped in the school bathroom

[Freija]

@"Ninurta" Sorry to not reply sooner. Went looking for resources and got sucked down a ten hour rabbit hole of reading and trying to understand different points of view. Truth be told, I am so over talking about bathrooms.

Undoubtedly this is a complicated issue that gets people worked up but I think some of your assumptions here are flawed. There were several points I initially wanted to reply to but I just don’t have the energy or desire because to be honest, it’s not my fight and all I’ve wanted to do here is share the viewpoint of those for whom it is.

For my money, the bathroom issue could be resolved by just creating a third kind of student bathroom for "other than". Give trans kids their own. That, it seems to me, would protect them, and keep frictions at a minimum for everyone.

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.

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.


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.

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.

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

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.