This is a polarizing and confusing issue for most Americans, me included. And the media is adding to the confusion by only talking narrowly about restrooms and not addressing the huge concern of every parent with small children -- communal showers in school locker rooms. Sure, we want to ensure transgender students are not discriminated against. But there should also be consideration for the children who are not transgender and who are coming of age sexually in junior and senior high school, and who are uncomfortable sharing a restroom and communal school shower with a student whose genitals are of the other sex. Separate restrooms and showers for transgender students seems a considered and reasonable compromise. For transgender people to insist on the right to thrust their orientation on those who are not comfortable with sharing bathrooms and showers is a tyranny of the minority, is it not?
1
Death would be kinder to it, and better for everyone else.
Would a validation by the Supreme Court of the principle that gender is subjectively defined mean that it would be against the law to prohibit a transgendered male to compete on women's Olympic teams? Where does the IOC stand on this issue? Oh...wait a minute, that's right, the IOC has strict rules about this. I wonder why?
2
So, How will this be enforced? After all, trans women and girls look like women and girls and trans men and boys look like all men and boys. Perhaps trans people should be required to register, and made to wear a big pink "T" patch on their clothing at all times so that the moral police force can enforce their going into the correct bathroom. Or perhaps pink triangle, or perhaps a yellow star of David...
4
I can't believe how many people are worried about where I pee. As long as it is in the toilet it shouldn't matter. Then again I visited all women's colleges where there weren't bathrooms for men. As long as I closed the stall's door it didn't seem to bother any of us. That included both young Republicans and young Democrats alike. What has changed?
8
What despicable people the anti-Gavin Grimm residents of Gloucester, VA are. I hope God will strike those anti-Gavin individuals dead sooner rather than later.
A kid like Gavin went to high school with my daughter in Las Vegas, Nevada. That was back in 2005-2009. The kid was brutally harassed to the point that by Senior Year the kid had a nervous break down and left school. No high school diploma. No opportunity to go to a good college. No chance of a job which pays more than minimum wage. That's what the oppressors of transgender high schoolers bring.
A kid like Gavin went to high school with my daughter in Las Vegas, Nevada. That was back in 2005-2009. The kid was brutally harassed to the point that by Senior Year the kid had a nervous break down and left school. No high school diploma. No opportunity to go to a good college. No chance of a job which pays more than minimum wage. That's what the oppressors of transgender high schoolers bring.
5
Anyone watch the Summer Olympics? How Caster Semenya and Margaret Wambui blew away the female competition? How it*s now virtually impossible for a biological woman to win any meet in which Semenya and/or Wambui may also compete? How it was not difficult to figure out that, based on visible physiology--i.e. torso shape--made it clear that these two athletes are male?
All human beings deserve respectful treatment from all other human beings; all children deserve to reach their fullest potential. Turning transgenderism into a political crusade means, as happened with the struggle for abortion rights, that the real human beings at the core of court cases do not get the appropriate services that would make their lives better.
At least one commenter states Gavin received all the medical diagnostic and treatment services required to ensure that Gavin is being helped to live in the healthiest, best way. Is that really true? Such services are expensive and often not available everywhere. This child should not be serving as a banner case for advocates but should be helped towards a healthy, self-accepting, non-mutilated adulthood.
A case profiled in the NY Times last year described the painful surgery and its complicated after-care a high school senior went through. I*d love a follow up on how that young person is doing now.
All human beings deserve respectful treatment from all other human beings; all children deserve to reach their fullest potential. Turning transgenderism into a political crusade means, as happened with the struggle for abortion rights, that the real human beings at the core of court cases do not get the appropriate services that would make their lives better.
At least one commenter states Gavin received all the medical diagnostic and treatment services required to ensure that Gavin is being helped to live in the healthiest, best way. Is that really true? Such services are expensive and often not available everywhere. This child should not be serving as a banner case for advocates but should be helped towards a healthy, self-accepting, non-mutilated adulthood.
A case profiled in the NY Times last year described the painful surgery and its complicated after-care a high school senior went through. I*d love a follow up on how that young person is doing now.
4
Lost in all of this is consideration of the feelings of girls. Puberty is ugly for many, many females in our culture-- we are shamed for developing too quickly or not fast enough. We are constantly told that our bodies are public property, our appearances are open to scrutiny and sexualization from adults and peers alike. When girls express discomfort with allowing males into these very intimate spaces- bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms- we should listen to them, not ridicule them (see the current Minnesota/Student X case.) When a female sex abuse survivor like myself is afraid of even expressing an opinion for fear of being ostracized and called a "bigot", there is something broken in this debate.
I fear for girls and young women today. They are being wholly shut out of the discussion when they are the ones most vulnerable to both male violence and changes to Title IX, changes that would erase sex as a protected class. There is no win for them in any of this.
I fear for girls and young women today. They are being wholly shut out of the discussion when they are the ones most vulnerable to both male violence and changes to Title IX, changes that would erase sex as a protected class. There is no win for them in any of this.
4
Does he pee standing up? If the answer to that question is yes, then he should use the boys bathroom.
3
Marc A
I know this gonna hurt, but its probably time:
Some boys pee sitting down and
SOME GIRLS PEE STANDING UP !!!!
NOW WHAT ?
AAAAAGH !
I know this gonna hurt, but its probably time:
Some boys pee sitting down and
SOME GIRLS PEE STANDING UP !!!!
NOW WHAT ?
AAAAAGH !
3
Although it my pet peeve (because it makes for messy toilets), I've noticed that many males won't use a public urinal: They pee standing up over a toilet. I wonder if they do that at home.
I have a lot of sympathy for transgender people, but I think a private bathroom is the best way. I would be worried he would be beat up in the boys' bathroom.
If he had been my son, I would not have sent him to the same high school that he attended when he identified as a girl. The teenage years are tough enough, and teenagers can be very cruel to each other. I would have enrolled him in a private school or moved to another school district. Let an adult be the poster child.
If he had been my son, I would not have sent him to the same high school that he attended when he identified as a girl. The teenage years are tough enough, and teenagers can be very cruel to each other. I would have enrolled him in a private school or moved to another school district. Let an adult be the poster child.
3
The issue that few people are focusing on is the larger, long-term implications of equating “sex” with “gender identity.” The federal law Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 bans sex discrimination in education. But it remains unsettled whether Title IX protections extend to a person's “gender identity.” This is one of the issues before the Supreme Court. The redefinition of “sex” to include “gender identity” effectively renders sex meaningless as a legally protected category in federally funded schools and universities (which is almost every school and university in the country). Moreover, this redefinition of “sex” to “gender identity” effectively strips women and girls of their legal protections, as it eliminates the ability to legally distinguish between males and females in federally funded schools. The category of “gender identity” totally supplants Title IX’s original meaning of prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. If “gender identity” is the same as “sex,” then males can access female-designated spaces, athletics, programs, scholarships, and awards.
15
Says you.
If you really boil this down it becomes a case of do pre-surgery Trans get all the rights of the sex they identify with. The answer is no. And it's not so much about the restroom as the locker room. Many have written that the girls should just get over having a transgender girl in the locker room, one commenter mockingly said she was not afraid of seeing a penis. The latter perfectly illustrates the smug liberal self-rightousness that cost us the election. I saw a program about transgender children and nearly cried - they indeed deserve our love and help but the right for girls (and boys) to feel comfortable needs to be considered too and in the end.we all have to make compromises. Also, has anyone actually though about what a blanket decision to afford anyone who feels transgender the rights of their chosen sex? While unlikely, some nut could simply say he identifies as a woman and legally walk into my wife's locker room? No, even if I have to vote Trump.
17
I am worried about this brave young man and the other at-risk transgender students. They are vulnerable, and a wave of hatred and bigotry is engulfing the country, aimed at targets as diverse as Muslims, immigrants and the LGBT community. Soon no doubt there will be a roll out of actions against women's rights, the disabled, and others.
So many commenters show ignorance of the true problems here and project paranoid ideas on the whole situation. They obviously have never encountered a transgendered person. Transgendered people are often the target of assaults and bullying; they frequently try to commit suicide. Refusing to let them use the bathroom of the sex they identify with is one more indignity and act of shaming. The same was true in the days of colored and white only restrooms. Please put yourself in the place of these young people trying to learn and grow, and do not convert what should be an encouraging environment into a hostile place for them.
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
So many commenters show ignorance of the true problems here and project paranoid ideas on the whole situation. They obviously have never encountered a transgendered person. Transgendered people are often the target of assaults and bullying; they frequently try to commit suicide. Refusing to let them use the bathroom of the sex they identify with is one more indignity and act of shaming. The same was true in the days of colored and white only restrooms. Please put yourself in the place of these young people trying to learn and grow, and do not convert what should be an encouraging environment into a hostile place for them.
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
5
Gavin is not a man. Gavin is a girl who thinks she is a man.
Despite Gavin's belief the rest of us who believe in science are not obligated to pretend to assent to Gavin's beliefs. And we won't.
If you think that restrooms and locker rooms being separated by biological sex is akin to racial segregation then make the logical next step and argue that all restrooms and locker rooms should be open to all people. There should be no distinctions because according to that logic any sexual distinction takes us back to the days of Ross Barnett and Bull Connor.
That is a profoundly bad and unserious argument. To the extent that progressives believe it they will continue to lose elections.
Despite Gavin's belief the rest of us who believe in science are not obligated to pretend to assent to Gavin's beliefs. And we won't.
If you think that restrooms and locker rooms being separated by biological sex is akin to racial segregation then make the logical next step and argue that all restrooms and locker rooms should be open to all people. There should be no distinctions because according to that logic any sexual distinction takes us back to the days of Ross Barnett and Bull Connor.
That is a profoundly bad and unserious argument. To the extent that progressives believe it they will continue to lose elections.
7
I am the mother of a transgender child who is much younger than Gavin. The question of bathroom usage is, as the actress Laverne Cox has articulated, a question of the right of transgender people to exist in public spaces. Forcing children (or adults) to use a bathroom that does not match their gender identity means forcing them into situations of conflict, fear, and possible physical harm several times a day (it would also likely be startling for others using that restroom). I believe strongly that non-gendered bathrooms are part of the resolution to this issue, but in Grimm's case, he had been using the boys bathroom without any problems prior to the schoolboard ruling, and declaring that he must use a different (broom closet) bathroom at the insistence of unsympathetic parents in the district is essentially punishing him for his very existence. All recent studies point to a biological origin for transgender identities (in postmortem brain scans, the brain structures of transgender people have been shown to match their gender identity, rather than their gender as assigned at birth).
Variant/nonconforming gender identities is a difficult concept for many Americans to understand--I know that firsthand, as my husband and I struggled to comprehend what our child was telling us about their identity. But ostracizing and punishing people who are different--just because they are different--is not moral nor should it be legal.
Variant/nonconforming gender identities is a difficult concept for many Americans to understand--I know that firsthand, as my husband and I struggled to comprehend what our child was telling us about their identity. But ostracizing and punishing people who are different--just because they are different--is not moral nor should it be legal.
16
What about the rights of others to feel comfortable? If a 10 year old girl or even a 21 year old girl out drinking are in the bathroom and they see a man in the bathroom, they know immediately something isn't right and they should get out of there. Now, you're telling them they're bigots essentially and shouldn't be frightened if there is a man in the bathroom. You're setting women up to be raped and or minors to be exposed to male genitalia to satisfy .03% of the population. A man looking like Grizzly Adams could walk into the women's bathroom at target but you see nothing wrong with that because you're so selfish you'd put your 1 child over the 320 million who aren't your child. Pampering your children and putting them be for the rest of the world is how we've gotten to the point where crybabies are free to riot and destroy cities if they don't get their way. Some parents are actually proud of their children for going out and destroying their community. I just saw the other day black lives matter blaming cops for arresting their 15 year olds on a school bus for attacking the bus driver then fighting cops and hurling racist insults at the police. The parents took the video, stripped it of the audio and but it on BLM Charleston FB page telling cops to leave their kids alone. The following day a recording was released with audio showing that those parents should punish their children instead of scolding the cops. Quit teaching your child to believe their rights Trump others.
3
Everybody is a victim these days. This isn't courage. Courage is refusing to sit in the back of the bus. Courage is sacrificing yourself on the killing fields of Normandy, Vietnam or Afghanistan . Courage is patrolling the streets of our nation with a target on your back. Courage is standing up during the Stonewall Protest.
Just let everybody do what they want with no consideration to anyone else. I give up. Urinate anywhere you want too.
Just let everybody do what they want with no consideration to anyone else. I give up. Urinate anywhere you want too.
17
I wish those in power would consult experts, like the American Academy of Pediatricians, physicians who treat transgender individuals, etc. Common sense is the only issue here. A child who dresses like, acts like, identifies themselves as, whose parents identify them as a girl should use the girls room, and if as a boy, should use the boys room. A girl is a girl, and a transgender girl is a girl. A boy is a boy, and a transgender boy is a boy. They should not be marginalized or stigmatized to have to use a special bathroom! Simple and done!
8
Correct no one should be stigmatized. Yes, everyone should be treated with respect. When a transgendered student is the only one in the locker room shower of a particular anatomy doesn't that stand out? How does that prevent stigmatization? Why assert that students can learn to tolerate a multi anatomy single gender locker room/shower, but students can not learn to tolerate a single anatomy multi-gender locker room/shower? Why is a transgender female at danger in a locker room/shower of cisgender males, but a transgender male is safe in a locker room/show of cisgender males? Why is locker room discrimination to be based solely on gender and ignore anatomy? Why shouldn't both be considered - when in the shower anatomy is more evident than gender - why should that be ignored?
3
This is front page news? I guess so, given the fringe world view of the NYT. I am strongly for gay rights, but this is an issue that has little to do with it.
16
Actually, Gavin brought the fight to the rest of the school, town and country. More accurately, her mom did. I notice there's no mention of the dad, as usual.
This transgender deal is pure self obsession. They, aided and abetted by guilt ridden parents and opportunistic leeches, have no issue bringing a school to its knees in pursuit of their own peace of mind.
Trump absolutely did the right thing in backing off Obama's totalitarian social engineering dictat. But now we're being told that all the transgenders are going to kill themselves and it'll be all our fault. No, no it won't.
Entertaining these delusions isn't doing society and good and these people are likely always going to have problems. Even if they come to peace with who they are, forcing it down everyone's throat isn't going to make them whole.
This transgender deal is pure self obsession. They, aided and abetted by guilt ridden parents and opportunistic leeches, have no issue bringing a school to its knees in pursuit of their own peace of mind.
Trump absolutely did the right thing in backing off Obama's totalitarian social engineering dictat. But now we're being told that all the transgenders are going to kill themselves and it'll be all our fault. No, no it won't.
Entertaining these delusions isn't doing society and good and these people are likely always going to have problems. Even if they come to peace with who they are, forcing it down everyone's throat isn't going to make them whole.
20
I suspect that you think gay people are delusional, and that climate change is a delusion.
Why so much hatred for these young people? They are not broken, not selfish, etc., nor do you know his parents that you disparage. You don't know this young man, or I suspect any other transgender person.
Kind of strange attitude, but I'm sorry your world is so narrow and frightening to you.
Why so much hatred for these young people? They are not broken, not selfish, etc., nor do you know his parents that you disparage. You don't know this young man, or I suspect any other transgender person.
Kind of strange attitude, but I'm sorry your world is so narrow and frightening to you.
3
Stu, it's very profitable these days to be victimized. the entire diversity industry depends on it.
6
SMB, so typical that, in order to make a point, you thrown in gay rights and climate change - two things that have little to do with this. Why didn't you pitch in racism, anti-feminism, anti-Muslim, and pro high CEO pay as well? Just to complete the picture?
2
Are urinals the reason for all this? If men's rooms only had stalls, would anyone care about this?
3
Yes, people still care about locker rooms and open communal showers in middle school. Does that surprise you?
3
Perhaps the question should also be would women care if they encountered a [pre gender assignment surgery] male relieving themselves without the stall's door closed? [Not an uncommon occurrence if all urinals are occupied and there is stall free.]
Although archaeological records suggest that "facilities" were communal, so-called "modern" mores are to have gender-based facilities. Seriously, can't the proponents recognize that they are POTENTIALLY putting their children in harms way. Just for one second imagine your daughters suddenly finding herself in a school bathroom with the kids in this video http://www.ocregister.com/articles/officer-744688-duty-juveniles.html or perhaps the like of countless other heretofore publized cases of he said-she said.
Here is simple test, which I heartily endorse and advocate myself , but put forth by Alex Koyfman [in Wealth Daily Newsletter Feb 23, 2017] :
There's a very simple method for testing for [bias] — one you can do from the comfort of your own home, without even getting up from your seat.
Just take the described scenario, and swap out one group of affected individuals for another. [Then] Suddenly, an earnest attempt at 'inclusivity' or 'leveling the playing field' turns into outright bigotry."
Perhaps this is one instance where consideration should be binary otherwise someone will ultimately have to deal with the 50 shades of grey that presumably opponents ultimately fear.
Although archaeological records suggest that "facilities" were communal, so-called "modern" mores are to have gender-based facilities. Seriously, can't the proponents recognize that they are POTENTIALLY putting their children in harms way. Just for one second imagine your daughters suddenly finding herself in a school bathroom with the kids in this video http://www.ocregister.com/articles/officer-744688-duty-juveniles.html or perhaps the like of countless other heretofore publized cases of he said-she said.
Here is simple test, which I heartily endorse and advocate myself , but put forth by Alex Koyfman [in Wealth Daily Newsletter Feb 23, 2017] :
There's a very simple method for testing for [bias] — one you can do from the comfort of your own home, without even getting up from your seat.
Just take the described scenario, and swap out one group of affected individuals for another. [Then] Suddenly, an earnest attempt at 'inclusivity' or 'leveling the playing field' turns into outright bigotry."
Perhaps this is one instance where consideration should be binary otherwise someone will ultimately have to deal with the 50 shades of grey that presumably opponents ultimately fear.
People who think multi-occupancy restrooms should be segregated by gender identity rather than sex frequently accused those who disagree of hating transgender people. However, the reason women don’t want to share restroom, changing rooms and shower rooms with men isn’t that they hate men; it is sexual modesty coupled with an underlying fear of sexual assault. The reason most men don’t want to share these facilities with women is sexual modesty and a sense of propriety; it’s not because they hate women.
13
You reversed gender and sex
@Stefan
That's the crux of the matter, isn't it?
That's the crux of the matter, isn't it?
1
Why go out of your way to be cruel to someone who does you no harm? This child is not a threat to anyone.
8
Being cruel isn't the issue. It's the fact that this movement represents a minuscule group to self centered liberals who, if you don't agree with them, get nasty and start the name calling. I'd like to get into the head of the Democratic strategist that thinks this issue will move the party forward.
9
Strange hill for the Democrats to die on.
20
Thank you Gavin for your courage! It can't be easy to be in the public eye, but know that many people across the globe are cheering for you. America is still a beacon of hope and a prime albeit imperfect example of liberty and democracy. (For now anyway). You are what makes America great.
(From a dual US Australian citizen watching your fight from Sydney.)
(From a dual US Australian citizen watching your fight from Sydney.)
8
As a 62 year old gay male, I wish the transgender group would get off of our bandwagon. Sure there were drag queen since the beginning of time, but they knew who they were, there were men dressing in women's clothes...many of them were married to women. To me a transgender person is born with "ambiguous genitalia. Conversion surgery has been only been used since 1952, but doing conversion surgically and chemically has only produced mixed results. Many of these individuals commit suicide, particularly kids and teens. They are too young, in my opinion, to make such a drastic decision. Out of 320 million Americans, 12,000,000 are gay males. There are at best 1.4 million "transgender" and few of them have actually had transformation surgery. They have only come out in the past 5 or 10 years ...just start your own movement. We have been busy changing minds since the late 60's...and before that too. A lot of my straight friends are as confused, as I am why they got grouped with Gays, but I believe it has hurt our overall acceptance and understanding. Please stop including them with gays.
21
that is not what transgender is, you don't get to define it, and transgender are included in LGBT, get a clue
3
Thank you.
2
The reason transgendered people want to be part of the rainbow coalition is that we understand homosexuality is an innate, non-psychiatric orientation. It doesn*t require treatment.
Transgendered people may fall in many places on the biological XX to XY continuum; some are intersex; some are appropriate candidates for medical/surgical intervention i.e. removing non-functional gonads that may later become cancerous; many more are struggling with psychiatric/psychological issues for which mutilating surgeries are no answer. The first step should be compassionate, science- and medical-based diagnostic approaches. But turning it into a political advocacy issue removes any need for helping a distressed person find the ways of accepting his or her own body without mutilation and harmful drugs.
Transgendered people may fall in many places on the biological XX to XY continuum; some are intersex; some are appropriate candidates for medical/surgical intervention i.e. removing non-functional gonads that may later become cancerous; many more are struggling with psychiatric/psychological issues for which mutilating surgeries are no answer. The first step should be compassionate, science- and medical-based diagnostic approaches. But turning it into a political advocacy issue removes any need for helping a distressed person find the ways of accepting his or her own body without mutilation and harmful drugs.
3
Gavin Grimm doesn't want to use the bathroom to pee. Grimm wants to use the men's bathroom as a validation station. She wants to use it because it "proves", or at least enforces against everybody else, her subjective belief about who she is. She wants society to affirm, at every opportunity, her claim about who she is.
It isn't really about the bathroom. It's about forcing the rest of society to believe, or at least pretend to believe, what she believes about herself. A belief, by the way, which is verifiably untrue.
But if I don't believe Grimm is male, why should I be forced to pretend I do? Why does Grimm's subjective and unverifiable belief that she is male win out over my objective and scientifically verifiable belief that she is female?
It isn't really about the bathroom. It's about forcing the rest of society to believe, or at least pretend to believe, what she believes about herself. A belief, by the way, which is verifiably untrue.
But if I don't believe Grimm is male, why should I be forced to pretend I do? Why does Grimm's subjective and unverifiable belief that she is male win out over my objective and scientifically verifiable belief that she is female?
40
Why do you care?
4
Do you believe that he can use the female bathroom looking like a male with no consequence? I guarantee you every female in that bathroom will be uncomfortable, you are the one who wants to use the bathroom as an invalidation station
1
Why do you care why I care?
1
I wish Gavin well, obviously his life has been a roller coaster of emotions. That being said I also feel empathy for the concerned parents of other children who might not understand the confusion a young person would feel being in that situation.
There are no easy answers to this situation. Again having stated the obvious I must stand on the side of the parents who are voicing concern for their youngsters. A reasonable accommodation is a seperate bathroom for Gavin until he leaves the public school system, after that he should use the bathroom he most feels comfortable with, provided he is discrete and not belligerant.
There are no easy answers to this situation. Again having stated the obvious I must stand on the side of the parents who are voicing concern for their youngsters. A reasonable accommodation is a seperate bathroom for Gavin until he leaves the public school system, after that he should use the bathroom he most feels comfortable with, provided he is discrete and not belligerant.
7
Not bad, but not good either. I personally believe that there is a problem with segregating toilets based on gender in the first place. If our culture had evolved to the point where the sexes were truly equal, than we would have no problem using unisex facilities. On the other hand, I also think there is something very wrong with public showers, but that's another issue entirely.
No, Joseph you misunderstand. The declaration was about middle school and high school locker rooms and showers. Please address the showers situation.
2
You are so brave, Gavin! Thank you for being you and for showing others how to be themselves. You are a hero to many. Keep up the amazing fight and know there are many, many people who stand with you!
7
As a leftist let me say the private bathroom is a reasonable accommodation.
26
So Kim Jong Un is preparing to shove a few nuclear missiles up our snoot and perhaps a few vials of VX in our subways, and we worry about the sensitivities of a minuscule population confused about which door to enter?
21
Tally ho, old sport! That's the Times for you. Remember the old saw, some thing about headline screaming "Man Bites Dog!" selling more papers than "Dog Bites Man." Same principle...
1
I saw a number in the comments here. 1.4 Million transgender people in the United States. That's far from a "miniscule population".
1
When biology is politicized, individuals always suffer. When people become causes, their actual needs are trampled. Like Norma McCorvey, who only wanted an abortion, and was taken up as a cause that was won for others, two years after her unwanted child was born. Many feminists--including her own lawyers--could have helped her to get an abortion, but they needed her as a symbol and discarded the real woman.
Gavin*s ability to speak forcefully and articulately doesn't mean Gavin has the perspective or maturity to understand complex physiological and psychological issues. None of the children being administered powerful hormones, or those older adolescents upon whom mutilating surgeries are being performed, are of the maturity to make these choices for themselves. Gavin doesn't know what it feels like to be a *real boy* though hormones and surgery can provide a simulation.
This isn't the same as sexual orientation. People know quite well--and often from pre-pubescent ages--what sex attracts them, or if they are bisexual. But *knowing I always was a boy?* No. That is not possible, unless Gavin has an intersex condition and XY chromosomes.
Gavin*s ability to speak forcefully and articulately doesn't mean Gavin has the perspective or maturity to understand complex physiological and psychological issues. None of the children being administered powerful hormones, or those older adolescents upon whom mutilating surgeries are being performed, are of the maturity to make these choices for themselves. Gavin doesn't know what it feels like to be a *real boy* though hormones and surgery can provide a simulation.
This isn't the same as sexual orientation. People know quite well--and often from pre-pubescent ages--what sex attracts them, or if they are bisexual. But *knowing I always was a boy?* No. That is not possible, unless Gavin has an intersex condition and XY chromosomes.
22
I don't have an understanding of the mind and deeply-rooted feelings of a transgender person.
However, unlike the many whose opinions are formed via their own reflections in the mirror, I'm not afraid to let them pee in the stall next to me.
However, unlike the many whose opinions are formed via their own reflections in the mirror, I'm not afraid to let them pee in the stall next to me.
4
"Gavin doesn't know what it feels like to be a *real boy* though hormones and surgery can provide a simulation."
How on earth would you know what Gavin feels?
How on earth would you know what Gavin feels?
4
Are you an expert in the fields of pediatric psychology and/or endocrinology? If not, I don't understand why you would believe that you, SCA, are somehow magically granted the authority to understand his own complex physiological and psychological status better than he himself does (not to mention his medical team).
2
Contrary to hen3ry's remarks, adults are listening to Gavin Grimm: he (used out of courtesy) was first allowed the bathroom of his choice, then, following parental objections, and two school board meetings dedicated to his concerns, he was given a private restroom. Now his case is being heard before the Supreme Court and reported on in the NYT. He's been listened to! Also, it's not his good luck medically needless, body-altering surgery is now seen by many as perfectly appropriate. Major surgery should be undertaken when necessary to save a life or heal bodily damage/malfunction; Mr. Grimm's problems are psychological or emotional. Surgery is an extreme response of no medical value, and that so many regard it as unremarkable illustrates the relativism of modern culture: feelings, not facts, define reality. There's an ideological/epistemological aspect to this controversy worth serious consideration. Of course, young people like Mr. Grimm deserve compassion at school, but it might take compromise: label some restrooms gender inclusive and leave the others as they were. Young people with privacy/modesty concerns would have options suited to their needs, and transgender students would have facilities catering to their need for safety and dignity. This was the solution Gavin’s school initially pursued. But, enter the ideologues: the matter is now one of national scope that stands to alter long-held conventions disputed by less than one percent of the population. That's progress?
14
" I have this neon sign above my head that says I’m different from my peers"
At least one truth in this whole debacle.
At least one truth in this whole debacle.
6
That has to be awfully annoying, especially at night when everyone is trying to sleep.
9
I think that sign is the Sun, shining light on the truth.
4
Yes, and when he showers in the locker room with the other boys - the sign will still be there. Be allowed to shower with the other boys in the locker room will not make the anatomical differences go away. All students deserve respect and protection. When you are the only one of a particular gender/anatomy in your school - you will stand out. If you are the only one with red hair in your school you will stand out. If you are the only one who is African American in you school you will standout. If you are the only Asian in your school you will stand out. So if you are the only transgender in your school - you will stand out - even if you go to a locker room based on your gender (unless you never take a physical education class -but most school districts require physical education courses). Pretending your anatomy isn't different when you are in the shower won't work. Respect is important - but it doesn't mean ignore anatomy. Why can't we find a way to respect both gender and anatomy in middle school and high school locker rooms? Those arguing for single gender multi anatomy locker rooms admit sorting students is a good idea - they just don't want to admit anyone who suggests sorting students differently than they want to sort has any rational basis for thinking that way.
1
I'm grateful for Gavin Grimm's courage and to the SCOTUS for hearing this case. On the TODAY Show, during his campaign, Donald Trump was asked if he supported the specifics of the Obama transgender policy. His answer was unequivocal and it was a yes; now it's a no.
This is a difficult case but a narrow one in deciding whether Title IX's ban on discrimination is inclusive of gender identity. For conservatives it aligns with their alternative fact belief that gender identity is a choice and, as a bonus, that it denies science.
Yet, younger folks look at the supposed adults in Congress, the WH and the Justice Dept. of Jeff Sessions and wonder what the big deal is? To their credit, many understand it's patriarchal discrimination in its purest form courtesy of the always-fearful, aging white folks who gave us Donald Trump.
As my teenage son says, " We can do better, Dad, and we will."
This is a difficult case but a narrow one in deciding whether Title IX's ban on discrimination is inclusive of gender identity. For conservatives it aligns with their alternative fact belief that gender identity is a choice and, as a bonus, that it denies science.
Yet, younger folks look at the supposed adults in Congress, the WH and the Justice Dept. of Jeff Sessions and wonder what the big deal is? To their credit, many understand it's patriarchal discrimination in its purest form courtesy of the always-fearful, aging white folks who gave us Donald Trump.
As my teenage son says, " We can do better, Dad, and we will."
4
All Trump did was move the argument about this to the states. The rest is your opinion, made up and not factual. We should just have unisex bathrooms and get on with this, its a micro issue that affects a tiny portion of the populace.
9
Baba, if you think for a minute that the perceived rights of 1.4 million transgenders are enough to change the status quo of the bathroom protocol for the other 350 million of us in the United States, you don't know us very well.
6
Denies science? Interesting. Take a look at the DSM V in the section about Gender Dysphoria. You're right that it isn't a choice, just like people don't choose to have depression or have schizophrenia, but I am interested to know what science you are talking about that somehow shows that a person's perception when they have gender dysphoria is in fact reality. The science actually shows, and is verifiable in every cell of each person's body, that those who experience gender dysphoria do so regardless of what science says.
5
Are the bathroom situations different in schools than they are in various public accommodations??
Are trans people different in Idaho than they are in Florida? Are bathrooms different in Texas than they are in NJ? If someone travels by bus from Ohio to New Mexico or from Virginia to Oregon, will there be signs in the waiting room telling them which facilities to use?
This is a human rights question; do human rights in the US vary from state to state?
Are trans people different in Idaho than they are in Florida? Are bathrooms different in Texas than they are in NJ? If someone travels by bus from Ohio to New Mexico or from Virginia to Oregon, will there be signs in the waiting room telling them which facilities to use?
This is a human rights question; do human rights in the US vary from state to state?
5
You haven't noticed the "Men" and "Women" signs outside the doors to multi-occupancy restrooms in airports, train stations, bus stations, stadiums, restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores, etc. nationwide?
5
It has yet to be proved that it is anywhere approaching a human right and not something more akin to Alien Hand Syndrome. The DSM V classifies it as a mental illness, which doesn't mean that it is, but how is it substantively different from someone who believes they are George Washington? They of course have the right to believe that, but do they have the right to get his presidential pension?
11
Yes, they are different. But it doesn't vary by state it varies by ownershop. Under Obama access to middle school and high school locker rooms were dictated by the federal government (by interpreting the word "sex" to be equivalent to "gender" and exclusive of "anatomy" - through a 1972 law called Title IX. Meanwhile there was no federal law governing bathrooms in other public buildings. So the federal guidelines had no influence over public buildings that were not public schools.
I support Gavin and transgender rights. I am a straight woman. I HAVE been in restrooms with trans women ( men to women). I have never experienced any issues. They were just like every other lady in the ladies room. I think that people who are against trans rights are inexperienced, uneducated, closed minded, ignorant, and sometimes driven by religious zealotry. But this is the USA and those people have a right to their views, as I have a right to mine, although we do not have a right to discriminate. For me, in schools, the solution would be: trans students use the facilities of their gender identity AND enough private facilities need to be available for anyone who wishes to use them. That includes trans students who want more privacy, as well as non-trans students who don't want to share facilities with trans students.
9
First you write that you are against discrimination, then you write that people should use the facilities corresponding to their identity? If facilities correspond to gender identity then they discriminate! Make up mind - if you don't believe in discrimination then you favor a single unified multi-gender multi-anatomy school locker rooms and showers that all students share in common regardless of gender or anatomy. Otherwise you believe your form of discrimination is good and other forms of discrimination are bad - in which case you are merely self righteous and hypocritical.
7
Agree wholeheartedly. Some people may not feel comfortable using gendered, multistall bathrooms for a variety of reasons. Safe accommodations should be made for them as well. But forcing someone who looks, acts, speaks, dresses, feels, and presents as a guy to use the girls bathroom, or to run across campus to use a distant broom closet/bathroom, is just silly, not to mention cruel.
Gavin, you are a wonderful person. You are absolutely correct to stand up for your rights. The world is a large place, unlike the small community you had to grow up in. There are lots of sensible people out here in the big world supporting all minorities - all people. People of majority have difficult time imagining the life of a minority because no matter how absurd their positions and statements are, they have grown up in a community that allows them to think that they are correct. The fact is, the majority does not automatically equate to justice, and we should have all learned that by now through so many historical examples of evils in majority at one time that is now so evidently was wrong (such as Hitler - who was voted in by overwhelming majority in a legitimate election).
4
To all those who say, "Don't we have more important things to focus on? This issue will hurt Democrats if they continue to pursue it." My answer to you is: this is about enforcing a civil right--the right to free from discrimination on the basis of gender. If the Democrats intend to be the party that fights for civil rights, they must fight for ALL civil rights, not pick and choose those that are supported by the majority. Whether this issue affects less than 1% of Americans is completely irrelevant. It's a civil right; therefore, it must be defended.
Fight on Gavin.
Fight on Gavin.
8
How about .0000001% of Americans. It's closer to that. I don't care who goes in the bathroom with or without me. This is a made up issue.
5
The average transgender woman doesn't have the means to end up looking like Laverne Cox, and the urgency of transgender political advocacy is to enable younger and younger people to receive hormonal treatments that will reduce the discordancy of developing secondary sex characteristics that can only be minimized afterwards, and at considerable cost.
So it*s not good enough, say, to encourage people to accept other people as they are; to tell parents that if a child doesn't seem to identify with its biological sex, to begin treating that child as though it is actually a *real boy* or a *real girl* even though the child is not.
Changing birth certificates to reflect the *real gender?* That's not far different from changing an adopted child*s birth certificate to erase the biological parents. Or having a rabbi *convert* to Judaism the infant you*ve adopted from China, to make it a *real Jew.* The child can of course, at an age of reason, formally convert to the religion in which it has been raised, but many parents need it to be *really Jewish* even though it does not and never can share their ethnicity, and faith should be a matter of conviction.
Has Gavin received appropriate medical diagnostic care, to determine, as best as can be done with today*s knowledge, if there are biological reasons for Gavin insisting Gavin is a boy? Has there been chromosomal analysis and the ruling out of hormonal disorders? Or is that, too, hateful and discriminatory?
So it*s not good enough, say, to encourage people to accept other people as they are; to tell parents that if a child doesn't seem to identify with its biological sex, to begin treating that child as though it is actually a *real boy* or a *real girl* even though the child is not.
Changing birth certificates to reflect the *real gender?* That's not far different from changing an adopted child*s birth certificate to erase the biological parents. Or having a rabbi *convert* to Judaism the infant you*ve adopted from China, to make it a *real Jew.* The child can of course, at an age of reason, formally convert to the religion in which it has been raised, but many parents need it to be *really Jewish* even though it does not and never can share their ethnicity, and faith should be a matter of conviction.
Has Gavin received appropriate medical diagnostic care, to determine, as best as can be done with today*s knowledge, if there are biological reasons for Gavin insisting Gavin is a boy? Has there been chromosomal analysis and the ruling out of hormonal disorders? Or is that, too, hateful and discriminatory?
1
I am sympathetic to the plight of transgendered individuals, but bathroom use is the wrong issue. I'm 40 years old. If I identify as a 75 year old and have gray hairs and wrinkles and dress like an elderly person does that make me eligible for Social Security? We should focus on treating all people, including and especially the vulnerable, compassionately, and not focus on these hot button, knee jerk issues that are based on faulty reasoning and don't get to the root of the problem.
17
One thing that is missing from most reporting on this subject is that the vast majority of schools make individualized accommodations for transgender students that will protect their dignity and the privacy and dignity of all other students. Some states and municipalities passed laws to that effect, like Oregon. The problem usually comes when transgender students feel schools don't go far enough to accommodate them. The edict from the Obama justice department went farther than legislation from even the most liberal states and yet did not necessarily protect rights any more than what was already happening there, definitely not balancing the rights of all involved.
17
It's really sad that this issue is so contentious. As far as I am concerned, let people use the restroom of their choice. The easiest way to resolve this is to make all restrooms gender neutral. Instead of symbols for men and women, how about just "restroom".
But, in a very unscientific poll of friends, I arrived at a surprising result. Not one of my male friends had a problem with this idea. Every single one of my female friends, mostly very liberal, didn't like it. Some staunch feminists even raised a deeper issue. They are afraid that Title IX can be severely diluted if a biological male declares a female identity, even suggesting that males could deliberately subvert the intent of the law by declaring a female identity. I would like to say that these concerns are silly, if they hadn't been raised by women.
It's really too bad bad that as a society, we have to resort to legislation and regulations in these matters. Why can't people just be themselves ? I guess I live in a fantasy.
But, in a very unscientific poll of friends, I arrived at a surprising result. Not one of my male friends had a problem with this idea. Every single one of my female friends, mostly very liberal, didn't like it. Some staunch feminists even raised a deeper issue. They are afraid that Title IX can be severely diluted if a biological male declares a female identity, even suggesting that males could deliberately subvert the intent of the law by declaring a female identity. I would like to say that these concerns are silly, if they hadn't been raised by women.
It's really too bad bad that as a society, we have to resort to legislation and regulations in these matters. Why can't people just be themselves ? I guess I live in a fantasy.
4
I've asked this question of several friends and no one has an answer: Why are people under 18 deemed unable to provide consent for sexual relations, but ARE deemed able to make permanent changes to their gender?
Also, why are people at 18 deemed to have the judgment needed to vote, but not to drink?
Anyone know the answers?
Also, why are people at 18 deemed to have the judgment needed to vote, but not to drink?
Anyone know the answers?
14
They're not deemed that way.
In some states the age of consent is less than 18. In Maryland, for example, it's 16. It gets a bit hairy when one person is a legal adult (say, 19 or 20) and another is between 16 and 18, though there are plenty of social norms and unspokens (and how the 12th grade/college freshman gap is right at the age line) that put these situations into very corner cases. The end result is that you don't run into problems with it particularly often. In any event, for discussion's sake the point here is that some states have a sub-18 age of consent and, as far as I've been able to tell (I'm 21), that hasn't posed many issues mainly due to aforementioned societal norms.
The drinking age was once set at 18 in many states in the 1970s, and during that time there was a rather marked increase in vehicular fatalities. The age of 21 has been set since 1984 (search "National Minimum Drinking Age Act" online) in response, so public health and safety is why it's like that. In all honesty, with modern research showing that the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for judgment) doesn't fully develop until, on average, 25 years of age, that would be the ideal minimum age limit. That said, good luck convincing America that that's what the age limit should be and that large quantities of alcohol is a bad thing. ;)
The voting age is 18 because the draft minimum is also 18.
So it's mainly all just a matter of establishing per-issue equilibrium points.
In some states the age of consent is less than 18. In Maryland, for example, it's 16. It gets a bit hairy when one person is a legal adult (say, 19 or 20) and another is between 16 and 18, though there are plenty of social norms and unspokens (and how the 12th grade/college freshman gap is right at the age line) that put these situations into very corner cases. The end result is that you don't run into problems with it particularly often. In any event, for discussion's sake the point here is that some states have a sub-18 age of consent and, as far as I've been able to tell (I'm 21), that hasn't posed many issues mainly due to aforementioned societal norms.
The drinking age was once set at 18 in many states in the 1970s, and during that time there was a rather marked increase in vehicular fatalities. The age of 21 has been set since 1984 (search "National Minimum Drinking Age Act" online) in response, so public health and safety is why it's like that. In all honesty, with modern research showing that the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for judgment) doesn't fully develop until, on average, 25 years of age, that would be the ideal minimum age limit. That said, good luck convincing America that that's what the age limit should be and that large quantities of alcohol is a bad thing. ;)
The voting age is 18 because the draft minimum is also 18.
So it's mainly all just a matter of establishing per-issue equilibrium points.
It's because we let politicians pass laws to run our lives that make no sense. When you abdicate responsibility for your life and behavior the state steps in and bungles it up further.
David, you're spot on but the activists don't care about that, it means nothing to them. They want what they want, when they want and if you don't like it, there's something wrong with you. These people are not mindful of anything outside of their own, self serving interests. And we're the bigots.
3
Phyllis Schlaffly convinced a lot of foolish and/or narrow-minded women that the Equal Rights Amendment would force women to share bathrooms with men. With this ploy she was able to send the ERA down to defeat, which is why women still face discrimination in the workforce. Now bathrooms are back in the spotlight again, only this time the issue is discrimination against transsexual and transgendered people.
Bathrooms are not the issue. Discrimination is the issue, and the sooner we all stop finding reasons to discriminate against each other, the better off we'll all be.
Bathrooms are not the issue. Discrimination is the issue, and the sooner we all stop finding reasons to discriminate against each other, the better off we'll all be.
12
The transgender issue is difficult to discuss because so many people misunderstand the definition of “transgender.” They think the adjective “transgender” refers to a male who has “transitioned” to a female or to a female who has “transitioned” to a male. But the adjective “transgender” actually describes a person whose gender identify is a mismatch with their actual sex. A "transgender girl" is a boy who gender identifies as female. A "transgender boy" is a girl who gender identifies as a male. Requiring transgender students to use unisex bathrooms or multiple occupancy restrooms that correspond to their sex isn’t discriminatory.
2
I hope everyone has had the privilege of hearing Gavin speak. He is extremely articulate and obviously very bright. The arguments he makes as to why forcing him to use a separate bathroom at his high school is discriminatory are absolutely compelling. It is deplorable that people calling themselves Christians can support policies that have made everyday life for Gavin a living hell. Shame on all of you.
Gavin, the large majority of Americans support you and wish you every success. Actually, wishes aren't necessary because it is clear that you are going to be successful in whatever you decide to do.
Gavin, the large majority of Americans support you and wish you every success. Actually, wishes aren't necessary because it is clear that you are going to be successful in whatever you decide to do.
12
The State (public schools) have no power or right under the Constitution to tell anyone which bathroom they must use.
Only Nazis and Communists think along such lines.
If the school in question is having a problem maintaining order, it is their responsibility to ensure order with methods that are legal and constitutional. Schools that fear outrage from their nazi/communist population should ask for the National Guard to be called out to ensure order.
Only Nazis and Communists think along such lines.
If the school in question is having a problem maintaining order, it is their responsibility to ensure order with methods that are legal and constitutional. Schools that fear outrage from their nazi/communist population should ask for the National Guard to be called out to ensure order.
6
Yes, when my daughter goes into the bathroom and a perv goes in there and says he feels like a girl.. then what. How does such a small minority of people get the priority. Then just make all bathrooms coed.
5
Jeff: If you have your way, all your alleged "perv" has to do is walk into a girls' bathroom looking like a boy - like Gavin, for instance. After all, Gavin belongs in the girls bathroom. Right?
Gavin has more humanity in a single eye lash than fake 45 and his lying. alt right, white supremacist administration and followers. Go Gavin to SCOTUS!
6
So much love in your comment, try to hold it in.
1
If someone lives and identifies as female, is referred to as She and Her, then a single separate super special bathroom for that one person to use, a "separate but equal" solution, does not seem good.
7
If you equate this to seperate as being unfair then the only solution is single unified multigender multianatomy locker rooms in middle school and high school. Yet Obama did not argue for that and neither are those suing in court. If seperate but equal isn't good enough then single gender multianatomy locker rooms are still discriminatory because they discriminate by gender.
3
I'm a gay liberal leaning Democrat, and I must say I believe the issue of allowing transgendered people to use the bathroom of their choice is challenging. I have known personally a few transgendered women who looked like men in wigs. There is no judgment here, but acknowledgment that an individual who presents like this in a bathroom is going to be problematic for most biological women. What we need more than ever is compassion and empathy toward those who are transgendered. And a willingness to listen to all sides.
21
The New York Times has opened a Pandora s box. Symbolically the persecution of trans people is the persecution of individuality, of the idiosyncratic essence of each separate soul, & the unique permutation of Spirit which comprises each person. An exotica surrounds the phenomena of this -- complex & confusing. Does anyone really seek pain, ostracism, & being marginalized? What is next? Body scans at bathrooms, micro chips or birth certificate tattoos like concentration camp numbers? Imaginative, enlightened, free thinkers need to compose multidimensional works of art to address the myriad of issues surrounding all this. A token award winning TV "Transparent" does not address the multitude of folks who have no resources or support groups. Many trans people are not witty, urbane or educated. The arts must be supported & not just "Hamilton" type winners at the top. To move to NYC & attempt to be a playwright today is to live in an overpriced room slightly larger than the coffin you'll be buried in.
5
Some of these comments are grossing me out. "This is an election loser!" and "This impacts a tiny minority!" and "It's not as serious as segregation!" You know what is a loser? Picking and choosing which human rights causes you will champion based on probability that it will hurt you in an election and refusing to fight for rights if the number of those impacted is, in your mind, too small. I think likening the fight for rights to segregation (or not) isn't the main point here. If you know any trans folks then you will certainly understand that the discrimination they have faced overall as a group is enormous in all areas of life and the rates of teen suicides are incredibly high. Further, it's not about the bathroom just as it wasn't about the lunch counters or water fountains -- it's a way for those in the majority to police boundaries and retain social, cultural and political power. The transgender bathroom bill is a solution without a problem.
18
Sorry.. you are confusing human rights with the will of the people.
5
How did we get to the point at which teenagers' opinions matter so much? We're treating teenagers like they're adults. I'm not trying to trivialize anything, but it seems like we're on a slippery slope that leads to granting the vote to 12 yr olds. Debates like this will lead to the argument that tweens should have some say in who makes policy (and therefore who is president). In a world in which the main politics = economics, it makes sense to grant the vote only to people of working age (18 and up). In a world in which politics = identity issues, some will argue for granting the vote to people old enough to worry about their identity (which, I gather, is age 10).
19
I'm not trying to trivialize anything,
Yes you most certainly are. The rest of your rant is just silly.
Yes you most certainly are. The rest of your rant is just silly.
2
It's not about teenager's opinions. It's about how we treat a part of our society. Do we treat them as valuable members or, as objects to be feared and hated?
I think the choice is obvious.
I think the choice is obvious.
3
Some do argue that baby boomers should not be allowed to vote any more. There are too many of them, with too little time left here to suffer from consequences of their mistakes.
Unintended consequence for those demanding birth sex use of bathrooms - mothers won't be able to bring their young sons into the bathrooms with them.
"Well that's an exception."
Follow that logic.
"Well that's an exception."
Follow that logic.
9
Fake news par excellence. A non-issue cooked up by the gay rights movement as the natural next step following same sex marriage and marketed by popular media as the newest frontier of freedom and human rights. This is about validating a view of sexuality and nothing else. The focus on teenagers was added as an afterthought to strengthen the case. Up next: polygamy and pederasty.
20
Amazing, yet another conspiracy theory. Do we live in such a kind environment that people really have the time and considerable energy needed to invent this stuff?
Bathrooms are private, there are stalls. So ok, it doesn't really matter who goes in which one, though I agree that it would be weird to run into someone who looks male in the ladies room, as will happen if this new law is enforced. Locker rooms, however, are a different matter. My daughter (a girl in gender and biology) is only seven years old; she takes swimming lessons at the fitness center once a week. And every week she sees a boy around her age (same size at least) in the women's locker room - his mother, who is with him, understandably does not think he is old enough to be alone in the men's locker room. Let me tell you, at age 7, it already makes her uncomfortable to see his private body parts and to have her see his. Of course everyone averts their eyes and we try to change behind a towel but it's STILL uncomfortable and I get it. And no, there is no private place to change (changing in a toilet stall is very tight, rather gross and not fair for people waiting to relieve themselves). So let's be sensitive to this please.
19
That's a different issue. A transgender person who has undergone sex reassignment surgery will look like their selected sex. And they will most likely change in private. A young boy who feels he's is a girl will probably be dressed as a girl and change in private. The problem you are describing here is one of parental overprotectiveness because that parent doesn't want her child in the men's locker room due to her fear of him being kidnapped or molested or not mature enough to dress himself. Rather than setting up a family locker room or telling women that their 6 year old sons are able to walk through a locker room, most places give in. It doesn't matter than most molesting or kidnapping is family related.
6
You failed to read about this adequately. Obama's policies threatened to take any local school district to court if they implemented anything other than siingle gender multi anatomy locker rooms. They forced middle schools into forcing cisgender girls to disrobe next to transgender girls in middle school locker rooms. If your daughter is only 7 wait until she is 11 and beginning puberty - she is likely to more more sensitive then and the transgender girl will not have her mother with her.
6
For those advocating visiting the gender designated restroom with which one identifies or gender neutral restrooms, do you also advocate sharing hotel rooms on student trips, which one school board member in Gavin's district said could be a consequence? What of business trips and sharing hotel rooms with co-workers of the opposite gender? What of gender quotas in the workplace? A friend was passed over for a higher management position since his company was flagged as having lower numbers of women in such positions. What of taxpayer funded trips and camps for girls to expose them to science and math careers? The ramifications are endless. Where does it all go? Will there be a rush for 16 year olds to become emancipated (or even marry a much older person since they identify as an old soul)? Beach attire - nothing needed to cover breasts at any beach, or required all to cover up the top? Public swimming pools, ditto. Boys on girls' school sports teams snatching scholarships? Parents allowing minors to alter their children's gender identifying parts via surgery? Major elective surgery though deemed too young to drink alcohol or join the military or perhaps even drive a car? Where is all of this going? Everything gender neutral? What of research dollars for drug and health issues that affect women differently from men (i.e., heart disease)? Where??
20
I am opposed to any segregation of the sexes unless it's absolutely necessary. All of the scenarios that appear apocalyptic to you seem perfectly normal to me. Why should there be a special trip for girls to expose them to math and science? Are girls any less interested th science than boys? News to me. Sharing a room with a male colleague on a business trip? As long as he does not snore, what do I care? Do you know that in much of Europe covering up your breasts on the beach is optional - and believe it or not, the incidence of sex crimes is lower there than in the US? In short, your list is a perfect example of moral panic, unleashed by the prudish and the repressed in response to a perfectly normal process of erasing the social barriers between the sexes.
Mor, do you think the majority of women would feel indifferent to having to share a hotel room with a male colleague? And the ones that prefer not to, are they all prudes? Odd logic indeed. Hmmm, if he is a very polite hunk, maybe, or stinky, drunk and vulgar, no? I have no desire to be confronted with either scenario. Beaches? Moral panic? No, comfort zone. Regarding the gap between men and women in STEM, yes, you should enlighten yourself. Many schools and universities have field trips and camps for girls to help bridge the gap. To help you along:
https://educationunlimited.com/camp/category/69/science-and-engineering-...
https://educationunlimited.com/camp/category/69/science-and-engineering-...
7
Remember when every good liberal supported the *recovered memory* crowd? Remember when every good conservative believed that daycares were rife with Satanists performing unspeakable acts upon toddlers?
We*re never required to live in the real world, where getting drunk may mean waking up in the morning unsure of what you were doing with your own body or letting someone else do, the night before, or where our particular mammalian species was designed to reproduce based on binary sex characteristics.
Of course things go wrong. The human body is incredibly complex. Every day, children are born with physical anomalies that impede normal function. *Normal* is not necessarily a judgmental word. If your heart is abnormal it does not function as it was optimally designed to.
It is a fact that while humans are designed to be either XX or XY, there is in fact a biological continuum. But that continuum is further complicated by emotional and psychiatric factors that may impede healthy maturation and functioning.
But no magic can change your chromosomes. Surgery can provide somewhat functional new genitals, and hormones can stimulate the growth of secondary sex characteristics, but nothing can make you a *real boy* or a *real girl* if your chromosomes declare otherwise.
We*re never required to live in the real world, where getting drunk may mean waking up in the morning unsure of what you were doing with your own body or letting someone else do, the night before, or where our particular mammalian species was designed to reproduce based on binary sex characteristics.
Of course things go wrong. The human body is incredibly complex. Every day, children are born with physical anomalies that impede normal function. *Normal* is not necessarily a judgmental word. If your heart is abnormal it does not function as it was optimally designed to.
It is a fact that while humans are designed to be either XX or XY, there is in fact a biological continuum. But that continuum is further complicated by emotional and psychiatric factors that may impede healthy maturation and functioning.
But no magic can change your chromosomes. Surgery can provide somewhat functional new genitals, and hormones can stimulate the growth of secondary sex characteristics, but nothing can make you a *real boy* or a *real girl* if your chromosomes declare otherwise.
10
I heard your interview on NPR yesterday, and was so impressed by Gavin's intelligence and poise! My husband and I are rooting for you in your fight that can help so many vulnerable schoolchildren not to be bullied out of basic human rights!
4
Yes, P. The bathroom right is just about as right as yelling fire in a crowded theatre.
1
I cannot get my head around this. As I understand it, if you are a female who believes you are really a male, you have to take testosterone injections for your entire life, or your body will revert to what it actually is - female. So how is it possible that you are a boy, as I heard Gavin declare on NPR yesterday? On the other hand, if you are a boy, you do not belong in the women's restroom. A unisex bathroom (one toilet, one sink, a door that locks) is fine for either gender. But if there are men's and women's restrooms, then you belong in the one that your "equipment" matches. I don't want men in my bathroom with me, even if they believe they are women.
20
You are what you think you are, regardless of your "equipment". Gender is obviously determined by the mind not the genitals.
9
Gender Dysphoria is the condition of feeling one's emotional and psychological identity as male or female to be opposite to one's biological sex. Their brains and bodies are in disagreement. People who have this condition report feeling like they are in the wrong body from very early ages. Mrs. Grimm said, "God gave me this child to open my heart and mind." That's good advice for all of us.
4
Bobaloobob - "Gender is obviously determined by the mind not the genitals." Perhaps, depending on which planet you come from Bob. Which one are you from?
1
I'll repeat. Plans for great discrimination and deprivation always start with tiny steps along the edges. If these are strenuously resisted, the plans do not make progress. However, if they succeed, the next tiny step will push the plan further. And each succeeding step will be larger and harder to stop. Tyranny and deprivation of rights MUST be stopped when these first tiny steps appear. Today it's school bathrooms. Tomorrow, transgender people will be banned from the army. Then they will not be allowed to teach children. Then it will be legal to cite "Religious Liberty" as a justification for being allowed to fire, refuse to hire, or refuse to serve transgender people. Then entire career choices will be banned. Meanwhile, in the shadow of this increasing discrimination, the same steps will also be taken against gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, fluid gender identity, and people born intersexed. Today, LGBTI people are the African-Americans of the Jim Crow segregationist days the Jews of World War II, and the Irish-Americans (and all Catholics) of the 1850s.
4
"Today, LGBTI people are the African Americans of the Jim Crow segregationist days... ." You obviously do not know ANY black people. African Americans (and all people of color) were literally born that way. They didn't "transition" or "come out of the closet." Being a TG is literally a choice. Likening the TG movement to black people is a slur against black folk.
14
Isn't there something wrong with a country when it can get so worked up over this issue that affects such a tiny number. Yes, the problem needs to be dealt with but for heaven's sakes, couldn't common sense at state level not have dealt with this?
14
Unfortunately, a lot of states are governed by people without common sense or respect for the civil rights of those different from them. Did states end segregation by choice? Provide marriage equality? Why would we expect them to do the right thing here?
9
There is no such thing as transgender. You cannot change your gender.
There are mentally ill people who are endangered by enablers.
There are mentally ill people who are endangered by enablers.
23
Says George Orwell. Lol.
Educate yourself.
Educate yourself.
Sorry, but I cannot imagine anyone really believes that the U.S. Congress passed Title IX in 1972 with the intention to provide transgender people with access to the bathroom of their choice.
Transgender people simply do not have that right by way of Title IX.
The Obama Administration wanted to grab onto a left wing cause, and then they "found" Title IX as the solution.
This is warped thinking, and any court that says otherwise is playing politics, not following the law.
If you want there to be such a law, get Congress or the states to pass one.
I am all for protecting transgenders, but people do not necessarily have rights simply because they think they should.
Transgender people simply do not have that right by way of Title IX.
The Obama Administration wanted to grab onto a left wing cause, and then they "found" Title IX as the solution.
This is warped thinking, and any court that says otherwise is playing politics, not following the law.
If you want there to be such a law, get Congress or the states to pass one.
I am all for protecting transgenders, but people do not necessarily have rights simply because they think they should.
19
It is also interesting to note the timing of the Obama Administration's seizing this issue in relation to what was going on politically at the time and the need to create a distraction.
3
I am a germphobe so I suffer when I go out because I don't find any bathroom clean enough. I might be one of the 0000.1%. Should I be expecting a public bathroom cleaned over and over for people like me? So why is a separate bathroom for transgenders not good enough who maybe 000.1% of the population? Why insist on something not agreeable to the rest of the population especially when there is a solution which addresses both populations? One person's mindset should not be thrust on the others.
PS: I have nothing against the transgenders but wanting to share the same locker-rooms or bathrooms is unreasonable.
PS: I have nothing against the transgenders but wanting to share the same locker-rooms or bathrooms is unreasonable.
23
How does it harm you to have a transgendered person use the same restroom? It's stigmatizing to be forced to use a separate restroom. I suppose you feel similarly about race-segregated drinking fountains, etc?
2
If your a germaphobe, you not only have a spokesman in the Oval office, but you are in need of psychological help.
Transgender kids are not / not in need of psychological help.
That's the difference.
Transgender kids are not / not in need of psychological help.
That's the difference.
10
What about little kids who could be fearful of the confusion this ruling imposes - do their fears matter?
2
It is difficult to believe that the Supreme Court as currently constituted with eight justices would not want to fully address this case now. Gorsuch isn't going to matter and they should feel the urgency of sending Trump a message before he gets too far started in believing that he can toss aside federal guarantees of equal rights.
4
Transgender is a mental disorder. IAW long term studies conducted by Johns Hopkins Research University, and opinions issued by World Health Organization.
Many other consider it a delusional fantasy, because if you refuse to believe a mirror, PMS, or facial hair, how can you prove you are different? How can children as young as 4 or 5 say they are wrong gender, when they know nothing about gender roles or sexual maturity? If you have never been the opposite sex, how can you claim to be one? Being a certain gender is a life long experience, not a news flash. Further, having surgery, gender reassignment therapy, or hormone therapy, will not change your DNA.
Additionally, calling this a bathroom bill is liberal propaganda. The long term result is coed showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms in all public schools. It will require 99.7% of population to surrender gender privacy, so that trans folks can have their delusional fantasies.
Many other consider it a delusional fantasy, because if you refuse to believe a mirror, PMS, or facial hair, how can you prove you are different? How can children as young as 4 or 5 say they are wrong gender, when they know nothing about gender roles or sexual maturity? If you have never been the opposite sex, how can you claim to be one? Being a certain gender is a life long experience, not a news flash. Further, having surgery, gender reassignment therapy, or hormone therapy, will not change your DNA.
Additionally, calling this a bathroom bill is liberal propaganda. The long term result is coed showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms in all public schools. It will require 99.7% of population to surrender gender privacy, so that trans folks can have their delusional fantasies.
30
I do not know how it feels to be transgender. But I strongly suspect that recognizing it is, say, somewhat akin to seeing a comment such as yours, and knowing instinctively, undoubtedly, without any hesitation whatsoever that it is the product of a small, uninformed and distorted mind.
13
Or that it is the product of someone so fearful of going along with the crowd that they will adopt any attitude or value thanks to social pressure, without regard for what their own sense of morality tells them.
1
Let's assume that you are correct that a transgender person is mentally ill. Then the Americans With Disabilities Act kicks in and state and local governments have to accommodate those "mentally ill" people's disabilities by not doing things which will make their "illness" worse, like forcing them to use public bath rooms where they are profoundly frightened. You end up at the same point legally, states and cities being obligated to accommodate he disabled person by not taking any action which will make their illness worse.
Not to diminish transgender students struggles, but let's acknowledge the difficulty or impossibility of changing the hearts and minds of others in any situation.
Given the immediacy of the problem, I propose a practical solution.
When traveling and sometimes here, I couldn't help notice that many restaurant restrooms were not gender specific to anyone. Instead in an area with large open access, were a row of single enclosed stalls available to all. Outside of them
in an open area were sinks for hand washing. In this way everyone is treated equally, has privacy and is protected.
Just seems like common sense to me to meet these provisions for everyone. Making anyone feel forced into a situation where they are uncomfortable seems counterintuitive to keeping anyone safe or opening minds. Necessary biological functions needn't be fraught for anyone.
Why not make non-gender specific restrooms the new norm for all?
Given the immediacy of the problem, I propose a practical solution.
When traveling and sometimes here, I couldn't help notice that many restaurant restrooms were not gender specific to anyone. Instead in an area with large open access, were a row of single enclosed stalls available to all. Outside of them
in an open area were sinks for hand washing. In this way everyone is treated equally, has privacy and is protected.
Just seems like common sense to me to meet these provisions for everyone. Making anyone feel forced into a situation where they are uncomfortable seems counterintuitive to keeping anyone safe or opening minds. Necessary biological functions needn't be fraught for anyone.
Why not make non-gender specific restrooms the new norm for all?
18
For those of you who believe that transgender people should be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice:
Why isn't the correct solution to simply get rid of all gender-specific bathrooms ?
Perhaps everyone should use the same ones.
If you do not believe that, then why should women be forced to be in a bathroom with biological males ?
Why isn't the correct solution to simply get rid of all gender-specific bathrooms ?
Perhaps everyone should use the same ones.
If you do not believe that, then why should women be forced to be in a bathroom with biological males ?
14
Used large non gender specific bathrooms with numerous stalls back in the 70s in Italy and emerged unscathed. Would have thought NY Times readers would be a bit more sophisticated. What will you do when your kids go off to college and live in co-ed dorms.
6
Consider the antithesis of that proposal: individuals who have "female" on their birth certificates, who are transitioning -- taking hormones, growing facial hair and increasing in musculature -- will now walk into the girls'/ladies' room with permission from the authorities. Now you have a person who looks and acts like a man/boy but has a female's birth certificate, looming in the doorway where your daughter/wife/sister has gone to use the facilities.
Is that what you really want? Is that a suitable alternative to having a person who looks, acts like a female, but is male in birth certificate only, come into a women's facility, go to a stall, exit the stall, wash hands and ... leave? Or should that person go into a men's room unescorted?
The irony is that people who have transitioned of both genders have been doing this for years, and no one has complained ... or even noticed. It is only when the fantasies of troubled individuals intrude that these people are outed and worse yet, persecuted for who they are. It's un-American!
Is that what you really want? Is that a suitable alternative to having a person who looks, acts like a female, but is male in birth certificate only, come into a women's facility, go to a stall, exit the stall, wash hands and ... leave? Or should that person go into a men's room unescorted?
The irony is that people who have transitioned of both genders have been doing this for years, and no one has complained ... or even noticed. It is only when the fantasies of troubled individuals intrude that these people are outed and worse yet, persecuted for who they are. It's un-American!
Nobody ever said that they'd be forced to use the bathroom associated with their sex. In many cases, transgender individuals have been offered gender-neutral facilities, but they have consistently refused them.
Having gender-neutral stalls for trans individuals is really the only option where males are no longer allowed in women's rooms. This is important because of the subjective nature of transgenderism. All it takes to be trans is for someone to identify as such -- no surgery, hormones, or other steps are needed. There are not even any requirements to change one's appearance -- just look at Danielle Muscato, a transwoman (yes, I said "transwoman") with a full beard. This creates a problem for women and girls, because this means that any male with ill intentions can identify his way in to a women's space.
Until we can find a way to objectively assess whether someone is trans or not, this is the most reasonable and safe option for everyone. Trans individuals are the ones who have refused it. Those of us against trans individuals using the opposite sex bathrooms are not all for pushing them back into the ones of their own sex. And, claiming that inflates this issue into something it is absolutely not. This other option is safer for them, it would be safer for non-trans gender non-conforming people, and it would be able to be used by anyone so it wouldn't "out" them to use it. They're just refusing it as an option.
Having gender-neutral stalls for trans individuals is really the only option where males are no longer allowed in women's rooms. This is important because of the subjective nature of transgenderism. All it takes to be trans is for someone to identify as such -- no surgery, hormones, or other steps are needed. There are not even any requirements to change one's appearance -- just look at Danielle Muscato, a transwoman (yes, I said "transwoman") with a full beard. This creates a problem for women and girls, because this means that any male with ill intentions can identify his way in to a women's space.
Until we can find a way to objectively assess whether someone is trans or not, this is the most reasonable and safe option for everyone. Trans individuals are the ones who have refused it. Those of us against trans individuals using the opposite sex bathrooms are not all for pushing them back into the ones of their own sex. And, claiming that inflates this issue into something it is absolutely not. This other option is safer for them, it would be safer for non-trans gender non-conforming people, and it would be able to be used by anyone so it wouldn't "out" them to use it. They're just refusing it as an option.
2
Gavin Grimm has more courage than the adults who are refusing to listen to him. He's not hurting anyone. All he's asking for is to use the bathroom of his gender identity. He didn't decide to be transgender just to get into the boys bathroom at school. Being transgender is not something a child decides to be. It's at the heart of who they are and once they undergo hormone treatments and sex reassignment surgery they are, for all intents and purposes their chosen sex.
Mr. Grimm's good luck is being born in a time when surgery and hormones can transform him into the gender his brain is telling him he is. Imagine how he experienced life as the "wrong" sex. Or, better yet, imagine how any one of us feels when our bodies betray us by making us ill, handicapping us, or changing our appearance in some way. Usually it's temporary but for Gavin and others like him, without the hormones and reassignment surgery it's permanent. The uproar over the bathrooms by normal people is absurd unless there are plans to post guards at every bathroom in every school and public place in America to ensure that people use the "correct" bathroom for their stated sex on their original birth certificates.
Mr. Grimm's good luck is being born in a time when surgery and hormones can transform him into the gender his brain is telling him he is. Imagine how he experienced life as the "wrong" sex. Or, better yet, imagine how any one of us feels when our bodies betray us by making us ill, handicapping us, or changing our appearance in some way. Usually it's temporary but for Gavin and others like him, without the hormones and reassignment surgery it's permanent. The uproar over the bathrooms by normal people is absurd unless there are plans to post guards at every bathroom in every school and public place in America to ensure that people use the "correct" bathroom for their stated sex on their original birth certificates.
18
You are wrong.
He is hurting people.
Not physically but mentally.
A women can be traumatized if a male transgender person is in the same bathroom.
You can not demand her to be any different because you do not see the problem she has,
Please do not tell me this is the same thing that happenned when white people told black people to use a separate bathroom.
White women who were prejudice didn't only reject black people in the bathroom.
They didn't want them in the same room even in the same bus if that meant they would be next to them.
So people are being hurt and you don't care.
Well I do.
He is hurting people.
Not physically but mentally.
A women can be traumatized if a male transgender person is in the same bathroom.
You can not demand her to be any different because you do not see the problem she has,
Please do not tell me this is the same thing that happenned when white people told black people to use a separate bathroom.
White women who were prejudice didn't only reject black people in the bathroom.
They didn't want them in the same room even in the same bus if that meant they would be next to them.
So people are being hurt and you don't care.
Well I do.
6
How do you know if any transgender person is in the bathroom with you? Are you going to ask them to show you their genitals before allowing them to use the facilities? Are you going to look over or under the stall to see if that person is in the "correct" bathroom? I can assure you that if you were to do any of that you would be arrested and charged as a sexual offender.
I may be wrong here but I think that most people, when they are using the facilities, unless they are dealing drugs, putting on make up, or engaged in something other than going to the bathroom, aren't interested in who is in the stall next to them or on the other side of the room. We want to attend to our needs and that's about it. And we want the place to be clean.
I may be wrong here but I think that most people, when they are using the facilities, unless they are dealing drugs, putting on make up, or engaged in something other than going to the bathroom, aren't interested in who is in the stall next to them or on the other side of the room. We want to attend to our needs and that's about it. And we want the place to be clean.
7
How is someone traumatized? Everyone's got their own stall. I don't see what they do, they don't see what I do. I don't know if they urinate sitting, standing, or squatting. And frankly, I don't care. We come out, wash our hands and move on. I don't see the trauma in this. Perhaps you are just a little more sensitive than most?
3
Transgenders not comfortable using designated male female bathrooms in schools should use the teachers room private bathrooms.
13
I think that the issue is not the discrimination based on sexual identity, but rather whether the policies of certain schools regarding washroom or dress facility use are discriminatory in the first place.
Also, mind it, that the broad ruling about sexual identity vs. biological gender can be very complicated, since it has a potential to have too many unintended consequences.
Also, mind it, that the broad ruling about sexual identity vs. biological gender can be very complicated, since it has a potential to have too many unintended consequences.
4
Andy, you're right.
The current uproar actually is about the Obama overreach in extending Executive-branch control without legislative basis, and Trump reversing that overreach. The gender-identity issue is far too complicated to be resolved by some ill-conceived executive-branch letter.
Interestingly, the same people so concerned about "micro-aggressions" in other sexual behavior are now so aggrieved by a reluctance to impose the intrusion of biological males into the showers with young women.
The current uproar actually is about the Obama overreach in extending Executive-branch control without legislative basis, and Trump reversing that overreach. The gender-identity issue is far too complicated to be resolved by some ill-conceived executive-branch letter.
Interestingly, the same people so concerned about "micro-aggressions" in other sexual behavior are now so aggrieved by a reluctance to impose the intrusion of biological males into the showers with young women.
2
Conservatives are devoid of compassion. They have no heart and will not even consider the plight of these young people. Most Conservatives have never done any kind of research about transgender, they just "know it's wrong" or "an abomination."
No one would CHOOSE to be transgender nor to be Gay!!! Why would anyone subject themselves to the pain, ostracism and bigotry that comes with being an "other" in America?!
No one has been raped by a transgender youth or adult. But many, many have been raped by preachers, so-called-straight-men, priests, etc.!
Whose next on Donald's list?! The rest of the LGTBQ community, that's who. Donald is against Marriage Equality, and his base of holier-than-thou folks, want to get rid of all the progress that has been made!
I do not blame his supporters ....as much as I blame over a 100 million eligible voters who didn't bother to vote!
Lastly, have some compassion for these trans-folks, they are simply doing their best to live an authentic life.
No one would CHOOSE to be transgender nor to be Gay!!! Why would anyone subject themselves to the pain, ostracism and bigotry that comes with being an "other" in America?!
No one has been raped by a transgender youth or adult. But many, many have been raped by preachers, so-called-straight-men, priests, etc.!
Whose next on Donald's list?! The rest of the LGTBQ community, that's who. Donald is against Marriage Equality, and his base of holier-than-thou folks, want to get rid of all the progress that has been made!
I do not blame his supporters ....as much as I blame over a 100 million eligible voters who didn't bother to vote!
Lastly, have some compassion for these trans-folks, they are simply doing their best to live an authentic life.
23
I can assure you Mari the majority of people could care less about the sexual orientation of others. They've got more important things to do with their life like go to work, take care of their children and themselves. Outside of the media hype given to Gavin Grimm at the staged support rallies, virtually nobody cares about Gavin's quest, nobody. The only thing that's going to change for Gavin is that in a few month's (s)he'll be 18 and not be subject to the bath/locker room regulations at school any longer
11
You are so right. We should sooner ban priests, coaches, and teachers from public restrooms. Along with all straight men. Sorry too bad - you have to go, but you're not welcome? People are screaming that you're a freak and must be kept away from their children? Well, see what it feels like.
2
That is what makes Gavin different than many people. He cares about the kids who will be following him through the school system; that they are afforded those rights as well. It's not just about him. Perhaps you should take a lesson from him.
1
All Trump did was withdraw the punitive "guidance" of the EO which was based on a a very shaky interpretation of Title IX. He indicated that states should manage this locally, which is traditionally the way education has largely been handled. Congress is free to legislate a change in the interpretation or conditions of Title IX. Obama did not do any favors for the trans community making this dependent on his personal presidential largesse. It is the equivalent of making same sex marriage depending on executive orders. It's not the right tool. I honestly don't think that Trump really has a negative opinion of LGBTQ people - but he did campaign and win on reducing onerous regulations and "guidance" that is murky, creates a burden and is hard to understand, interpret and implement.
24
However, Obama's EO on this provided a very good distraction in the primary race just when the midwestern states were getting ready to vote and Bernie was gaining the traction necessary to overtake Hillary.
1
All transgender folks should voluntarily start using the restroom that corresponds to the gender on their birth certificate, which they will carry with them at all times so that they may prove to those in inevitable resulting hysterics that they are, by law, required to use that restroom. Only then will people fully regret this asinine path we are taking to police toilets for absolutely no good reason. Statistically speaking, if it's sexual predators y'all are so worried about go investigate your clergy, coaches, scout leaders and POTUS!
12
Liberals already flushing their chances of winning midterm elections down the proverbial toilet. Continue to focus on fringe issues like this while Trump pounds his chest on jobs and security.
You really never do learn, do you?
You really never do learn, do you?
42
And right above this story is the following lede:
"Mr. Trump may have overruled Betsy DeVos on transgender bathroom access, but people who have worked with her say she will not be a meek team player."
Except when she isn't.
Give me one large break.
Given her first chance to stand up to Jeff "Hey, I ain't no bigot, I'm just trying to make things the way God wants 'em" Sessions, DeVos cravenly caved. After all, she likes the drapes in her corner office.
What a fighter!
Mr. Pena has obviously based his story on flakkery put out by DeVos's PR operation.
Look, I understand the human need to look for some sort of redeeming social merit somewhere in the Trump Administration. But there simply isn't any there there.
Don't try to normalize the situation by saying somebody has principles -- that only a grizzly bear could appreciate.
For example, on the issue of "replacing" ACA.
The Dems shouldn't go into the weeds trying to rescue some nugget of sane public policy from the Paul Ryan and Grover Norquist stew the Republications are about to create.
Instead, go to the people screaming: "Medicare for All!"
If that meme takes hold, I would not want to be Paul Ryan, let alone Donald Trump, out there trying to defend their 10th best solution by trashing Medicare.
Medicare has so much bipartisan support in the electorate that "Medicare for All!" in the ONLY thing the Dems should be shouting from the housetops.
Leave it to Trump to be tweeting: "Medicare. Failed program. Sad."
"Mr. Trump may have overruled Betsy DeVos on transgender bathroom access, but people who have worked with her say she will not be a meek team player."
Except when she isn't.
Give me one large break.
Given her first chance to stand up to Jeff "Hey, I ain't no bigot, I'm just trying to make things the way God wants 'em" Sessions, DeVos cravenly caved. After all, she likes the drapes in her corner office.
What a fighter!
Mr. Pena has obviously based his story on flakkery put out by DeVos's PR operation.
Look, I understand the human need to look for some sort of redeeming social merit somewhere in the Trump Administration. But there simply isn't any there there.
Don't try to normalize the situation by saying somebody has principles -- that only a grizzly bear could appreciate.
For example, on the issue of "replacing" ACA.
The Dems shouldn't go into the weeds trying to rescue some nugget of sane public policy from the Paul Ryan and Grover Norquist stew the Republications are about to create.
Instead, go to the people screaming: "Medicare for All!"
If that meme takes hold, I would not want to be Paul Ryan, let alone Donald Trump, out there trying to defend their 10th best solution by trashing Medicare.
Medicare has so much bipartisan support in the electorate that "Medicare for All!" in the ONLY thing the Dems should be shouting from the housetops.
Leave it to Trump to be tweeting: "Medicare. Failed program. Sad."
5
Let us not talk about the discrimination against 98.5% of the public school students who do not want their privacy invaded by someone with the opposite genitalia.
33
their privacy is not invaded in a closed stall restroom. Is their privacy invaded when they go to the restroom on an airplane?
8
How are they invading your privacy by using the bathroom? I really think some people just have lurid imaginations. Bathroom anxieties say more about the anxious people than about the people who just need to use the bathroom.
1
So if you saw Gavin Grimm headed to the men's room, are you actually saying that you would stop him and what- demand a birth certificate? To see his bottom?
You guys have too much time on your hands.
Women should be in charge of ALL these issues- there was no problem until the guys started in with the "not my daughter" blabbery. Like childbirth, let the ladies handle it.
You guys have too much time on your hands.
Women should be in charge of ALL these issues- there was no problem until the guys started in with the "not my daughter" blabbery. Like childbirth, let the ladies handle it.
1
There is what seems to be a quiet, but noticeable, trend in factory building and remodeling. Replacing conventional men's and women's restrooms are now rows of unisex individual restrooms each with a commode, a lavatory and and a locking door. When the door is locked, a message saying "occupied" clicks into view. It's the same type of accommodations you find on every airplane. This is a way many businesses are avoiding potential issues without fanfare.
12
The problem is that older schools still have "men" and "women" bathrooms. Remodeling bathroom is an expense too far for many financially strapped schools.
Your solution will only work when new schools are being built.
Your solution will only work when new schools are being built.
6
Obviously the transgender person is correct. If you take a moment and look at the severity of the absurdities currently being perpetrated by Don you may see that his antics are red-herrings to throw us off the sent of the impeachable/ criminal activities of Russiagate.
We need a special prosecutor and we need Congress to do its duty.
We need a special prosecutor and we need Congress to do its duty.
8
He didn't start this transgender issue. The left started it. And he is responding in the appropriate way. The federal government has no business forcing this issue on the states, and defunding them if they don't comply. Read Title IX again. It has absolutely nothing to do with bathrooms.
17
How you can you possibly say "he didn't start it" by any stretch of the imagination?
Trump said he would not change rules/laws pertaining to those who fall into the LGBT world.
He could have left it alone. As he said he would.
"He started it" when he chose to rescind protections for transgender students.
Trump said he would not change rules/laws pertaining to those who fall into the LGBT world.
He could have left it alone. As he said he would.
"He started it" when he chose to rescind protections for transgender students.
1
You have to go with your parts, not with your heart.
16
This poor kid!
Can you imagine being 17 having struggled with gender issues, come through all that, and have to deal with this?
All over having place to relief themself?
Everybody has the same need if they are human.
Aside from the ones you see peeing in every corer of the city, most folks want privacy for that... the greatest proven danger for girls are straight men, in or out of a bathroom.
Get real.
Can you imagine being 17 having struggled with gender issues, come through all that, and have to deal with this?
All over having place to relief themself?
Everybody has the same need if they are human.
Aside from the ones you see peeing in every corer of the city, most folks want privacy for that... the greatest proven danger for girls are straight men, in or out of a bathroom.
Get real.
16
Here's the problem with this whole issue - all teenagers struggle with who and what they are - it is part of growing up. Making decisions including drugs, hormones and surgery with permanent effects in this period of questioning is problematic, particularly when it is embraced and endorsed by our celebrity obsessed culture. I was enormously sad to see in comments on a prior article that a teenage decided he decided he was trans after seeing "I Am Jazz". A better approach to all of this is to have less rigid ideas of what is feminine or masculine so that girls who are tomboys and boys who want to wear female clothing see that as acceptable in their biological sex - and don't require mutilating surgery to feel "okay".
12
Me@, when was the last time you met or raised a transgender child? There is an excellent issue about this from the National Geographic Society. What it emphasizes is what seems to be eluding an awful lot of people: it's not a phase for some of these teens. For the ones that it is, all the hormone blockers in puberty do is give them time to see if their feelings about being the opposite sex continue. For those who decide that they are meant to be the opposite sex the hormone blockers combined with therapy to ensure that their decision hasn't been forced upon them, give them a chance to avoid developing secondary sex characteristics that they don't want to develop.
No child or family undertakes this type of thing lightly. It is, like having a child or getting married, one of the most important and life changing decisions in a person's life. The surgery is there to see to it that their external gender agrees with their internal gender identity. It's not genital mutilation to them. Gender dysphoria is not about using the bathroom. It's about who a person is, how they perceive themselves versus what sex is on their birth certificate and, if they are very lucky, the eventual change over to the sex their brains are telling them they are.
No child or family undertakes this type of thing lightly. It is, like having a child or getting married, one of the most important and life changing decisions in a person's life. The surgery is there to see to it that their external gender agrees with their internal gender identity. It's not genital mutilation to them. Gender dysphoria is not about using the bathroom. It's about who a person is, how they perceive themselves versus what sex is on their birth certificate and, if they are very lucky, the eventual change over to the sex their brains are telling them they are.
1
You really don't understand the difference between genitalia and the brain. And you probably didn't read "I am Jazz" either, or you would know that Jazz "knew she" was a girl from the age of six! Far from teenager.
There's a world of difference between tomboys or sissies, and transgender boys or girls.
I wear pants and shirts all the time, but I have never wanted to change my genitalia. And I'm a grandmother of four and none of them want to change their genders. So what?
There's a world of difference between tomboys or sissies, and transgender boys or girls.
I wear pants and shirts all the time, but I have never wanted to change my genitalia. And I'm a grandmother of four and none of them want to change their genders. So what?
3
It's a civil rights issue, and we should all be concerned, indeed outraged, by the Trump-Pence policy. For many people it's quite personal and we need to show them our support at every opportunity.
8
Go Gavin!
You are involved in some very serious stuff here. Don’t let that lead you to forget your first responsibility is to take care of your self. You may want to help others, don't let guilt over need you see make you turn away from taking the time you need for yourself. You will become better able to tell when to take time for you and when to do for others, as you get older. For now less is more, you'll know when to start advocating etc down the road.
I still have not heard a rational explanation from the opponents of trans rights for the assertion that this interpretation of the law for school children, school children is going to provide cover for men to dress as women to gain access to women’s bathrooms too do what??? I can’t even fathom what must be going on in the bathrooms these people use or why I have never heard about it (as is the usual case with such things) previous to this round of Conservative propaganda.
Has any reporter ever tried to work out how and or where the incubator and launch of these conservative propaganda points as if they were common sense known for decades and not the invented for the purpose thing they are take place?
You are involved in some very serious stuff here. Don’t let that lead you to forget your first responsibility is to take care of your self. You may want to help others, don't let guilt over need you see make you turn away from taking the time you need for yourself. You will become better able to tell when to take time for you and when to do for others, as you get older. For now less is more, you'll know when to start advocating etc down the road.
I still have not heard a rational explanation from the opponents of trans rights for the assertion that this interpretation of the law for school children, school children is going to provide cover for men to dress as women to gain access to women’s bathrooms too do what??? I can’t even fathom what must be going on in the bathrooms these people use or why I have never heard about it (as is the usual case with such things) previous to this round of Conservative propaganda.
Has any reporter ever tried to work out how and or where the incubator and launch of these conservative propaganda points as if they were common sense known for decades and not the invented for the purpose thing they are take place?
2
There is little no proof that 1/2 of one percent of Americans are transgender. These numbers are simply the result of statistical manipulation of the data collected in a CDC optional questionnaire. As usual, the Times fails to point out the incomplete nature of the data and the fact that to arrive at these totals requires believing - without back testing - that the data are correct. I read the SOGI and I doubt that many Americans would even understand the question.
14
hopefully this will enable the transgender to use the lockers and showers that they associate with their sexual selection (and hence advance the cause of human rights)!!!
2
If the Democratic party keeps pushing this issue, the re-election of President Trump in 2020 is assured.
21
I have voted Democrat my entire life, but I'd actually consider voting for him if the Democrats made this one of their foundational issues. I'm tired of them hypocritically discarding science when it comes to identity politics, then taking it up as gospel when it comes to the environment and climate change. Pick one -- either science is a valid source for information, or it's not. You can't have both.
3
After his school district worked to find a solution to his unique situation, Mr. Grimm, his mother, and the ACLU said that simply was not good enough. I don't know any high school student who wouldn't prefer a private bathroom, except, evidently, Mr. Grimm. This is sad case of exploitation by the ACLU and the left to create yet another class of victims. Mission accomplished!
27
Most people seem to be missing the intent of this lawsuit. Its purpose is to validate the idea that Gavin is a "real boy." Gavin is not male. Gavin identifies as and is living as a boy, and wants the school to consider him to be identical in sex to XY males.
This is why transgender people are fighting so hard about this issue and are refusing reasonable accommodations which they insist stigmatize them as "different."
They are different. There is certainly a human biological continuum from XX to XY, but the majority of humans are within the "normal" range for each sex. People who fall out of the "normal" range may do so for a variety of biological, psychiatric and psychological reasons, not all of which are well understood. True intersex people are quite rare. It's untrue to say that no transgender person is mentally ill. Some certainly are, and remedies focusing on body alteration without treating the underlying psychiatric distress don't relieve the problem. Even in a world of perfect acceptance, some transgender people will continue to experience distress with accepting or understanding themselves.
Why is Gavin insisting on using the male bathroom when Gavin will continue to need to use a regular, stall toilet? Gavin cannot physically urinate in a urinal. Biological men identifying as women, however, can use either urinals or toilets for urination.
Hormones and surgery enable a person of one sex to simulate the other. They aren't magically transformed.
This is why transgender people are fighting so hard about this issue and are refusing reasonable accommodations which they insist stigmatize them as "different."
They are different. There is certainly a human biological continuum from XX to XY, but the majority of humans are within the "normal" range for each sex. People who fall out of the "normal" range may do so for a variety of biological, psychiatric and psychological reasons, not all of which are well understood. True intersex people are quite rare. It's untrue to say that no transgender person is mentally ill. Some certainly are, and remedies focusing on body alteration without treating the underlying psychiatric distress don't relieve the problem. Even in a world of perfect acceptance, some transgender people will continue to experience distress with accepting or understanding themselves.
Why is Gavin insisting on using the male bathroom when Gavin will continue to need to use a regular, stall toilet? Gavin cannot physically urinate in a urinal. Biological men identifying as women, however, can use either urinals or toilets for urination.
Hormones and surgery enable a person of one sex to simulate the other. They aren't magically transformed.
24
Gavin Grimm is a girl who suffers from what the American Psychiatric Association once classified as gender identify disorder by now classified as gender dysphoria.. Studies how gender dysphoria is almost certainly caused by abnormal natal or prenatal development of portion of the brain that govern physical perception. However, the brains of gender dysphoria patients are not like "female brains" or like "male brains." They are different from both. Gavin Grimm argues that her gender identity makes her a boy, but gender identity has no affect on a person's sex. Gavin is not a boy "trapped in a woman's body." She is a female,
20
Can't wait til this spoiled-brat fad goes away.
3
What a guy who is now a girl or the other way around wants to use a M or W bathroom is now a civil right sort of like the first amendment, what a joke !
Unisex bathrooms exist or create some, use them. This country has real issues to deal with.
Unisex bathrooms exist or create some, use them. This country has real issues to deal with.
45
Tempest in a tea pot.
The country has issues on top of the preferential list.
The country has issues on top of the preferential list.
4
Come on all you hippies. I remember using the men's room when the women's line at a concert was around the bldg. I went to gay bars (cause they played the Best Disco and dancing was at a fever pitch). I didn't give a damn who was in the bathroom. I will tell you that the ONLY time I had a "strange encounter" in a ladies room was when a MAN followed me in and was threatening me.
Get over yourselves. the next generation has no hangups. Don't you remember when you had no hangups. LIVE And Love: PEACE
Get over yourselves. the next generation has no hangups. Don't you remember when you had no hangups. LIVE And Love: PEACE
2
With all the critical national issues our Federal Government has to deal with, use of bathrooms in schools is best left to the states and local school boards to work out for their areas. If a person is concerned about the situation go in a stall and lick the door and take care of business.
4
As much as I support trans rights, I fear this is a losing battle.
When Title IX was written, trans rights were so far off the legislators' radar that they might have been in another galaxy thousands of light years away. Ditto for notions of gender identity.
It defies belief that anyone involved in crafting Title IX or that any legislators who voted it into law could ever have intended it to protect people such as Mr. Grimm. I would argue it was a pioneering achievement for Congress to approve legislation to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.
Unlike the Constitution, statues don't have penumbras where one can look for new and different meanings and purposes that were never contemplated by their drafters.
Yes, Mr. Grimm's cause may be in the spirt of Title IX, but litigation over legislative intent and statutory interpretation is not like a game of horse shoes, where you get points for being close.
Ms. Gupta made a colossal error in judgement when she issued her tortured directive on Title IX compliance. It emboldened the opposition. Why? It is because Ms. Gupta placed the cause of trans rights in the forum where it would be the most vulnerable, in bathrooms and locker rooms used by minors in public schools. What on earth was she thinking?
When Title IX was written, trans rights were so far off the legislators' radar that they might have been in another galaxy thousands of light years away. Ditto for notions of gender identity.
It defies belief that anyone involved in crafting Title IX or that any legislators who voted it into law could ever have intended it to protect people such as Mr. Grimm. I would argue it was a pioneering achievement for Congress to approve legislation to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.
Unlike the Constitution, statues don't have penumbras where one can look for new and different meanings and purposes that were never contemplated by their drafters.
Yes, Mr. Grimm's cause may be in the spirt of Title IX, but litigation over legislative intent and statutory interpretation is not like a game of horse shoes, where you get points for being close.
Ms. Gupta made a colossal error in judgement when she issued her tortured directive on Title IX compliance. It emboldened the opposition. Why? It is because Ms. Gupta placed the cause of trans rights in the forum where it would be the most vulnerable, in bathrooms and locker rooms used by minors in public schools. What on earth was she thinking?
42
"When Title IX was written, trans rights were so far off the legislators' radar that they might have been in another galaxy thousands of light years away. Ditto for notions of gender identity."
The same false ideas held sway about the Civil Rights of non white people until someone finally stopped lying to themselves and the Courts ruled properly and rationally.
The same false ideas held sway about the Civil Rights of non white people until someone finally stopped lying to themselves and the Courts ruled properly and rationally.
1
This is the best comment on this thread. Obama and Gupta hurt the cause of trans people by approaching this issue in this way - not sustainable and it makes a mockery of the real intent and law of Title IX.
9
@magicisnotreal - Actually civil rights sets the example of how the transgender matter should have been handled. JFK did not write an Executive Order granting equal rights to blacks or try to extend an existing law to apply to equal rights. He proposed legislation, the civil rights bill. Instead of the clumsy extension of Title IX that has now been rescinded, Obama should have pushed for legislation by Congress to permanently protect transgender rights. You can claim that Congress objected to everything Obama did but southern congressmen objected to civil rights for blacks yet the bill passed and is now law. It is the President's job to persuade Congress to pass legislation, if Obama couldn't or wouldn't do it, shame and blame on him. Don't blame Trump, Obama left the door wide open.
2
Here's a brilliant idea! Just like handicapped bathrooms are available, how about Gender Neutral bathrooms are incorporated into buildings as well?! It is truly disappointing that no one has every come up with such an easy compromise about this very delicate situation.
12
Of course they came up with this compromise before. But it has been rejected out of hand by transgendered people.
You see, the important point is that you must recognize that a person who calls themselves the opposite gender from what their biology says they are ACTUALLY IS THAT GENDER the moment that they say they are. Therefore, you must let them into the bathroom with other people of their chosen gender. Using a "gender neutral" bathroom would defeat the purpose of requiring you to confirm their right to be whatever gender they say they are. I am not, as Dave Barry would say, making this up.
You see, the important point is that you must recognize that a person who calls themselves the opposite gender from what their biology says they are ACTUALLY IS THAT GENDER the moment that they say they are. Therefore, you must let them into the bathroom with other people of their chosen gender. Using a "gender neutral" bathroom would defeat the purpose of requiring you to confirm their right to be whatever gender they say they are. I am not, as Dave Barry would say, making this up.
21
It goes farther than that. They also want to use the same locker rooms, etc. It's not just bathrooms.
18
With so many problems facing the nation, is this really a hill to charge? Seriously?
I am a liberal social Democrat and I could give a hoot about which gender people choose to love, to marry, or to trans to. It's their business and it is a private matter.
But this bathroom issue is a head scratcher to me. Gavin Grimm identifies as a male and looks like a male. Who is checking genitals when one enters a school bathroom? Who even sees genitals when one uses the bathroom?
There are private stalls with doors for privacy in most bathrooms. And in his case he has a separate private bathroom to use. Much ado about nothing in my opinion.
I am a liberal social Democrat and I could give a hoot about which gender people choose to love, to marry, or to trans to. It's their business and it is a private matter.
But this bathroom issue is a head scratcher to me. Gavin Grimm identifies as a male and looks like a male. Who is checking genitals when one enters a school bathroom? Who even sees genitals when one uses the bathroom?
There are private stalls with doors for privacy in most bathrooms. And in his case he has a separate private bathroom to use. Much ado about nothing in my opinion.
26
This is about civil rights. This is one of the many problems facing the country and should be addressed just as diligently as the others. Those opposed to equality would have you believe that fighting for bathroom access (or any other issue with which they disagree) is frivolous and a waste of time. I assure you, it is not. Would you have made this comment in the 1960s about blacks who just wanted to drink from a water fountain or choose from any seat on the bus?
3
Apparently real women have zero civil rights
2
This issue is important,but custom made for Republican distraction from issues that shake our core as a Democratic country.
4
Amen! The true transgender community is .001% of the U.S. population but media and political parties exaggerate- as if every other person in this country were transgender. 97% of transgender cases it is the biological female who identify male, while a mere 3% male self identify as women. Again, we are talking about a very small number- and liberals try very hard to conflate transgender with a guy who likes to wear women underwear or a girl who may be a little rough around the edges- Those people number in the millions yet they are not TRUE transgender and not representative of the community.
2
Actually the opposite - many more make to female transsexuals.
1
Kurt Pickard from Murfreesboro TN (below) wrote:
"1.4 million people, in the Untied States identify as transgender. How in the world did this issue which concerns so few people get whipped up into the national debate?"
You claim that 1.4 million transgender is "so few people?" That's an absurd assertion!
1.4 million people is TWICE the entire number of people who live in the state of Alaska. It's three times the size of Wichita KS. It's 10 times the size of Murfreesboro TN. There are 1.3 milion people of Greek descent living in the US.
Let's tell ALL of these people that they don't have they no longer have the right to sit at the front of a city bus, and that if a resident from another city boards the bus, they must give up their seat to them.
Let's tell all the Greeks that they can no longer have their own churches, and must attend a Catholic church instead.
Then let's see if that issue which concerns those "so few" people doesn't deserve a national debate!
"1.4 million people, in the Untied States identify as transgender. How in the world did this issue which concerns so few people get whipped up into the national debate?"
You claim that 1.4 million transgender is "so few people?" That's an absurd assertion!
1.4 million people is TWICE the entire number of people who live in the state of Alaska. It's three times the size of Wichita KS. It's 10 times the size of Murfreesboro TN. There are 1.3 milion people of Greek descent living in the US.
Let's tell ALL of these people that they don't have they no longer have the right to sit at the front of a city bus, and that if a resident from another city boards the bus, they must give up their seat to them.
Let's tell all the Greeks that they can no longer have their own churches, and must attend a Catholic church instead.
Then let's see if that issue which concerns those "so few" people doesn't deserve a national debate!
17
I agree. And I hope that the transgender win the right to use the lockers and showers that they associate with their sexual preference. May also the prejudices of those opposed to this be fixed through education. They need to adopt.
1
Because it does involve so few people, is precisely why, (in our democratic system that respects the rights of minorities), we should advocate for this small group of individuals.
3
What a quandary this transgender topic is! People are screaming at each other like the do-gooders vs the deplorable or bad people. The do-gooders see no evil, hear no evil and do no evil (we are led to believe) while the bad people have no charity, compassion or sensitivity for those less fortunate do-gooders. What a mess! This situations extends right up to the presidents of the United States and the Supreme Court. One is either on one side or the other. There is no in between, I gather. It also appears that it is a case of the Republicans vs Democrats, another mess. The Media have a field day and froth at he mouth depending on whom are doing the talking. It is a national disgrace. We need statesmen or women to resolve this needless bunk. There are none in sight, God help us.
13
I just can't wrap my head around why anyone cares if a transgender person uses the bathroom associated with their gender identity. Why are people so rigid and mean spirited? Do these people, motivated by fear, ever think to put themselves in the place of the people they are so afraid of? Gays, transgender, black, brown, yellow, male or female. If they did, they would probably find that they would want to be treated with respect and dignity.
10
Most "conservatives" are fearful and insecure and they desperately need someone to look down on and pick on in order to feel better about themselves. Republican politicians know this and use it their advantage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aNgwbyLqqk
Consider the inanity of the very expression “transgender rights”. What does it even mean?
Rights do not inhere in groups; they are the sole and exclusive property of individuals. And they are essentially all “negative”: the negation of power. In essence, a “right” is simply a legally enforceable privilege to be left alone. So, what “rights” does a girl – who passionately, albeit delusionally, believes herself to be a boy – have, as distinct from those of every other girl (or person)?
Sex discrimination is easy to see: someone with an outie may not be privileged over someone with an innie. It’s a simple question of anatomy (and the dictionary definition of male and female). Obviously, this confused young person does NOT know the difference between boys and girls. It has nothing to do with what’s between your ears; it’s what’s between your legs. If you can sire a child, you’re a man. And always will be. Men cannot bear children. Period. (They don't have those, either.)
One has the “right” to “express one’s gender” (whatever gender means) on one’s own time. One does not have the legitimate power to demand that everyone else deny reality, too.
Curious, isn’t it, that the “party of science”, which purports to know what the whether will be like 172 years from now next Tuesday, can’t tell the difference between boys and girls?
GG is no more a boy than she is a dragon. And it's just plain silly to assert the contrary.
Consider the inanity of the very expression “transgender rights”. What does it even mean?
Rights do not inhere in groups; they are the sole and exclusive property of individuals. And they are essentially all “negative”: the negation of power. In essence, a “right” is simply a legally enforceable privilege to be left alone. So, what “rights” does a girl – who passionately, albeit delusionally, believes herself to be a boy – have, as distinct from those of every other girl (or person)?
Sex discrimination is easy to see: someone with an outie may not be privileged over someone with an innie. It’s a simple question of anatomy (and the dictionary definition of male and female). Obviously, this confused young person does NOT know the difference between boys and girls. It has nothing to do with what’s between your ears; it’s what’s between your legs. If you can sire a child, you’re a man. And always will be. Men cannot bear children. Period. (They don't have those, either.)
One has the “right” to “express one’s gender” (whatever gender means) on one’s own time. One does not have the legitimate power to demand that everyone else deny reality, too.
Curious, isn’t it, that the “party of science”, which purports to know what the whether will be like 172 years from now next Tuesday, can’t tell the difference between boys and girls?
GG is no more a boy than she is a dragon. And it's just plain silly to assert the contrary.
22
Transgendered people have been moving about in society for decades. The only trauma happening is to transgendered individuals, and they should be protected from the unstable individuals who have suddenly invented an epidemic of perversion in public rest rooms, based on no incidents. The conservatives, of course, can't help but to make it a divisive issue. Don't buy what they're selling.
11
Exactly! They still do go about their business and use restrooms with no problem. Who checks out everyone who needs to use the restroom? Personally, I am busy looking for an empty stall and doing my business rather than trying to figure out if someone 'belongs' or not. My trans son would get chased out of the womens room so fast. LOL trust me.
3
This is a fairly recent phenomenon, but, like a lot of things, it was kept hidden for a long time. Not one to deny rights to anyone because of orientation, race, faith or anything else, I do have to draw the line here.
Most of us have passports, driver's licenses, birth certificates, health insurance cards and more that state our physical gender. I feel that it is in the best interests of all that if a single rest room is not available then everybody should be required to use the rest room corresponding to the gender noted on the aforementioned documents.
Most of us have passports, driver's licenses, birth certificates, health insurance cards and more that state our physical gender. I feel that it is in the best interests of all that if a single rest room is not available then everybody should be required to use the rest room corresponding to the gender noted on the aforementioned documents.
7
Would you really want this young man in the womens restroom? How would you feel if Miss Cox was forced to use the mens room? Trans people go through a long process before they are permitted to take hormones. Even longer, if at all, before they can have their gender markers changed on documents. Each state requires therapy, hormone treatments and often surgeries before they will consider changing a marker. Meeting the requirements take years and often a lot of pain.
So, you want to see him http://tinyurl.com/zvt2cn4 walk into a women's room and her http://tinyurl.com/j74sp5v (German pop star Kim Petras) using the men's room? Your gender is NOT a function of genitalia, but of brain chemistry. When the two are at odds, you get a miserable, depressed person whose perceived sex doesn't match their physical sex. It is a modern miracle that this can be cured now, allowing children and adults to be who their brains tell they are.
3
I was born female, but if I were a transgender woman, I would be physically afraid to go into the men's room. I think the danger would be greater for a transgender woman in a men's room than my danger as a female from birth. It appears that you believe that your right to feel comfortable outweighs the right of other people to feel safe.
6
I find it difficult to think of "bathroom usage" as a national issue. This just shows how Obama wanted to federalize every issue it could get its hands on. JUst as public schools are a state issue to finance and build, so this "bathroom" issue belongs at the local level.
Since this seems to be chiefly an issue which excites the Democratic it leaves me asking aren't there more important issue that "bathrooms' it should be concerned about. I can't see any but the most committed individual going to campaign on "bathrooms'. This is not an issue that will attract any thinking individual but rather drive people as far away from the party as possible. It certainly will ensure that people think of the Democratic party as the "loony toons" party.
Since this seems to be chiefly an issue which excites the Democratic it leaves me asking aren't there more important issue that "bathrooms' it should be concerned about. I can't see any but the most committed individual going to campaign on "bathrooms'. This is not an issue that will attract any thinking individual but rather drive people as far away from the party as possible. It certainly will ensure that people think of the Democratic party as the "loony toons" party.
12
The closer you get to local control, the lower the bar is set. Communities with sufficient numbers of white nationalists, bigots, and evangelical religious fanatics can control their children's education. I remember some years ago when a Texas school district held a public meeting to announce they were suspending a math requirement. Hardly any parents showed up to protest. Sometime later, they suspended the foreign language requirement & there was hardly a peep. Then they suspended their high school intermural football program, and the parents packed the meeting and surrounding area howling their disagreement.
I am a Democrat through and through but this issue of transgender bathrooms is beyond my reckoning of what it means to be a Democrat. No, I am for Transgenders who should get every right and non-discrimination like everyone of our citizens. But a bathroom? I draw the line there. What is wrong with the transgenders having a separate bathroom? It will save the sensitivity of the girls ( or boys! ) while not interfering with the transgenders' right. Every citizen who is different should be accommodated and life made easy for them, even if it means more expense. The requirement of a ramp for the disabled is the law. It does not mean discrimination. So why not a separate bathroom for the transgenders? That is not discrimination either! No wonder the Democrats lost. They missed the forests for the trees!
19
Big deprivations of rights start with little nibbles. And, if we are ever going to stop them, we must stop them now, before it is beyond our ability to do so.
In the mid-thirty's Hitler's original policy was to get Jews to leave Germany and Austria, either voluntarily or with campaigns of fear and hatred. Later, he came up with an idea of rounding them all up and deporting them to Madagascar, an Island off the eastern coast of Africa. When WW II started, Jews, Gypsies, and many others were put into camps and used as slave labor. It wasn't until the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, that the Nazis drew up the plan to round up and murder all of the Jews by turning some of the forced labor camps into death camps and building new ones dedicated solely killing. The Holocaust began 9 years after Hitler became Chancellor, but for those who were smart enough to see it, they watched tiny steps get bigger and bigger because the German people made a cult leader out of Hitler, whom many literally worshiped, and suspended their civilized side. Step by little step.
In the mid-thirty's Hitler's original policy was to get Jews to leave Germany and Austria, either voluntarily or with campaigns of fear and hatred. Later, he came up with an idea of rounding them all up and deporting them to Madagascar, an Island off the eastern coast of Africa. When WW II started, Jews, Gypsies, and many others were put into camps and used as slave labor. It wasn't until the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, that the Nazis drew up the plan to round up and murder all of the Jews by turning some of the forced labor camps into death camps and building new ones dedicated solely killing. The Holocaust began 9 years after Hitler became Chancellor, but for those who were smart enough to see it, they watched tiny steps get bigger and bigger because the German people made a cult leader out of Hitler, whom many literally worshiped, and suspended their civilized side. Step by little step.
1
The primary reason women don’t want to share restrooms, changing rooms and shower rooms with men who identify as women is sexual modesty, not fear of sexual assault. However, transgender people can be heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. Studies show that “among male-to-female transgender people, 27 percent are attracted to men, 35 percent are attracted to women and 38 percent are attracted to men and women.” This means 73 percent of transgender women are sexually interested in women. For example, Caitlyn Jenner, who is America’s most famous transgender woman, is a heterosexual male who say he has never had sex with a woman.
http://www.startribune.com/myths-and-facts-about-transgender-issues/1923...
http://www.startribune.com/myths-and-facts-about-transgender-issues/1923...
4
You are fast proving that The Times reporting on this is not only biased but embarrassingly incomplete.
6
Climate skeptics have nothing on Leftists when it comes to denial of science. Nothing beats listening to these madmen insist that gender is a social construct, despite what every biologist on the planet says.
Please keep us apprised of the Left's view of race, which they also view as a social construct. Can we all fight white privilege by thinking of ourselves as black? The possibilities are endless when one dispenses with reason.
Please keep us apprised of the Left's view of race, which they also view as a social construct. Can we all fight white privilege by thinking of ourselves as black? The possibilities are endless when one dispenses with reason.
21
Nobody says that gender is a social construct. Nor is it determined just by genitalia. There are many variations on the XX or XY chromosome determinants. There are hormonal differrences, brain structure differences, and many other scientific differences that cause a person to be born with one set of genitals, yet feel from their core being that they are really of the opposite sex. Tests on m2f transsexuals commonly show female brain structures and chemical levels. Tests on f2m show mail brain structures and chemical levels. Some of these differences are wide enough apart that there is no overlap, but a gap between them. The crotch may say male, but the brain says female. We can change the body to match the brain with hormones and surgery. We cannot change the brain to match the body. Turning this into a Left/Right issue is just a showing of profound ignorance and the Right's tendency to politicize everything.
1
Race is a social construct. Why don't you actually do some anthropological reading. Humans have 99.9% of the same DNA. Some have minor differences like less melanin than others, and other such minor differences, but by and large we're physically/psychologically same.
1
Gender is a social construct, or the characteristics and behaviours that society determines are masculine and feminine. Sex - chromosomes, secondary sexual characteristics etc - is biological.
2
I'm 65 years of age and until the past few years when transgender became a news story, I never knew or heard of this issue. When I was in high school, the kids I knew who were terrorized were homosexuals. Every day was a living nightmare for those poor kids.
Schools should be the one place where every student feels safe. PERIOD. Regardless of the reasons why any student is threatened or bullied or feels uncomfortable, appropriate action must be taken to stop and prevent this cruel and hateful behavior. Frankly, I see this as a no brainer.
I remember my biggest fears in high school were flunking calculus and not being asked to the junior prom. Those are pretty silly fears by today's standards. So many of today's kids are faced with more pressures and obstacles, they are feeling so overwhelmed to the point of contemplating suicide. I firmly believe a key priority of the courts and school administrations is to provide a safe and unthreatening environment for all students. No parent should witness their child's fear, terror and unease. No child should feel fear, terror or unease in school when their main objective should be to get an education.
May all students who struggle with this issue develop similar strength and courage like Cavin Grimm. Thank you Gavin for being so strong and for being such a wonderful role model.
7
Just to be practical for a minute - I don't know if you guys know it, but there are stalls in all women's bathrooms - all of them. I have never been in a women's bathroom, and I am 64, where you don't go into a stall to pee. Complete privacy until you are fully dressed and ready to exit the stall and wash up.
There are no open commodes - similar to urinals - in women's bathrooms.
No one sees anything except hand washing and make up retouching. Okay?
No woman could - or would - use a urinal. She would use the stalls which men use for defecation.
If - and I hasten to say if - safety were the idea - wouldn't it make more sense to aim your hate campaign at gay people using their own sex bathrooms? Of course neither hate campaign makes any sense - but I'm just sayin'...
If all the time and thought and energy and political capital and money that has been spent on this issue - now Supreme Court time - had been spent on a plan to replace the ACA, Republicans might actually have one. I'm just sayin'...
There are no open commodes - similar to urinals - in women's bathrooms.
No one sees anything except hand washing and make up retouching. Okay?
No woman could - or would - use a urinal. She would use the stalls which men use for defecation.
If - and I hasten to say if - safety were the idea - wouldn't it make more sense to aim your hate campaign at gay people using their own sex bathrooms? Of course neither hate campaign makes any sense - but I'm just sayin'...
If all the time and thought and energy and political capital and money that has been spent on this issue - now Supreme Court time - had been spent on a plan to replace the ACA, Republicans might actually have one. I'm just sayin'...
10
Would you like to next describe locker rooms and hotel rooms? If you're going to criticize, you should at least be well informed.
8
This article is misleading. There were no protections in place, just a flawed directive from the Obama administration, which thankfully the Trump Administration finally flushed. What's left are closing ceremonies: for the Supreme Court and the 4th circuit to essentially re-flush the directive in legal language, reassert legally that there ain't no basis to force an accommodation. Leave the courts alone, go to Congress (and good luck with that).
Shame on the NYT for falsely maintaining expectations despite evidence to the contrary. Fact is, this issue is over, done and dusted. Local communities will decide henceforth how to deal, and on a case-by-case basis.
Shame on the NYT for falsely maintaining expectations despite evidence to the contrary. Fact is, this issue is over, done and dusted. Local communities will decide henceforth how to deal, and on a case-by-case basis.
19
Thank God that when I was growing up this transgender thing was not in vogue. I might have ended up damaging my body and my psyche because as a child and a teen I identified with the gender I wasn't born into, and felt that this meant I had to do something medical --- other than simply be myself-- as if being oneself requires medical alterations. I might have opted for biological reductionism, a harmful philosophy in which the mysteries of the psyche are reduced to biological operations.
Instead, I opted for the much more ancient and less harmful approach of simply being myself. So today I am myself, and I don't fit into boxes, I don't fit neatly into either gender, and somehow I manage to go to the bathroom, although this simple act does sometimes sow confusion in others, particularly in places in the country where gender roles are more rigid.
More young people should try this....just being yourself-- and stop crying about bathrooms.
Instead, I opted for the much more ancient and less harmful approach of simply being myself. So today I am myself, and I don't fit into boxes, I don't fit neatly into either gender, and somehow I manage to go to the bathroom, although this simple act does sometimes sow confusion in others, particularly in places in the country where gender roles are more rigid.
More young people should try this....just being yourself-- and stop crying about bathrooms.
22
You have articulated my own experience with gender and identity growing up. I too came to terms with, and eventually grew comfortable in my body as it is. I wish we had a different lens through which we viewed and constructed the issues of gender, sex and sexuality. But we don't. We exist in a state of binaries and are therefore forced to deal with the inevitable fallout as we make clumsy and inevitable human progress. I believe it's constructive for people like you and I to look beyond our own experience, get past the trope of "well I had to do [x] this way, you should too" and support cultural shifts that favor human dignity in all cases, even if it's not reflective of our own path.
5
The National Geographic that explored gender, was extremely comprehensive. Not just about being transgender, but how different cultures define gender and expectations (or lack of them), for a person on the basis of it.
Individuals are not considered as such, but we know historically and biologically how unfairly people are treated when gender is enforced against individual needs, talents and physical traits other than what can't fit any narrow definitions of gender.
Individuals are not considered as such, but we know historically and biologically how unfairly people are treated when gender is enforced against individual needs, talents and physical traits other than what can't fit any narrow definitions of gender.
3
During the final year of the Obama administration, the Bureau of Prison ordered transgender women—men who identify as female—transferred to female prisons. This provides a glimpse of how things might work if we segregate public restrooms by gender identity rather than by sex. Last week female inmates at a Fort Worth federal prison filed a complaint with the bureau that states “The Plaintiffs have been forced to share intimate facilities with men, who allege they are women,” the Feb. 15 complaint states. “These men openly express their sexual desire for the women inmates, at times, in the showers, and bathrooms, while women are naked or partially clothed. The men expose themselves, intentionally, for their own sexual gratification, causing the Plaintiffs to suffer disgust, embarrassment, humiliation, stress, degradation, fear and loss of dignity.”
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article1343...
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article1343...
26
This is why these cases have to be handled on a case-by-case basis. It's simply unacceptable for anyone to be able to declare a gender and enter a facility for the opposite sex. His or her case should be made before authorities and exceptions worked out. At least then, all parties know who is in their midst and have the opportunity to take steps to protect themselves and/or make themselves more comfortable elsewhere. Unfortunately for these female prisoners, they had no such options.
7
These issues might be worked out on a case-by-case basis at a school, but the court decision will eventually affect transgender access at all public restrooms nationwide at all public venues where working things out on a case-by-case basis would be impossible.
2
A country that forces a child to beg for his fundamental civil rights, knowing he is subject to endless discrimination, exclusion, intimidation and violence, is nothing but not worthy to call itself a democracy.
To force a child into this leadership role to advance these rights is to show the world what the Republican party is all about now: anti-science; militant religion; willfully ignorant; fearful of change; and sexually repressive.
To force a child into this leadership role to advance these rights is to show the world what the Republican party is all about now: anti-science; militant religion; willfully ignorant; fearful of change; and sexually repressive.
11
Gavin and his mom are my heroes of the moment.
I would like to point out, however, that among compassionate people, any concern over keeping bathrooms separate is not based in bigotry but is the result of the staggering level of violence perpetrated against women that we experience worldwide. I don't think we are concerned at all about sharing a bathroom with a transgendered woman - she's one of us and is probably even more vulnerable to the threat of violence than we are.
Women - young women and girls especially - often prefer to keep the ladie's room a safe and private space because we are at risk of violence just by virtue of being female. In a school setting, where people know one another, any person who consistently identifies as female, and portrays herself as female in clothing and language should be welcome in the ladies room.
I would like to point out, however, that among compassionate people, any concern over keeping bathrooms separate is not based in bigotry but is the result of the staggering level of violence perpetrated against women that we experience worldwide. I don't think we are concerned at all about sharing a bathroom with a transgendered woman - she's one of us and is probably even more vulnerable to the threat of violence than we are.
Women - young women and girls especially - often prefer to keep the ladie's room a safe and private space because we are at risk of violence just by virtue of being female. In a school setting, where people know one another, any person who consistently identifies as female, and portrays herself as female in clothing and language should be welcome in the ladies room.
8
Thank you! I remember reading an article about a young trans girl who was on the cheer squad of her high school. She was pre op, at the time, being only 16.
But what a beauty, and clearly had all the attributes her cheer squad colleagues did. And most importantly was fully accepted and loved by her squad mates.
This is happening more and more, and I think it's a sign that when young people have this experience and exposure, they are less afraid and hostile.
This was true of racial integration, and introducing disabled kids into the mainstream.
This is no different and it makes me very happy to see it.
Go GAVIN!!
But what a beauty, and clearly had all the attributes her cheer squad colleagues did. And most importantly was fully accepted and loved by her squad mates.
This is happening more and more, and I think it's a sign that when young people have this experience and exposure, they are less afraid and hostile.
This was true of racial integration, and introducing disabled kids into the mainstream.
This is no different and it makes me very happy to see it.
Go GAVIN!!
1
It would seem that having a bathroom just for Mr Grimm would address his needs. A bathroom from a utility closet? Probably bigger than the ones on airplanes. I totally support and sympathize with transgender adults and kids but the other students who have issues also have privacy rights. Perhaps a bathroom where Mr Grimm and other kids not so bothered could use? Allow those kids with issues their rights also.
2
I think they already tried that, but it was not enough for them.
5
Ms. Grimm was given HER OWN brand new, private bathroom -- like an executive might have! -- but she REFUSED to use it, because "she has the RIGHT to be a boy and use the boy's room".
From Monty Python: "I mean, if I went 'round, saying I was an emperor, just because some moistened bink had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away."
Not anymore. All self-identified emperors deserve their own thrones of their choosing.
The fact is that people with gender dysphoria deserve our compassion. With a suicide rate upwards of 41% (if a google search is to be believed) pre-and post -operation, it appears that simply calling someone a term they prefer doesn't change the deeper problems (and biology).
Will we next be told we must "affirm" people suffering psychosis and auditory and visual hallucinations by telling them the voices they hear and the people they see (which objectively aren't real) are real, simply because they insist "their reality" is valid?
Was Rachel Dolenzal African-American simply because she said she was? Why does she not deserve our affirmation?
Not anymore. All self-identified emperors deserve their own thrones of their choosing.
The fact is that people with gender dysphoria deserve our compassion. With a suicide rate upwards of 41% (if a google search is to be believed) pre-and post -operation, it appears that simply calling someone a term they prefer doesn't change the deeper problems (and biology).
Will we next be told we must "affirm" people suffering psychosis and auditory and visual hallucinations by telling them the voices they hear and the people they see (which objectively aren't real) are real, simply because they insist "their reality" is valid?
Was Rachel Dolenzal African-American simply because she said she was? Why does she not deserve our affirmation?
12
The left was swift to condemn Rachel Dolezal, because she was "privileged white woman" who dared to dress and act black.
It was an affront to lefty liberalism.
It was an affront to lefty liberalism.
1
Why is this such a big deal? I find it absolutely pointless to continuously talk about this NON issue.
If a girl thinks she is a boy and is wearing boy clothes etc. and feels comfortable being a boy then she can go in and use a boys bathroom. He/She will not be able to use the urinals as he/she does not have the proper equipment to do that and using the stalls will give him/her the required privacy to take care of toilet needs. If he/she is offended by all the guy talk in there, then he/she is NOT really a boy and should stick to being a girl.
Similarly, for a boy feeling effeminate and dressing girl like, there are no urinals in girls toilets that is a non issue. The stalls would give her/him the required privacy and the other girls would be protected as well. And, as for the urine splashing noise when men stand and urinate, I have been round many girls and there is plenty of liquid dripping noise when girls go as well. There again we do not have issues.
We are giving too much currency and media coverage for this and creating societal issues where none exist. These folks with identity crisis need to self-examine their lives decide what they want to be and go in and use those facilities. For the rest of us folks who have our identities figured out from a very young age we do not mind, at least I surely do not mind, if a girl dressed up like a man goes into the stall to use it.
Lets solve this issue as adults and not bother President Trump about it.
If a girl thinks she is a boy and is wearing boy clothes etc. and feels comfortable being a boy then she can go in and use a boys bathroom. He/She will not be able to use the urinals as he/she does not have the proper equipment to do that and using the stalls will give him/her the required privacy to take care of toilet needs. If he/she is offended by all the guy talk in there, then he/she is NOT really a boy and should stick to being a girl.
Similarly, for a boy feeling effeminate and dressing girl like, there are no urinals in girls toilets that is a non issue. The stalls would give her/him the required privacy and the other girls would be protected as well. And, as for the urine splashing noise when men stand and urinate, I have been round many girls and there is plenty of liquid dripping noise when girls go as well. There again we do not have issues.
We are giving too much currency and media coverage for this and creating societal issues where none exist. These folks with identity crisis need to self-examine their lives decide what they want to be and go in and use those facilities. For the rest of us folks who have our identities figured out from a very young age we do not mind, at least I surely do not mind, if a girl dressed up like a man goes into the stall to use it.
Lets solve this issue as adults and not bother President Trump about it.
2
This a complicated issue, not a two-sided one. I remember vividly how self-conscious I was about my body when I was in middle school, I hated having to get undressed for physical ed and showers in the school locker room. I was just an average kid, but very uptight about my changing body.
I want every child to be safe and feel safe in his/her school. I'm just not sure how to make that happen in the case of Gavin and other kids in his school. It seems the order by the Obama Education Dept. gives an over-simplistic answer to a complex set of circumstances. I'd like to see some discussion among high school kids about how to make all kids, including transgender kids, feel and be safe in locker rooms and bathrooms.
I want every child to be safe and feel safe in his/her school. I'm just not sure how to make that happen in the case of Gavin and other kids in his school. It seems the order by the Obama Education Dept. gives an over-simplistic answer to a complex set of circumstances. I'd like to see some discussion among high school kids about how to make all kids, including transgender kids, feel and be safe in locker rooms and bathrooms.
4
I love conservatives. They are all for limited government except when it involves policing the most intimate part of people's lives, and moral dictates.
The hypocrisy is astounding.
The hypocrisy is astounding.
2
The left is pushing this to almost the exclusion of all else. We have real problems in this country and this isn't one of them. The only hypocrisy is the idea that you can push whatever you want down everyone's throats at will.
4
You are missing the point - Trump is rescinding the guidance that Obama and Gupta put in place - it is Obama that tried to lforce behavior, not Trump.
4
There are far more pressing and important causes than this on which to expend time, effort, and headlines.
But as usual, the fools who didn't see Trump coming are leading the parade and waving their silly signs in a non-cause. Sad, as someone whose name escapes me would say.
But as usual, the fools who didn't see Trump coming are leading the parade and waving their silly signs in a non-cause. Sad, as someone whose name escapes me would say.
4
I've read most of the comments because like some who demand they have it there way I want to hear what others have to say and try, TRY and understand this issue throughly. It's difficult for me to really come to a conclusion as to where I stand on this. But this is where I'm at.
The last president put this on the front burner by making the federal policy Trump rescinded. There were many, many people who weren't comfortable about this, but the policy was put into effect with the understanding federal funding could be withheld if not followed.
For adults like myself ( I'm white, conservative, a retired cop), I could care less about transgender people using public restrooms. I'm sure they use what they identify with all the time and myself and others are clueless. In fact, why shouldn't they I guess. I'm not totally comfortable with it but I can accept it.
Here's my problem and I don't see anyone who is commenting here addressing this. Is it because they are uncomfortable too about this? What about shower/locker room situations in schools? Nobody here has any concerns about boys/girls being naked with the opposite sex? Showering? I have a daughter, now grown. I can't in good faith say I could get over her showering withe a male at age 13-17 in high school? Can any of you? What about the rights of high school girls/boys who would find that so uncomfortable that it affects them too?
Any comments to address this is appreciated.
The last president put this on the front burner by making the federal policy Trump rescinded. There were many, many people who weren't comfortable about this, but the policy was put into effect with the understanding federal funding could be withheld if not followed.
For adults like myself ( I'm white, conservative, a retired cop), I could care less about transgender people using public restrooms. I'm sure they use what they identify with all the time and myself and others are clueless. In fact, why shouldn't they I guess. I'm not totally comfortable with it but I can accept it.
Here's my problem and I don't see anyone who is commenting here addressing this. Is it because they are uncomfortable too about this? What about shower/locker room situations in schools? Nobody here has any concerns about boys/girls being naked with the opposite sex? Showering? I have a daughter, now grown. I can't in good faith say I could get over her showering withe a male at age 13-17 in high school? Can any of you? What about the rights of high school girls/boys who would find that so uncomfortable that it affects them too?
Any comments to address this is appreciated.
6
Yes, this is my concern too. Although, Gavin had a separate bathroom to use. If a man decides he really wants to live as a woman, we just roll over and let him do whatever he wants? In the locker room, on girls' sports teams? As a woman, I say no! Feminists always say men have an advantage, but with this they just roll over and let the men do whatever they want. No.
5
I have raised this issue many times. It's borderline malfeasance that The Times is only referring to this as a "Bathroom" issue. You have to read elsewhere - and Mr. Case's comments -- to realize it is reporting on this in overly simplistic terms because it's agenda driven.
I would ask how many outraged commenters actually shower and/or change in front of members of the opposite sex. Those claiming family members share bathrooms don't indicate whether they also shower and change together. It's unlikely they vacation nude, which is pretty much what they're imposing on teenagers. Also, as a retired cop, you have to understand the issue with gender neutral restrooms in dangerous public places Penn and Grand Central Stations.
This is far from a "bathroom" issue.
I would ask how many outraged commenters actually shower and/or change in front of members of the opposite sex. Those claiming family members share bathrooms don't indicate whether they also shower and change together. It's unlikely they vacation nude, which is pretty much what they're imposing on teenagers. Also, as a retired cop, you have to understand the issue with gender neutral restrooms in dangerous public places Penn and Grand Central Stations.
This is far from a "bathroom" issue.
9
I appreciate your thoughts on this. I'm a woman, and I've already shared such spaces with trans females. It can come down to shyness for everyone, and transwomen tend to go out of their way to have as much privacy (as well as giving it), as facilities will allow. Now showers have stalls too. Usually using a towel to cover up, does the trick.
Remember the ex Playboy bunny, body shaming an older woman by photographing her in the shower and posting it online?
That was a WOMAN doing that to another woman. And male pervs who try to watch females in such places, have hidden cameras in them. I worked in law enforcement myself, with the photo unit.
But I also know many trans individuals, and this has been our personal experience and how using public spaces is handled as discreetly as possible.
We are all vulnerable, period, in such places.
But there also has to be some understanding based on facts and experience, rather than hysteria and misinformation.
Remember the ex Playboy bunny, body shaming an older woman by photographing her in the shower and posting it online?
That was a WOMAN doing that to another woman. And male pervs who try to watch females in such places, have hidden cameras in them. I worked in law enforcement myself, with the photo unit.
But I also know many trans individuals, and this has been our personal experience and how using public spaces is handled as discreetly as possible.
We are all vulnerable, period, in such places.
But there also has to be some understanding based on facts and experience, rather than hysteria and misinformation.
2
Common sense and human decency, folks! If Caitlyn Jenner (born a male) was to want to use a public bathroom at any event I was attending, she and I and people with common sense would want her to use the women's room, not the men's room just because her birth certificate has n "M" on it. Gavin and all transgender kids have been doing this, by the way. Best of luck to Gavin and the ACLU, I hope they win a complete victory.
1
We have been segregating multi-occupancy restrooms by sex since America grew urbane enough to provide public restrooms, and enforcement has never been much of a problem. When a woman complains to management that a man is in the women's room, a manager ask the man to leave. If he refuses to comply, the manager calls police. Until recently, segregating restroom by sex was thought of as progressive. In Upton Sinclair’s novel “Main Street,” free-spirited, liberal-minded, progressive Carol Milford’s first major contribution to the frontier town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, is the construction of a public restroom for women. After arriving in Gopher Prairie from St. Paul, Carol notices that the farm women who came to town in their horse-drawn wagons refuse to use the town’s only public restroom, because they have to share it with men. Instead, they trek out onto the prairie and found a bush or tree to relieve themselves behind. Gopher Prairie’s public restroom for women become a symbol of small-town enlightenment.
11
Conservatives are so obsessed and scared by anyone different than white, straight and Christian. I think it is a large part of the reason they feel a need to be heavily armed.
7
I say if you are trans, then you become the other sex. You dont talk about it or classify yourself differently. If you become a woman, dress and act like one and nobody will care where you go to eliminate your feces. Stop bellyaching and be a lady!
Reality check at what point do we accept transgender concept ? People need wake up reality the free for all society could be influnacing the development of our children early stages to the point of making freaks out of kidsSociety could be influnacing development of kids sexual gender thru simple means like music. Music has long routes of insighting people to do evil things. What price do we put our childrens minds at?
1
How do you address the people who don't agree with this. The rights of all as some would say when they are on the outside. You are born a boy or girl. That is fact. Just make all bathroom gender neutral problem solved. Yes, it really is that simple.
2
They've been offered gender-neutral facilities. They consistently refuse them as an option. That was one of the first things they tried. But, they won't use them. They want to use the facilities that affirm their identity. The problem is that for the rest of us, bathrooms aren't about affirming identities, they're about biology. It doesn't matter whether I relate to the social norms of my sex, if I wear my hair like other people or dress like them. When I use the restroom or locker room, it's about being around people with a body like mine -- despite any other differences. That uniformity allows us to feel more comfortable. It's an experience that speaks of the sentiment "nothing to see here" -- because we're all essentially the same. But, a trans person is not the same. We divide bathrooms and locker rooms on the basis of sex and they have mixed sex attributes. Even after hormone treatment and surgery, they are not fully the other sex. They're caught somewhere in-between. Which is why it is not appropriate for them to use either of the extant facilities. We separate these facilities on the basis of sex, and if we take that to the logical conclusion, people with mixed sex attributes belong in neither. So, a third option must be given to them. This is not unfair as people are claiming. It is the same sex-based separation that we are all experiencing. They want their identities affirmed. But, that's not what these facilities are for. They're for changing, urinating, etc.
4
Just watched Gavin on CNN- beautiful, articulate, brave, his family must be so proud of him. Power to you Gavin.
2
This whole effort by hard core conservatives is so mean-spirited. Where do they think transgender people go to the bathroom now? Obviously to the bathroom appropriate to their dress, lifestyle and personal gender identification. And NOBODY even notices or cares.
Forcing men who started life as women but now dress and look like men to go into women's bathrooms, or the reverse, forcing women who started life as men and now dress and look like women to use men's bathrooms, will be far more disturbing and confusing for children and others than just leaving things alone.
There is no reason anyone would propose this unless they deliberately want to inconvenience and embarrass transgender people.
Forcing men who started life as women but now dress and look like men to go into women's bathrooms, or the reverse, forcing women who started life as men and now dress and look like women to use men's bathrooms, will be far more disturbing and confusing for children and others than just leaving things alone.
There is no reason anyone would propose this unless they deliberately want to inconvenience and embarrass transgender people.
2
Gavin Grimm used the girl's room until she decide to make her gender identity an issue. The school then provided her access to a single-occupancy restroom this didn't satisfied her. She wants to force other to pretend she is a boy.
5
Actually - younger girls complained to their parents about the presence of a "boy" in their bathroom and locker room. The school then offered the separate unisex accommodation which wasn't good enough for the Grimms.
1
Dear NY Times: I can't help but notice that, despite the numerous commenters here supporting the more conservative stance, every single one of your "picks" supports the progressive point of view. This stubborn refusal to lend even an ounce of credibility to a view other than your own will be the ultimate demise of your publication. In fact, you are already halfway there. And, that would be a shame. Please consider in the future presenting an unbiased view instead. You know, practicing journalism.
13
Nonsense. The NYT is a progressive newspaper; its been that way for years. If it bothers you or other conservatives, there's always Breitbart........
False equivalencies.
Maybe if someone could write an eloquent argument for discrimination, they might get picked. I've yet to see one.
Maybe if someone could write an eloquent argument for discrimination, they might get picked. I've yet to see one.
How do you know the commenter is a conservative? Perhaps they just like getting out of the echo chamber once in a while.
1
The concern about maintaining single sex restrooms is overblown. I recall, when I was a child, that in Japan restrooms were for all sexes/genders. While it seemed strange to walk past the urinals in order to reach the stalls, it did not feel threatening. Several men bowed to me as I walked in, and I never saw their genitals. Here in New York City, many women use the men's room during the toilet rush of theatre intermissions. No one really cares.
2
So-called "trangender" people currently have the very same rights as everyone else including the right dress up in the opposite gender 's clothing, the right to undergo surgical and pharmaceutical manipulation, and otherwise masquerade as a person of the opposite gender. Just keep in mind that your DNA cannot be altered and will always give away your real gender.
As far a restrooms go who cares? If real women don't mind sharing restrooms with men disguised as women let them. In fact let's install wall-mounted urinals in womens' rooms to accommodate the men who will be using the ladies' restrooms.
As far a restrooms go who cares? If real women don't mind sharing restrooms with men disguised as women let them. In fact let's install wall-mounted urinals in womens' rooms to accommodate the men who will be using the ladies' restrooms.
1
It takes some level of stupid to be worried about young people like this. I'd imagine that being discrete would be at the forefront of their mind so how the heck would you know if you'd shared a bathroom with a transgender person? Also, why would you care? You're in a toilet not at a mixer.
1
I don't know one girl who wants someone who they think is a boy in their bathrooms in K1 through 12. The words that come from their mouths I really don't want to write. But we trained these kids not to take their cloths off for the purpose of defecation in front of kids of the opposite sex, even if that is just from an appearance standpoint. And those girls have a right to their privacy.
When is comes to boys, that is an entirely different story. They can be really brutal. A girl who feels she is a boy, who these kids in the past knew as a girl, I really feel for that person. I personally feel that she/he is much safer in the girls bathroom.
In fact this entire focus on bathrooms is actually making things worse for the kids who have to deal with a sexual identity issue. It makes them a target. This is bad public policy on part of the Obama administration and they would have been better of not putting spot light on these kids to make them more different than they already are.
When is comes to boys, that is an entirely different story. They can be really brutal. A girl who feels she is a boy, who these kids in the past knew as a girl, I really feel for that person. I personally feel that she/he is much safer in the girls bathroom.
In fact this entire focus on bathrooms is actually making things worse for the kids who have to deal with a sexual identity issue. It makes them a target. This is bad public policy on part of the Obama administration and they would have been better of not putting spot light on these kids to make them more different than they already are.
3
When an issue affects MANY, it is necessary to address. When an issue affects relatively few, why do the majority need to adjust? To my point--what about children using a bathroom in a school and someone of opposite biological gender comes in? Should all other children be made to feel awkward because of one? Just asking. I do not fully understand transgender, but I do fully understand gay and lesbian and have no issues. I suppose I will also learn more and accept transgender as well, but I have a difficult time thinking all others should have to sacrifice for relatively few.
27
An individual's rights are not diminished simply because that person belongs to a minority.
2
the majority need to adopt because it advances the dignity of the transgender. Currently there are many who would oppose the use by the transgender to lockers and showers of those the sex they associate with. This prejudice needs to stop. Women, in particular, need to get used to the idea of seeing biological men in bathrooms, lockers and showers because of the benefit of dignity it would bring to the transgender.
2
What are others sacrificing? If the young man in the picture shows up in a women's bathroom there would be quite a disturbance - but that is his biological gender. Does he then have to be inspected to ensure that he really is a biological female? This is ridiculous and manufactured crisis.
1
"God gave me this child to open my heart and my mind"
Powerful words reflecting a mother's love. One can only hope the SC sees the wisdom of those words and realize that the ideological arguments for state's rights pale in comparison to protecting Gavin's right to live his life as he wishes. Those making decisions must meet and understand who these people are. There our times our institutions must teach and this is one of them.
Powerful words reflecting a mother's love. One can only hope the SC sees the wisdom of those words and realize that the ideological arguments for state's rights pale in comparison to protecting Gavin's right to live his life as he wishes. Those making decisions must meet and understand who these people are. There our times our institutions must teach and this is one of them.
1
So, we should choose which bathrooms and locker rooms to do based on a feeling in our hearts or minds?
That's not very scientific or objective.
That's not very scientific or objective.
Are her heart and mind open to the possibility that validating and encouraging Gavin's delusion that she is a girl trapped in a boy's body may actually be harmful to him? God may have opened her heart and mind, but He didn't tell her what to think
One of the few times I disagreed with Obama was when he equivocated on DOMA but later had a full throated DOJ defense of the trans issue. Only a fool would think we've achieved sufficient marriage equality for the much larger gay and lesbian community. Or in that vain similar accessibility to education, health care, and basic voting rights to blacks, Hispanics, and rural whites. This is siphoning off what should be an organized and well directed moral outrage into something that, as evidenced by the comments on this thread, even the left cannot fully coalesce around. It's a clear trap that will hinder meaningful pushes towards a progressive government in 2018 and 2020. All the while trump/bannon are literally trying to reincarnate the Cherokee trail for this era. I really don't get it.
4
Doubt this so-called president knows what "states' rights" means. He probably also has never heard of the supremacy clause.
2
If if we want to see the Democrats lose every election going forward, this "trans" issue is the one to "promote".
12
Very true. Democrats are ignoring science. It's not just irrational, it goes against the foundations of the democratic party itself -- making it a hypocritical move. How can one claim that science is important when it's a matter of the environment, then toss it out the door when someone identifies as the sex they're not? That doesn't work for me.
2
BTW, I guess the orangutan and his hate-filled acolytes don't see the contradiction in saying on the same day that "states rights" apply and each state should be left to determine who has rights that will be protected for LGBTQ people in their state, but not on determinations as to decriminalization/legalization of marijuana. More nonsense from the idiot right wing.
3
If nothing else, this should firmly establish in your mind the hypocrisy of the Conservative claim to smaller government. It would seem it does not apply to those places where no regulation is necessary or wanted - bathrooms and bedrooms - and applies only to that one special place where regulation is absolutely necessary - boardrooms.
2
Smaller FEDERAL government. The responsibility for these issues will be going to state governments now. That's a different story.
They deserve the same protections that mentally ill individuals receive.
12
This is the AG appeasing his followers who object to anyone who is not lily white like themselves...Gay marriage is next they Gays themselves, then African Americans......back to 1850
Intolerance rules, at least for the moment
Intolerance rules, at least for the moment
2
Transgenders have every right to choose their gender. They do not have the right to redefine"sex" and to impose that new definition on millions of students who observe the traditional definition of it in their lives.
The sexes are separated in high school for a reason. Americans of the opposite sex don't shower together, dress together and share hotel rooms together; yet that is what the Obama Administration imposed on millions of high school student so that a few wouldn't have to feel badly.
This is not just about transgenders. It's about other Americans too. They get to have a voice as well. Just not at the NYT.
The sexes are separated in high school for a reason. Americans of the opposite sex don't shower together, dress together and share hotel rooms together; yet that is what the Obama Administration imposed on millions of high school student so that a few wouldn't have to feel badly.
This is not just about transgenders. It's about other Americans too. They get to have a voice as well. Just not at the NYT.
14
A PERSON born a boy but identifying as a girl is a GIRL! End of discussion. She will use the the facilities for her SEX! Our school does it. No issues. And no, when it comes to civil rights, you do not have a voice. It made, and makes, people uncomfortable eating and learning with Black Americans. Too bad. We have a constitution that will protect you and me alike, no matter how uncomfortable we make anyone feel. Have a nice day.
1
Your comment was approved for publication, was it not?
S Mira:
A person born a boy but identifying as a girl is still of the male sex. He identifies with the female gender and can be called a girl, but that doesn't change his sex.
I am having a lovely day. Thanks!
A person born a boy but identifying as a girl is still of the male sex. He identifies with the female gender and can be called a girl, but that doesn't change his sex.
I am having a lovely day. Thanks!
5
Republicans only care about three things:
1. Tax cuts for the rich.
2. Deep cuts in all government programs.
3. Your private parts.
1. Tax cuts for the rich.
2. Deep cuts in all government programs.
3. Your private parts.
6
Start using your mind (if you actually have one) and stop believing the propaganda about republicans. It has not helped you in the elections, has it? Try and find out about actual republican ideas for a change. The stupid stuff you're reciting is just dumb.
1
This is good news. Taken to it's logical extreme, sport will be transformed. Men will be able to play on the team they identify with. Because biologically they are stronger, woman's sports are over. And since most women's sports have low attendance, everyone wins. In addition, because sport uses so many resources, the carbon footprint of the world is reduced. One sport, one world. Beautiful.
I doubt this will be published because it sounds absurd. Unfortunately, I identify with absurdity.
I doubt this will be published because it sounds absurd. Unfortunately, I identify with absurdity.
4
Tell us how a loving god demands that you make these children's lives even more difficult, and how that the hate in your heart must be fed by their murders, or suicides, for which your religion will damn them.
Believe it. If you are queer they are coming for you next.
Believe it. If you are queer they are coming for you next.
2
The 1964 Civil Rights Act, passed by a Congress many of whose members came from states where to be a "female impersonator" was illegal, was signed into law 16 years before the term "gender dysphoria" appeared in the psychiatric literature (i.e., DCM). By what stretch of logic can the case be made that the intent of Title IX included the unascertainable status of transgender?
Compassion for fellow human being suffering confusion and distress does not require us to become confused and distressed.
Compassion for fellow human being suffering confusion and distress does not require us to become confused and distressed.
4
"Gender Dysphoria" is more complicated than an already complicated and uncertain biological or physical issue- it is a SPIRITUAL issue.
I'm a reasonable person and I've read plenty of comments on news sites so I know what kind of reaction to expect by bringing that word into the debate.
It's like trying to teach Newton's laws wthout being able to talk about vectors.
I'm a reasonable person and I've read plenty of comments on news sites so I know what kind of reaction to expect by bringing that word into the debate.
It's like trying to teach Newton's laws wthout being able to talk about vectors.
Spirituality and religion are important, they're the heart and soul of many of our lives. But, the legal system works on the basis of objective reality. One needs to be able to prove, objectively, that a crime has been committed in order for someone to be convicted and sentenced. One needs to prove objectively that they are who they say they are, in order to take out loans, buy a car, mortgage their house, and so on. This issue involves a subjective feeling that cannot be objectively evaluated. That means, under objective legal statutes, it has no reality. The "feeling" of being the opposite sex is not something that can be measured or defined. So, as a result, we cannot recognize it. That is actually a good thing. Because, imagine if someone could be convicted of a crime if another person "felt" that the person robbed them, or "felt" that they assaulted them, but there was no objective proof, just a subjective feeling? Our legal system would be in chaos. Innocent people would be put away left and right. That's why, for the purpose of this system, we need objectivity. Our spiritual/religious lives are valuable, but this isn't their place. Their place is in our hearts and minds. When it exerts itself outside of our hearts and minds, it becomes an objective issue and either we must provide objective proof for it, or step back. After all, a feeling cannot be said to have more relevance than objective reality -- not when that feeling is not something others are privy to.
2
I'm a 70 year old white male heterosexual. I have two children and three grandchildren. I've had the good fortune to know, very well, three teenage transgendered students and a handful of adults. They were - are - among the most thought, sensitive and good souls I've ever met. Their life experiences have required courage and developed great empathy. This "debate" about them is offensive and heartbreaking.
For the record, in my 70 years I don't believe I have ever seen the genitalia of another human while using a public bathroom. I suppose a person could, if s/he really tried, but that my friends would be a very different kind of problem.
Bravo to Gavin and all the brave women and men who have the humanity to recognize each person's humanity.
For the record, in my 70 years I don't believe I have ever seen the genitalia of another human while using a public bathroom. I suppose a person could, if s/he really tried, but that my friends would be a very different kind of problem.
Bravo to Gavin and all the brave women and men who have the humanity to recognize each person's humanity.
11
This is a non issue.
You are what you are.
You have a penis or you have a uterus, and removing them does not change the fact that you are XY or XX.
It is appalling that we have made this such a spectacle.
You are what you are.
You have a penis or you have a uterus, and removing them does not change the fact that you are XY or XX.
It is appalling that we have made this such a spectacle.
13
I agree. It really shows how lacking the science education is, and this strange emphasis on subjective feelings, that we'd ever get to this point.
It makes me wonder if the psychology industry has had some influence in this. I mean, ages ago, your feelings wouldn't be considered more important than reality. But, now that there's this huge industry of people who are paid to validate your feelings, this comes up? I'm not surprised.
It makes me wonder if the psychology industry has had some influence in this. I mean, ages ago, your feelings wouldn't be considered more important than reality. But, now that there's this huge industry of people who are paid to validate your feelings, this comes up? I'm not surprised.
1
When a vulnerable minority group demands equal treatment, many responses fall into three categories:
""It's no big deal!" This minimizes the issue, as well as the harm suffered, by making comparisons to other types of discrimination they find invariably worse. "Lesser" discrimination doesn't merit protection. They easily dismiss discrimination against "others" whom they do not know, and for whom they feel little to no empathy or compassion. Separate but Equal is discrimination. Wasn't this settled long ago?
"It's wrong" This tries to minimize the harm by framing it as a non-issue. There are boys and girls, boy's use the boy's room, girl's use the girl's. The fuss must be part of some homosexual agenda, or worse. All facts and data are irrelevant. They ignore the science, as well as actual humans who are quite literally living proof that sex and gender are far more complex than they want to accept, often for no reason other than their religion
"State's Right's" Unlike prior arguments, rooted in a mix of fear, ignorance, animosity, indifference and lack of understanding/empathy for the victims, this one seems rational. Whether an issue should be decided at the state or federal level can be a legitimate debate but it often isn't and it certainly isn't in this case. Those claiming states" right to decide this LGBTQ issue threw those states under the bus, seeking federal jurisdiction when another LGBTQ issue did not go their way. Think DOMA. The hypocrisy is glaring
""It's no big deal!" This minimizes the issue, as well as the harm suffered, by making comparisons to other types of discrimination they find invariably worse. "Lesser" discrimination doesn't merit protection. They easily dismiss discrimination against "others" whom they do not know, and for whom they feel little to no empathy or compassion. Separate but Equal is discrimination. Wasn't this settled long ago?
"It's wrong" This tries to minimize the harm by framing it as a non-issue. There are boys and girls, boy's use the boy's room, girl's use the girl's. The fuss must be part of some homosexual agenda, or worse. All facts and data are irrelevant. They ignore the science, as well as actual humans who are quite literally living proof that sex and gender are far more complex than they want to accept, often for no reason other than their religion
"State's Right's" Unlike prior arguments, rooted in a mix of fear, ignorance, animosity, indifference and lack of understanding/empathy for the victims, this one seems rational. Whether an issue should be decided at the state or federal level can be a legitimate debate but it often isn't and it certainly isn't in this case. Those claiming states" right to decide this LGBTQ issue threw those states under the bus, seeking federal jurisdiction when another LGBTQ issue did not go their way. Think DOMA. The hypocrisy is glaring
2
Why does Trump just rescind just the protection of transgender students? These students face enough hardship and ridicules. Again, Trump targets the most vulnerable population. To protect women and children? I think if a student who is transitioned from male to female and is forced to use men's bathroom, she really needs protection! Given the fact that most pedophiles are men, I am more worry about my little boy going into men's bathrooms than I am worry about a female transgender in women's bathrooms.Trump again is playing to the demand of his ultra-conservative base to save his own skin, to distract attention away from his utter incompetence.
2
President Bannon chose this issue to kick off his agenda, knowing it's something that would gain a few points for the Administration with the largely ignorant Republican base who is afraid of anything they've never seen inside their own zip code.
He's giving away his hand with this one, showing Americans that he's a divider not a uniter. He's going to pander and kiss the butts of the basically illiterate, uneducated white people who hate people who aren't just like them.
Unfortunately for the White House, this tactic isn't going to appeal to enough Americans to make it a workable strategy for a successful administration.
He's giving away his hand with this one, showing Americans that he's a divider not a uniter. He's going to pander and kiss the butts of the basically illiterate, uneducated white people who hate people who aren't just like them.
Unfortunately for the White House, this tactic isn't going to appeal to enough Americans to make it a workable strategy for a successful administration.
1
The solution is to build gender neutral restrooms, each stall should be enclosed from top to bottom and equipped with both a toilet and urinal. Women, girls always need to wait in long lines in public events to use the restroom while men just walked in as they are given the same number of restroom fixtures, when women needs to go to restroom more often because of our biological makeup. This change in restroom facility will let women not having to wait, and transgenders not be identified. Forcing transgender students to use the restroom according to his/her biological makeup rather than her gender identity is liken to forcing blacks to use separate restrooms, in the back of the bus, and different drinking fountains. It is just HATE in the purists form.
1
Aside from costing billions of dollars -- to remodel EVERY SINGLE BATHROOM in the entire nation -- such "single stall" bathrooms take up a lot more space, meaning FEWER toilets so the lines would be much worse.
And how on earth is this like "blacks at the back of the bus"? Nobody is telling transgenders NOT to use the bathroom! they can use the proper bathroom for their DNA.
And how on earth is this like "blacks at the back of the bus"? Nobody is telling transgenders NOT to use the bathroom! they can use the proper bathroom for their DNA.
1
They're less than 1% of the population. Not many people will be using these facilities.
I don't really care which bathroom he/she uses so long as it's left with the seat down, the bowl flushed, and orderly. He feels he's a she? She feels she's a he? Fine by me and no infringement upon my rights. I don't have to like or agree with how someone else feels only how they act. Has society nothing more important to spend its' time, attention, and energy on then what's going on in the bathroom stall next to ours 1/137th of the time?
4
Those who criticize fights for transgender rights "because, priorities" are probably not doing much to fight for issues of the highest priorities anyway. And often what they are saying anyway is, "well, it doesn't affect me directly, so why should I care?"
Every battle for human rights is worth fighting for because every violation of human rights is a threat to us all. Letting bullies and bigots have their way only emboldens them to threaten us more. Let them take away one of your rights, and they will try to take away another. The answer is no.
Those of us who fight for issues like transgender rights have plenty of energy to devote to many issues. We have always had the numbers to fight for rights, but are too often overcome by excuses not to act. Gavin isn't even old enough to vote, yet he is more involved in our democracy than adults who make excuses to do nothing.
Every battle for human rights is worth fighting for because every violation of human rights is a threat to us all. Letting bullies and bigots have their way only emboldens them to threaten us more. Let them take away one of your rights, and they will try to take away another. The answer is no.
Those of us who fight for issues like transgender rights have plenty of energy to devote to many issues. We have always had the numbers to fight for rights, but are too often overcome by excuses not to act. Gavin isn't even old enough to vote, yet he is more involved in our democracy than adults who make excuses to do nothing.
7
There is an editorial by Janet Mock where she describes the first time school authorities told her she had to use a gender neutral bathroom. Apparently they grabbed her in front of her friends, marched her like a criminal, pointed out the door like the grim reaper and said This one you use.
I think most of the trauma was in how they handled it.
If the school provides a gender neutral bathroom respectfully, I still think that could be a good solution for some schools, on a case by case basis.
Obama's federal law disallows that solution, which I think could be overreach.
If you at all attended a tough school, you know bathrooms can be a problem. The teacher isn't there, the tough girls are there, there are cigarettes, drugs, and some amount of bullying. If the trans girl is part of the tough crowd, I can think that on a case by case basis, some of the less aggressive girls could be victimized. The school is disallowed by federal law from intervening.
The school could be sued.
No, this would not be most trans teenagers. The problem is when the school can't react to specific circumstances.
I think most of the trauma was in how they handled it.
If the school provides a gender neutral bathroom respectfully, I still think that could be a good solution for some schools, on a case by case basis.
Obama's federal law disallows that solution, which I think could be overreach.
If you at all attended a tough school, you know bathrooms can be a problem. The teacher isn't there, the tough girls are there, there are cigarettes, drugs, and some amount of bullying. If the trans girl is part of the tough crowd, I can think that on a case by case basis, some of the less aggressive girls could be victimized. The school is disallowed by federal law from intervening.
The school could be sued.
No, this would not be most trans teenagers. The problem is when the school can't react to specific circumstances.
2
For anyone who has traveled to many European countries and found restrooms populated by both men and women (usually in separate stalls) this is simple an absurd issue. Both sides are focusing on a social issue that is inconsequential in comparison to other pressing issues for our country to the detriment of finding common ground for the future of our society. Both sides are looking like idiots. For heaven's sake, everyone needs to pee so let them pee in peace!
6
The bathroom issue is actually an easy one. If they have still their native sex organs they need to go to their native bathrooms. If they have changed their sex organs then they need to use the designated bathroom to their new sex identity. In either case their is no "Choice". People do not choose which gender bathroom they go to. In other words if the person identifies himself as woman but has a penis. He needs to go to the men's bathroom period. It is as simple as that!
4
So-called "sex reassignment surgery" doesn't change a person's sex. A castrated male is still a male. A women who has had her breasts and internal sexual organs remove and has undergone genital reconstructive procedures is still a woman. Surgeons who perform these procedures say they lessen the incongruity between a patient's gender identify and actual sex.
4
If only it was that easy. The truth is a person can still have "their native sex organs" while living entirely as the "opposite" sex. Transitioning is a process that may or may not included surgery. If someone with a penis nevertheless understands themselves as a woman, lives their life as a woman, it makes little sense for them to go to the men's restroom. What many people fail to understand is that it's not sex organs alone that determine gender identity.
1
You fail to understand that gender identity doesn't determine gender or sex.
4
I don't understand this. Are we going back to the times when, because of feelings of discomfort in sharing a bathroom with someone different, we accommodated them by having separate bathrooms like in Hidden Figures?
1
Everybody should be grateful as long as the toilet flushes. Even men's restrooms have single use booths, so what is wrong with whichever restroom to use? For locker rooms, it is another story, but restroom use should not create more dramas.
4
You reap what you vote for - "For locker rooms, it is another story, but restroom use should not create more dramas."
But locker rooms and restrooms and any other place that was segregated by sex is now part of the same story, thanks to the Democratic Party.
But locker rooms and restrooms and any other place that was segregated by sex is now part of the same story, thanks to the Democratic Party.
3
Every cell in Gavin's body including the cells of "his" brain, ovaries and uterus contains female DNA. Males do not have female DNA in every cell of their body.
12
@Lindy --
Exactly!! I have no difficulty with people living "as if" they were the gender they weren't born into -- however they want to express themselves, dress, whatever pronouns they prefer to use, it's fine with me. However when we get down to it, I find it deeply offensive when people who are genetically male, insist that they are women, and then insist on invading women's spaces. Women have had just about enough of this. We dont' need more justifications and excuses for men to find ways to invade places that are reserved for women. Nothing a man can do to his body will change him into a woman. His DNA cannot be completely changed. He can live "as" a woman but will never be a woman, and the fact for conveniences' sake in our nation people have to be put in one of two legal terminology buckets, doesn't change this. Pointing to a driver's license that states one is female, does not make one female. It simply shows that the government needs two sorting bins.
Exactly!! I have no difficulty with people living "as if" they were the gender they weren't born into -- however they want to express themselves, dress, whatever pronouns they prefer to use, it's fine with me. However when we get down to it, I find it deeply offensive when people who are genetically male, insist that they are women, and then insist on invading women's spaces. Women have had just about enough of this. We dont' need more justifications and excuses for men to find ways to invade places that are reserved for women. Nothing a man can do to his body will change him into a woman. His DNA cannot be completely changed. He can live "as" a woman but will never be a woman, and the fact for conveniences' sake in our nation people have to be put in one of two legal terminology buckets, doesn't change this. Pointing to a driver's license that states one is female, does not make one female. It simply shows that the government needs two sorting bins.
4
I agree with several comments here that the enormous amount of attention this got was a waste of time and resources. I believe in transgender rights. But what transgender means has become undefined. I live in Seattle and the city council passed an ordinance stating people can use whatever bathroom/locker room matches whatever gender they identify with. This makes no sense. What if I identify as a man one day and a woman the next? If I identify as a 12 year old boy can I join the boy scouts or a little league team even though I'm a 36 year old woman? What's with all these stage mother's hauling their pre school aged children around to talk shows and proclaiming these 7 year olds to be the Rosa Parks of the transgendered movement? What does a 7 year old really know about anatomy?
The left botched a legitimate cause by caving into fanaticism and defining gender in a way that made no logical sense.
The left botched a legitimate cause by caving into fanaticism and defining gender in a way that made no logical sense.
19
Great argument except that it's...not. Seven-year-olds know whether they have a penis or a vulva and they also know very clearly if they are a boy or a girl. The latter, for whatever reasons, does not always match up to the former. Maybe someday scientists will be able to identify why this switchover takes place, but for now there are kids as young as 5 who are severely depressed, some of whom want to die, because they are forced by parents and others to dress and act the opposite of how they feel. One's sexual identity is really the core of who one is, like it or not. And we are all sexual beings from birth, like it or not. (Hint: "sexual being" has everything to do with identifying oneself as male or female and nothing to do with whether you are sexually active.)
Watch any documentary about families dealing with a young transgendered kid. They all describe the same thing: an angry, depressed, often suicidal child who makes a dramatic turnaround emotionally when allowed to dress and act according to how he or she feels. You don't get to say whether that's genuine or not. Not when a little kid is talking about wanting to die. Not when it's the same story over and over and over and over. At some point we have to start taking it seriously, and fortunately that point has come. Too bad we let so many succumb to suicide already, or to suffer entire lives in depression.
Watch any documentary about families dealing with a young transgendered kid. They all describe the same thing: an angry, depressed, often suicidal child who makes a dramatic turnaround emotionally when allowed to dress and act according to how he or she feels. You don't get to say whether that's genuine or not. Not when a little kid is talking about wanting to die. Not when it's the same story over and over and over and over. At some point we have to start taking it seriously, and fortunately that point has come. Too bad we let so many succumb to suicide already, or to suffer entire lives in depression.
2
@Tara
I completely agree --- back in the day, when the transgender movement was starting, "transgender" meant more. It was always a phenomenon on shaky ground -- the shakiness being the idea transgender folks were asserting that one can't be one's authentic self without medical intervention, an assertion I completely refute. However at least being transgender was taken as something momentous, and it was something one came to after thought and much struggle. Which meant it was most definitely not child's play. Now, literally, transgenderism has become child's play, with young teens, even 7 year olds, asserting that they are transgender, and their irresponsible parents enabling these statements which issue from such immaturity.
People are being incredible fools, and governments are buying into foolishness and delusion. All of us have both genders within our psyche, and though the press of the non-biological one of these may not be strong in many, it is enormous foolishness to treat a very natural phenomenon as though it points to a special class of people in need of special government protections and bathroom laws. I have always strongly identified with the gender I was not born into, and I have had no need to use a special term like "transgender" , nor have I need of government protections. Somehow, I've been able to go to the bathroom all my life without government aid. And what I see around me now are a bunch of crybabies who can't manage to do the same.
I completely agree --- back in the day, when the transgender movement was starting, "transgender" meant more. It was always a phenomenon on shaky ground -- the shakiness being the idea transgender folks were asserting that one can't be one's authentic self without medical intervention, an assertion I completely refute. However at least being transgender was taken as something momentous, and it was something one came to after thought and much struggle. Which meant it was most definitely not child's play. Now, literally, transgenderism has become child's play, with young teens, even 7 year olds, asserting that they are transgender, and their irresponsible parents enabling these statements which issue from such immaturity.
People are being incredible fools, and governments are buying into foolishness and delusion. All of us have both genders within our psyche, and though the press of the non-biological one of these may not be strong in many, it is enormous foolishness to treat a very natural phenomenon as though it points to a special class of people in need of special government protections and bathroom laws. I have always strongly identified with the gender I was not born into, and I have had no need to use a special term like "transgender" , nor have I need of government protections. Somehow, I've been able to go to the bathroom all my life without government aid. And what I see around me now are a bunch of crybabies who can't manage to do the same.
2
No, what makes no sense is thinking that people can't perfectly well choose for themselves what bathroom suits them. They do not need a law to tell them what to do.
1
Where do people think transgenders have been going to the bathroom for the past decade? Why is this even an issue? Why are people trying to hurt these kids? Leave em alone!
17
Back in the '60s and 70s, there was a great deal of fuss around the Equal Rights Amendment. So-called conservatives complained that passing it would lead to unisex bathrooms and women in combat. Well, now we have unisex bathrooms in all kinds of public places, and women serve in combat, but we still don't have an Equal Rights Amendment.
IMO, it doesn't matter who uses the same bathroom as I do, as long as they don't pee on the floor or on the toilet seat.
IMO, it doesn't matter who uses the same bathroom as I do, as long as they don't pee on the floor or on the toilet seat.
14
0.6 percent or 1.4 million people, in the Untied States identify as transgender. How in the world did this issue which concerns so few people yet affects the entire population of the United States get whipped up into the national debate? I'll give the organizers and the media credit, they did an excellent job. The fact is that there's no political gain to be had for supporting such legislation and the potential for political fallout is immense. The numbers just aren't there and people aren't going to be shamed into agreeing to transgendered bathrooms.
14
Kurt Pickard - "The fact is that there's no political gain to be had for supporting such legislation and the potential for political fallout is immense."
Ask not what can be done for the American people ask only what can be done for the PARTY!
Ask not what can be done for the American people ask only what can be done for the PARTY!
3
Thanks for the insight Tired. The party is indeed an entity unto itself and not comprised of the American people. Where'd you come up with that one?
wow... you'd think these kids would just be greatful that they live in a country with running water to have a toilet.
10
Gay rights activists spent years fighting for their rights, delaying a decisive Supreme Court decision while they planted seeds for their movement. And when a case was selected to go to the Supreme Court, it was widely opposed by activists because they did not select it., It was selected by two of the most prominent Supreme Court lawyers in the country.
Gavin's case was brought shortly after transgender bathrooms became an issue. There has been no significant similar litigation. The original case was brought under Title IX and the equal protection clause of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is hearing only the Title IX portion, which applies only to students, not adults.
Studies show that the age of transition is almost never before age 19, and the great majority transition after college age. If Gavin wins his case, it will help a small number because Title IX does not apply to adults, The constitutional claim could have helped everybody, but that claim is gone.
If Gavin loses his case, its holding could be broad and could set back transgender rights for years. A victory is likely to help only a small number. Moreover bathroom rights are not like marriage rights, which have long been protected by the courts. .
It is quite clear that Gavin's case is high risk, with a small upside..The gays had it right -- pick your moment and pick your case carefully. Gavin's case comes out of the blue without adequate planning. There were far better ways to go.
Gavin's case was brought shortly after transgender bathrooms became an issue. There has been no significant similar litigation. The original case was brought under Title IX and the equal protection clause of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is hearing only the Title IX portion, which applies only to students, not adults.
Studies show that the age of transition is almost never before age 19, and the great majority transition after college age. If Gavin wins his case, it will help a small number because Title IX does not apply to adults, The constitutional claim could have helped everybody, but that claim is gone.
If Gavin loses his case, its holding could be broad and could set back transgender rights for years. A victory is likely to help only a small number. Moreover bathroom rights are not like marriage rights, which have long been protected by the courts. .
It is quite clear that Gavin's case is high risk, with a small upside..The gays had it right -- pick your moment and pick your case carefully. Gavin's case comes out of the blue without adequate planning. There were far better ways to go.
8
Last year, the left was on a giddy high after Obergefell -- and before Trump -- and of course, they all thought Hillary would be the Empress, and impose uinsex bathrooms by Executive Order.
1
I am afraid the Democrats and the left have lost their minds on this issue. It probably cost us the election, and all for an issue of almost no importance compared to what we are facing on nearly every front in this world. The overemphasis of identity politics that has weakened the Democratic Party reaches its nadir when we tell midwestern Democratic families that their girls have to use bathrooms and showers with anatomical boys. Nobody, and I mean nobody was clamoring for that around my environs. All it does is drive people away from the Democrats or demoralize them, and for good reason.
Supporting fair and welcoming treatment for all self-identifying trans students was solid ground. But we jumped the shark totally when demanded that people be allowed to use gender-segregated bathrooms and showers the opposite to their own current genitalia. That is deeply unfair to girls traumatized by rape and assault in their own lives and an unwarranted special privilege, not in any way a a civil or human right. A unisex bathroom and shower can be provided and reasonably accommodate their needs
Are we trying to drive average working Americans away from the Democratic Party? Do we want to keep whittling our percentage down to 49% and lose instead of staying moderate and getting to 55% or even 60% with the right policies? This is a party lost in PC self-righteousness that has lost its common sense and stability.
Supporting fair and welcoming treatment for all self-identifying trans students was solid ground. But we jumped the shark totally when demanded that people be allowed to use gender-segregated bathrooms and showers the opposite to their own current genitalia. That is deeply unfair to girls traumatized by rape and assault in their own lives and an unwarranted special privilege, not in any way a a civil or human right. A unisex bathroom and shower can be provided and reasonably accommodate their needs
Are we trying to drive average working Americans away from the Democratic Party? Do we want to keep whittling our percentage down to 49% and lose instead of staying moderate and getting to 55% or even 60% with the right policies? This is a party lost in PC self-righteousness that has lost its common sense and stability.
47
This is exactly what the Democratic Party has become: catering to extreme left-wing issues while ignoring their hard-working middle class voters.
5
Well said. I tend to vote Republican mainly because of everything you just said. I am sick and tired of all this PC stuff and the do-gooders on the left. I believe this is why they just lost the presidential election when I actually thought the Republicans could not possibly win. I am glad that they won because we would likely have had another 8 years of this nonsense to deal with. Now, we have a situation where we will have to deal with Mr. Trump and his click. It will be different than anything seen before, apparently.
1
Republicans, not Democrats, created this issue by passing special rules to discriminate against against transgender students - a disgraceful example of scapegoating for political profit.
Should Democrats stand idly by? The rights of people - even small minorities - are important.
Should Democrats stand idly by? The rights of people - even small minorities - are important.
1
I don't understand why we can't solve the problem where it benefits transgender people and others who need accommodation using gender-neutral bathrooms (parents with opposite sex children, caregivers with patrons, for instance). In this country we've often found accommodating a minority can benefit a majority. Case in point: wheelchair lifts on buses benefit mothers with strollers and shoppers with folding carts. Establish gender-neutral bathrooms, for heaven's sake!
2
Many readers have seemingly not picked up on the fact that Grimm was born with female parts and identifies male. These readers would have Grimm using his birth certificate assigned bathroom (female) which would be putting a man in a female restroom, the exact thing they are so worried about. They have not picked up on the fact that Grimm wants to use the men's room, i.e. A man in the men's room! Let Grimm use the bathroom he prefers and it will works out for everybody.
3
My hope is that the courts stick to the least-intrusive solution of requiring the provision of single-occupant facilities for Grimm, but not ruling in a way that codifies the conflation of "gender identity" with physical, immutable sex.
Our country's anti-discrimination laws are based on "immutable characteristics" - that is, qualities about ourselves which we cannot change, such as our sex, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, national origin, and religion (because although one can convert, one does not choose the religion to which their family of origin belongs.)
Gender identity is not shown to be immutable (in fact, many trans state they are "gender fluid" meaning it changes from day to day, and a large number of people detransition.) Longitudinal studies have also shown that transition isn't an effective solution for most people who don't conform to standard masculinity or femininity.
If definitions of sex are changed to mean anything other than biology, then both men and women can be pregnant and being fired for menses or pregnancy would not be sex discrimination if sex is no longer immutable.
Title IX as applied to school sports is another area for harm. Women fought to participate in sports, but separate competitions were established because it's understood that co-ed competition would be equal, but not fair. No amount of T or E will change the entirety of the complex biological systems of male and female, including the differing capacities for athleticism.
Our country's anti-discrimination laws are based on "immutable characteristics" - that is, qualities about ourselves which we cannot change, such as our sex, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, national origin, and religion (because although one can convert, one does not choose the religion to which their family of origin belongs.)
Gender identity is not shown to be immutable (in fact, many trans state they are "gender fluid" meaning it changes from day to day, and a large number of people detransition.) Longitudinal studies have also shown that transition isn't an effective solution for most people who don't conform to standard masculinity or femininity.
If definitions of sex are changed to mean anything other than biology, then both men and women can be pregnant and being fired for menses or pregnancy would not be sex discrimination if sex is no longer immutable.
Title IX as applied to school sports is another area for harm. Women fought to participate in sports, but separate competitions were established because it's understood that co-ed competition would be equal, but not fair. No amount of T or E will change the entirety of the complex biological systems of male and female, including the differing capacities for athleticism.
7
Prisoners in jails have the constitutional right to NOT have to dress and bath in front of guards of the opposite sex. (Sex as in actual physical biological anatomical sexual classification) Has been so held by many Federal Courts.
THe NYT in its fit of fringe group PC wants to make women have to dress and shower in front of biologically intact males in communal locker rooms (nearly all schools and most private gyms.) ANd it wants to make men have to do the same in front of biologically intact females.
Until they have the appropriate bits cut off and others stuck on, these very reality-confused people are NOT "men" because they think they are when they are biologically and anatomically female; and they are NOT "women" because they think they are when they are biologically and anatomically male.
All the fantasizing in the world will not make them in fact what they are not in reality anymore than thinking they are a chicken makes them a chicken.
Forcing women to put up with biological and anatomical males in areas where they dress and bath is Sexual Harassment and an invasion of privacy.
THe NYT in its fit of fringe group PC wants to make women have to dress and shower in front of biologically intact males in communal locker rooms (nearly all schools and most private gyms.) ANd it wants to make men have to do the same in front of biologically intact females.
Until they have the appropriate bits cut off and others stuck on, these very reality-confused people are NOT "men" because they think they are when they are biologically and anatomically female; and they are NOT "women" because they think they are when they are biologically and anatomically male.
All the fantasizing in the world will not make them in fact what they are not in reality anymore than thinking they are a chicken makes them a chicken.
Forcing women to put up with biological and anatomical males in areas where they dress and bath is Sexual Harassment and an invasion of privacy.
7
Prisoners are in cages. The rest of us are not. It's a real big difference.
1
When it became the norm to make all public spaces accessible to those
in wheelchairs, ramps were made, elevators were put in, extra-wide doors
were provided and extra-large stalls were built.
I think the rights of the vast, vast majority exceed the desire of someone to
use a bathroom/locker room of their self-declared gender.
Build Uni-Sex Bathrooms as needed.
Provide Uni-Sex Locker Rooms as needed.
Don't use the Supreme Court to "beat down" those who
would just like their privacy.
in wheelchairs, ramps were made, elevators were put in, extra-wide doors
were provided and extra-large stalls were built.
I think the rights of the vast, vast majority exceed the desire of someone to
use a bathroom/locker room of their self-declared gender.
Build Uni-Sex Bathrooms as needed.
Provide Uni-Sex Locker Rooms as needed.
Don't use the Supreme Court to "beat down" those who
would just like their privacy.
5
What if you are dealing with a transgender Muslim. Many in the Muslim community do not even want their children in gym class or a swimming pool with the opposite sex. So what do you do with any transgendered child in that instance. Or even with transgendered adults. Do you respect the religious "rights" or the "gender rights". Really, there are almost an infinite number of issues that can come up. Just get single use bathrooms and unisex bathrooms and stop with all the societal angst.
6
Born a man.... your a man. Don't want any transgender boy using the same bathroom or Locker room as my teen daughter. With all due respect, he needs help.
8
Thanks Michael. I have commented above, about bathroom issues. With 100% surety I do not want anyone with a man's equipment going into my girl's locker room regardless of what they "think" they are. Stay away.
1
It probably has already happened. You'll never know. What a closed and grey mind you have.
I will never understand America.
Is sharing a PUBLIC bathroom with someone - of whatever gender - such a big deal when you live in a country with 300 million guns? Where many states permit the carrying of loaded firearms in public? Where Congress is repealing a law that makes it harder for people with mental illness to buy guns?
I find the hysteria about transgendered individuals using bathrooms utterly baffling in this context.
Is sharing a PUBLIC bathroom with someone - of whatever gender - such a big deal when you live in a country with 300 million guns? Where many states permit the carrying of loaded firearms in public? Where Congress is repealing a law that makes it harder for people with mental illness to buy guns?
I find the hysteria about transgendered individuals using bathrooms utterly baffling in this context.
18
Yeah it is a big problem. I'm sorry I don't want to be in a bathroom with someone of the other gender. And for their being 300 million guns in the U.S. There sure are not 300 million shootings.
1
As much as I respect Mr. Gimm, it is a very bad idea to allow a person to self-identify into the bathroom he or she want to use. The issue is that there is no easy way to tell whether a person claiming to be transgender is truly a transgender, unlike biological sex which can easily be identified by appearance. We certainly do not want any male walking freely into a women's bathroom and get away free by claiming himself as a transgender but in fact was not. A solution might be requiring a doctor's prescription and issue some kind of proof, just like what the disabled people use for priority parking.
5
So, Trump lied again; he promised one thing on the campaign trail and then did an about face on the issue after getting into office. What if people voted for him based on his stance on this issue? Trump needs to keep his promise to these people. I think and hope Gavin will prevail in court. Sessions is out of line.
1
kay - "So, Trump lied again; he promised one thing on the campaign trail"
You are not paying attention, he didn't lie he turned over the responsibility of this "question" to the States, where it belongs according to the 10th Amendment.
You are not paying attention, he didn't lie he turned over the responsibility of this "question" to the States, where it belongs according to the 10th Amendment.
1
We're told that representatives of public schools turned to the feds for advice on how to handle the question of restroom use by transgender pupils. I would have thought that common sense would have prompted the school officials responsible in this case to have made wise decisions without guidance from the feds. How naive.
I hope the matter will be resolved fairly, with the necessary and appropriate accommodations being made, but I fear there will be hard feelings no matter what SCOTUS decides. Fortunately we will not see a governor standing in a restroom door nor will the president will have to send in federal troops to enforce the law. We've grown up somewhat and are past that stage.
One thing is certain: It's hard to say whether President Obama handled this matter with finesse equal to or less than that with President Trump has so far handled the matters of deporting undocumented aliens and issuing visas to those wishing to enter the US for various worthy reasons.
I hope the matter will be resolved fairly, with the necessary and appropriate accommodations being made, but I fear there will be hard feelings no matter what SCOTUS decides. Fortunately we will not see a governor standing in a restroom door nor will the president will have to send in federal troops to enforce the law. We've grown up somewhat and are past that stage.
One thing is certain: It's hard to say whether President Obama handled this matter with finesse equal to or less than that with President Trump has so far handled the matters of deporting undocumented aliens and issuing visas to those wishing to enter the US for various worthy reasons.
2
I have had the privilege of teaching several trans students recently and fully support their right to use whatever bathroom and locker room they please. Our school has recently allowed access to single-stall restrooms, which is I suppose slightly better than making them hold it all day long. But anyone who knows teens, however, knows that most of them just want to fit in. Nothing says "I'm different" more than a separate bathroom.
As for the whole "sexual predator" thing, I'm more worried about our football team than any trans student.
As for the whole "sexual predator" thing, I'm more worried about our football team than any trans student.
49
You just stereotyped football players and cast aspersions on them based on the bad actions of a few. Most men are good people.
1
? Really - I wish the best for all students transgender or not. But I have been in many locker rooms and a transgender will stand out as different in the shower. So how does a transgender not in the shower with other students not stand out as being different? I am all in favor of giving respect and protection to all students. I don't understand why forcing multi-anatomy locker rooms and showers is viewed as the only acceptable method to show respect and protect a student. None of the LGBT advocates have tried to explain this to me. They all try to hide in the bathroom. A bathroom stall offers privacy locker rooms do not offer.
Frankly, if I was using a man's urinal I would experience much greater emotional distress having Trump urinating next to me than a trans man.
14
1/137 of teenagers have gender dysphoria and distress is one of the symptoms. If living according to their gender identity reduces that distress then why would we not want to alleviate that?
34
We do want to alleviate it, but we have to do that while also taking into consideration the 136/137 who do not have gender dysphoria. Is there no middle ground that is simply reasonable and doable.
3
Here is why: because it forces girls to feel distress that a person with male genitalia is in their bathroom or locker rooms. Far too many girls have suffered sexual assaults and violence in their lives, and their feeling and triggers should not be trampled on by giving trans student special privileges. They can be given access to unisex facilities if they feel uncomfortable, but why should they expect the right to subject women to the very thing they say makes them uncomfortable: being around males?
9
Because it causes me stress that my daughter has to use a locker room with a teenage boy with a penis - who says he's a girl. Sorry but I win.
2
What a click bait issue, affecting realistically a tiny fraction of folks who likely manage the day-to-day challenge discreetly without Federal meddling. One's sex is what it is, one's gender is evidently whatever one imagines it to be.
Not a Federal issue, IMO.
Not a Federal issue, IMO.
45
So, if an issue does not affect you directly its click-bait. It's an issue OldEngineer because certain right wing action groups focused on this subject and southern Governors have made it into one. For the transgender people involved it certainly is a day-to-day challenge as you mention and the haters (of which we have a surplus) are piling on led by the hater-in-chief and his extremist crew.
44
You're in the zone, Old Engineer. The rights of people who don't do things like everybody else should never become a federal issue. We should just leave those people to figure out how to hold onto their civil liberties on their own. A lot of Americans feel that way. That's the country we're in. If you're different, they don't want to hear about you. You may be transgendered, but we don't take it seriously because you're male or female depending on what your birth certificate says. And by the way, they also think being gay is a "choice." Just ask the Vice President. It's instructive to remember that a year after the Supreme Court handed down Loving v Virginia a Gallup poll found that 75% of Americans didn't approve. A majority of Americans didn't want white people marrying black people. (Apparently 15% of Americans still don't approve.) Even though slightly more than half of Americans approve of same-sex marriage, let's start taking bets on whether Neil Gorsuch can figure out, despite being endorsed by his gay friends, how to overturn Windsor snd Obergefell. And if he can't figure that out, he can surely find a way to declare anti-discrimination laws unconstitutional. For the man who wrote the Hobby Lobby decision that should be a walk in the park. As for Gavin Grimm, Republican America just wants him to go away. If this reign of terror continues, those folks may get their wish because the transgendered might go into hiding just to survive.
1
When did civil rights become about the numbers of a particular group?
2
This seems like such a silly issue to be making a stand against that one has to ask "Why do they care? How does selecting one's gender affect them?"
If they really valued individualism and the personal sovereignty that Bannon was nattering about, they should be fine with people acting to fulfill themselves.
I think the answer is that they want to argue that biology is destiny because they want to argue that women are created by God or Nature as beings to be used by others. This supplies an ideological justification for the rest of their war on women.
If they really valued individualism and the personal sovereignty that Bannon was nattering about, they should be fine with people acting to fulfill themselves.
I think the answer is that they want to argue that biology is destiny because they want to argue that women are created by God or Nature as beings to be used by others. This supplies an ideological justification for the rest of their war on women.
40
It fires up the right's base. One of the reasons numerous moderate and leftist candidates lost, I suspect.
We've seen this show before.
We've seen this show before.
1
How can the U.S./we possibly waste the time and resources on such a non- issue? I don't think we have the luxury for this - the Supreme Court? The answer is to put stalls in all bathrooms and allow all people to use the same bathroom. You can be any sex you want, or sometimes that sex, can be pregnant, can have children with you, can use a wheelchair and can have one eye that is brown and the other that is blue. How did we get here, but more importantly, how are we going to get out?
33
How did we get here? Conservatives are bigots and call transgender people perversions. This is such a non issue but Republicans cant stand people that are different, but will defend pedophiles like Milo.
1
There are more than 12 million urinals in America. The federal standard for flushing urinals is 1.0 gallons per flush while the federal standard for flushing toilets is 1.6 gallons. Urinals take up less space and are much easier to clean and maintain. The notion that we should replace them to help a tiny percent of women pretend they are males is absurd. Using the men’s restroom isn’t going to do much to alleviate the emotion distress caused by gender dysphoria.
2
Allow me to offer a few points to consider.
1. There is zero evidence of transgendered people stalking/attacking girls in bathrooms.
2. Stalking/attacking girls is illegal and will always be illegal regardless of the outcome of this case.
3. Other than the law, there is nothing stopping any male pervert who is not transgendered, right now, from dressing up like a woman and stalking/attacking said girl.
4. As an example of how stupid the idea of forcing someone to use only the restroom that matches their sex at birth really is, consider what would happen if a nice looking young man like Mr. Grumm waltzed into the women's restroom rather than the men's.
5. I don't know how the ladies do things in the restroom, but I don't generally see the genitals of the other occupants when I go to the men's room. Most men don't even make eye contact.
6. Singling out transgendered students and telling them to use the "separate but equal" single stall restroom is no different from the past practice of forcing black people to use the "colored" bathroom.
7. This is not an issue to be left to the states. Civil rights should never be left up to the states, or even the majority, to decide. If they were, we would probably still have slavery in the south.
8. Who is going to check for vaginas at the women's restroom and penises at the men's restroom anyway? Or, if we are going by birth sex, will a birth certificate be required?
1. There is zero evidence of transgendered people stalking/attacking girls in bathrooms.
2. Stalking/attacking girls is illegal and will always be illegal regardless of the outcome of this case.
3. Other than the law, there is nothing stopping any male pervert who is not transgendered, right now, from dressing up like a woman and stalking/attacking said girl.
4. As an example of how stupid the idea of forcing someone to use only the restroom that matches their sex at birth really is, consider what would happen if a nice looking young man like Mr. Grumm waltzed into the women's restroom rather than the men's.
5. I don't know how the ladies do things in the restroom, but I don't generally see the genitals of the other occupants when I go to the men's room. Most men don't even make eye contact.
6. Singling out transgendered students and telling them to use the "separate but equal" single stall restroom is no different from the past practice of forcing black people to use the "colored" bathroom.
7. This is not an issue to be left to the states. Civil rights should never be left up to the states, or even the majority, to decide. If they were, we would probably still have slavery in the south.
8. Who is going to check for vaginas at the women's restroom and penises at the men's restroom anyway? Or, if we are going by birth sex, will a birth certificate be required?
174
The single user bathroom is a perfect solution to make everybody happy. Any body can use it if they prefer privacy and it protects everybody's rights....but that is not what these activists are after. They want everybody to be as comfortable with gender fluidity as they are. Aint gonna happen.
Since you brought it up Jim, I'll address item 5.
Women's restrooms have public sink areas, but the toilets are located, singly, in enclosed stalls equipped with door locks. Completely private. As you suspect, no one sees anything of anyone else.
Women's restrooms have public sink areas, but the toilets are located, singly, in enclosed stalls equipped with door locks. Completely private. As you suspect, no one sees anything of anyone else.
Then why are you not suggesting we only have uni-sex bathrooms ?
The issue in the Gavin Grimm case is not whether Title IX bans discrimination based on gender identity, as well as sex, as the article asserts. The Fourth Circuit Court found that Title IX permits the provision of separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex. However, it noted, “Although the regulation may refer unambiguously to males and females, it is silent as to how a school should determine whether a transgender individual is a male or a female for the purpose of access to sex-segregated restrooms.” It sent the Gavin Grimm case back to the lower court to consider how a school should determine whether a transgender student is a male or a female. The only issue is whether Grim is male or female. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch famously declared that “A transgender man’s sex is male and a transgender woman’s sex is female.” But this is an opinion with no basis in biological reality. A simple karyotype can determine sex, but that Gavin Grimm is a female is not seriously disputed. The adjective “transgendered” describes a person whose gender identify is the opposite of their actual sex.
21
William Case:
The Fourth Circuit Court found that Title IX permits the provision of separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex.
*****
Deciding that "sex" can be arbitrarily decided by the individual would seem to invalidate the intent, which is to separate on the basis of sex. It's seems particularly capricious of Obama but not unusual.
I would add that this is why Americans don't like big government. It hides behind "compassion" and "greater good" while stripping away rights and imposing the will of a few on all others.
The Fourth Circuit Court found that Title IX permits the provision of separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex.
*****
Deciding that "sex" can be arbitrarily decided by the individual would seem to invalidate the intent, which is to separate on the basis of sex. It's seems particularly capricious of Obama but not unusual.
I would add that this is why Americans don't like big government. It hides behind "compassion" and "greater good" while stripping away rights and imposing the will of a few on all others.
3
The Fourth Circuit is the court most often overturned by the Supreme Court.
2
The good news is he was still able to use a clean bathroom, where he could enjoy complete privacy. Sounds way better than a shared public high school bathroom. I wish I got to use a bathroom like that in high school.
36
Any time a transgender person walks into a bathroom, they are the most vulnerable person there. Most of us, even if we "pass," already avoid public restrooms whenever possible, out of fear for our own safety. Thus, the idea that trans kids are somehow the aggressors in this situation, or that trans people are faking being trans in order to violate persons of the "other" gender, is totally absurd. No one would choose to be trans.
I transitioned, and it was that hardest and loneliest thing I've ever done. It taught me that most people think they have a handle on gender, and they are filled with anger and terror to discover the limits of their knowledge. Apparently nothing is scarier than the notion that you might think you can tell what gender someone else is-- and be wrong.
I wish I could say to these fearful people, guess what? You might not understand this, but that doesn't mean you have to make our lives unlivable. That doesn't mean you have to take your confusion out on children-- who don't get to choose which school district they live in, let alone what organs they were born with. What we do in the bathroom should have nothing to do with you.
I transitioned, and it was that hardest and loneliest thing I've ever done. It taught me that most people think they have a handle on gender, and they are filled with anger and terror to discover the limits of their knowledge. Apparently nothing is scarier than the notion that you might think you can tell what gender someone else is-- and be wrong.
I wish I could say to these fearful people, guess what? You might not understand this, but that doesn't mean you have to make our lives unlivable. That doesn't mean you have to take your confusion out on children-- who don't get to choose which school district they live in, let alone what organs they were born with. What we do in the bathroom should have nothing to do with you.
169
You know Michael I think this whole bathroom issue would be less explosive if you kept the transgender bath and locker rooms out of the schools. I think we would all agree transgenders have been using the bathrooms of their identity for years. If it is noticed it's probably more in the women's room when a transgender is touching up their makeup. Men tend to get in and get out. Children under the age of 16 can't drive a car, vote, buy cigarettes, see an R-rated movie, enlist in the armed services, hold a job or have consensual sex. Why is that? Well our society deems children this age and younger to be immature and not mentally ready to make these life choices. So why would anyone think that transgender bath and locker rooms for children are a good idea?
4
In my University we have female, male and a gender neutral single bathroom for one person at one time. So any one can use it and it is not kept next to male or female bathrooms, so anyone using it can do so without being noticed. A small accommodation for those who may need it. I think this is the way to go.
28
That certainly would be a reasonable accomodation but unfortunately some transgender people insist on attempting to make the rest of us share their delusion.
2
I think it could be a solution.
A very good suggestion; but Obama ruled it as unreasonable - that is why there is a fight.
So Mr. Grimm complained and he was "forced to use a single use bathroom." Huh? You mean he was provided with extra accommodation and given a private bathroom and little girls who would prefer that men not enter the girls bathroom were spared and felt comfortable. I'm sorry folks but I'm a liberal and this is completely off the hook. This guy has no reason to complain. The .00000001% of children who are transgender can be afforded separate bathrooms and give the whining a rest.
149
It's a thing, apparently, to include a statistic in a comment nowadays, with no basis or background on how the poster came upon their information. It's used for dramatic but I'm sorry to say not factual effect. Also, have you ever heard the term "separate but equal?" It doesn't fly. Gavin Grimm doesn't want an upgraded single toilet stall. It's a converted janitor closet, not an exclusive day spa, for heaven's sake. He wants to be like everyone else: Equal.
76
AVR, I don't think you realize Mr. Grimm is a Female to Male Transgender individual, meaning he is fighting to go to the restroom in the Men's room. Trump's position would actually mean that he would be forced to go to the restroom with "little girls" as you like to put it. Kind of flips your argument on its head now, doesn't it?
5
I genuinely don't understand this comment. He's biologically female, has a male gender identity, and is fighting for the right to use men's bathrooms. Whether you agree with that or not, girls' and women's comfort when using women's bathrooms genuinely seems not to be at issue in his specific case.
2
I will never understand how making a transgender person using the bathroom of his actual sex is being equated to the time when blacks were forced to sit in the back of the bus and the balconies of theaters, had to use separate water fountains, were forbidden from living in certain neighborhoods, were forced to travel long distances to poorly funded segregated schools, and could not get jobs because of the color of their skin.
There is no comparison. None.
There is no comparison. None.
142
Why is this so offensive to you, Joseph? Do we need to have a bar that must be reached before we care about the rights of others? So what if it's not the same as colored water fountains. Should we dismiss those who don't measure up?
14
That's because you do not understand that just like Black people cannot willfully change themselves into another ethnicity, transgender people cannot willfully change their gender (i.e. concept of who they are). A lot of people do not seem to understand the difference between sex and gender -- our research group didn't until one of our younger trainees explained it to us. Sex is your biological organs and hormones; gender is whether you identify as male, female, somewhere in between, or otherwise. For transgender people, there is likely some biological reason we have not discovered yet that explains the discrepancy between what we see obviously and what transgender folks feel inherently.
Also, people who are transgender often have had medical/ surgical/ or other cosmetic alternations that make it difficult to assess if they are male or female unless you feel inclined to have them take off their clothes. What would be even more awkward than Gavin using a male restroom would be Gavin using a female restroom.
Also, people who are transgender often have had medical/ surgical/ or other cosmetic alternations that make it difficult to assess if they are male or female unless you feel inclined to have them take off their clothes. What would be even more awkward than Gavin using a male restroom would be Gavin using a female restroom.
42
Does it have to be exactly equivalent for you to consider someone else's dignity? I'd never say that just because you haven't experienced the same degree of trauma as someone else, that your pain and indignity are meaningless.
I picture a parent with this kind of reasoning to tell their child who is experiencing the effects of food poisoning, "Hey, what are you crying about? Do you know there are kids in the world who contract incurable, fatal diseases?"
There's perspective and there's lack of compassion.
And there are also many black people who, because of what they have been through, fight for the rights of all kinds of other people, including the transgendered.
I picture a parent with this kind of reasoning to tell their child who is experiencing the effects of food poisoning, "Hey, what are you crying about? Do you know there are kids in the world who contract incurable, fatal diseases?"
There's perspective and there's lack of compassion.
And there are also many black people who, because of what they have been through, fight for the rights of all kinds of other people, including the transgendered.
1
I still don't understand why this kid can't use the men's room, even if he feels uncomfortable. Walk in, use the stall, wash your hands, and leave. This is not a big deal, his rights are not violated, and there is no discrimination. Until he gets the surgery, he is a male.
With respect to him changing and showering in the girls locker room, don't even go there.
With respect to him changing and showering in the girls locker room, don't even go there.
51
Wow, you completely misunderstood this story (and you likely do not understand much about transgender issues either). Gavin was born a female and is now living as a male.
29
He didn't misunderstand the point of the article .
He used maybe the wrong terminology.
You understand what he meant .
He used maybe the wrong terminology.
You understand what he meant .
12
What's there not to understand. His name is Gavin, he's transgender, he's referred to as Mr. Grimm, the caption states that the woman who's hugging him, who we have no idea if she's related, has a daughter that's transgender and he looks l like a man. It's obvious.
2
My heart goes out to the family members of commenters here who are labeling transgenderism as a mental illness, and referring to transgendered people as sexual predators, both utterly false, of course.
Look for the suicide rate to increase among teenagers who are questioning how they were born, simply because their so-called "president" has made it okay for them to be bullied and worse.
What happened to you, Republicans? How did mindless cruelty become a virtue for you? How did you get to be so spectacularly USELESS?
Look for the suicide rate to increase among teenagers who are questioning how they were born, simply because their so-called "president" has made it okay for them to be bullied and worse.
What happened to you, Republicans? How did mindless cruelty become a virtue for you? How did you get to be so spectacularly USELESS?
40
Transgendered people are the furthest thing from being sexual predators. But their incredibly high suicide rate was determined when Mr. Obama was president, so don't blame this on Donald Trump.
I have read many cases of women who growing up miserable because they were total tomboys who played with the boys and wanted to be a boy. Guess what? They hit puberty and became attracted to the boys. Today, with the wrong parents and the wrong advise, these girls could be labeled as being transgendered and have their lives ruined.
I have read many cases of women who growing up miserable because they were total tomboys who played with the boys and wanted to be a boy. Guess what? They hit puberty and became attracted to the boys. Today, with the wrong parents and the wrong advise, these girls could be labeled as being transgendered and have their lives ruined.
29
Nobody has labeled trangenderism as a mental illness. We are just trying to use our common sense and make bathrooms safe for girls and provide private bathrooms for transgender boys.
27
The built a separate bathroom. How is that not a decent compromise? The alternative was putting sanitary supplies in the boys bathroom.
35
There was a time when many in the white majority were made uncomfortable at the thought of sharing a public bathroom with a person of color. Their discomfort was caused by their own prejudices, not by the people they excluded. The same dynamic applies here. Transgender people are not sexual predators, freaks, exhibitionists or a threat to anyone. They're just people like the rest of who need access to a public bathroom. Who's making this into a big deal? I would argue that is once again the prejudicial majority who are acting out of ignorance and bias.
73
These two scenarios are hardly the same. You do a great disservice to people of color by equating them.
6
Exactly! I admit I hadn't seriously internalized this issue until I saw the show Transparent. Jeffrey Tambor's character tried to use the women's room and was called out by a couple of nasty women (I want to call them something else). It was truly heart wrenching. (FYI People who denounce the power of art are just stupid.)
Common decency requires us to think about the other person. I was recently in a public restroom with a transgender woman. I was relieved the woman didn't feel the need or pressure to go to the men's room, where she clearly would have been out of place, if not in danger. Just let people pee for god's sake. If politicians would not make this a big deal, it would not be one.
Common decency requires us to think about the other person. I was recently in a public restroom with a transgender woman. I was relieved the woman didn't feel the need or pressure to go to the men's room, where she clearly would have been out of place, if not in danger. Just let people pee for god's sake. If politicians would not make this a big deal, it would not be one.
13
You are comparing apples and oranges.
I have no problem being in the bathroom with an individual who is trans as long as they have the same biology I have.
There was no reason to have a separate facility for black people
There is a reason to separate the sexes .
Privacy
Take sports for example.
Why do woman only compete against other women in soccer for example.
It's because they would never be able to compete with men on the field and would never get a chance to play.
I know my example may not appear relevant.
It is.
My point is that making a distinction between men and woman is not the result of prejudice as you assume it to be.
I believe a person with a female sex organ should not be in the same room
with a person with a male sex organ if they are undressed.
How am I being anti trans by having this belief.
I am applying the expectation of behavior that I apply to myself.
You therefore can not call me ignorant or prejudice
I have no problem being in the bathroom with an individual who is trans as long as they have the same biology I have.
There was no reason to have a separate facility for black people
There is a reason to separate the sexes .
Privacy
Take sports for example.
Why do woman only compete against other women in soccer for example.
It's because they would never be able to compete with men on the field and would never get a chance to play.
I know my example may not appear relevant.
It is.
My point is that making a distinction between men and woman is not the result of prejudice as you assume it to be.
I believe a person with a female sex organ should not be in the same room
with a person with a male sex organ if they are undressed.
How am I being anti trans by having this belief.
I am applying the expectation of behavior that I apply to myself.
You therefore can not call me ignorant or prejudice
13
Protecting the rights of 0.1% = Endangering the lives of the majority.
Most Americans support Trump on this issue. Not because they are against LGBT. But they are concerned about the safety of the others -- especially women and children -- who are in danger from those who can use these rights to sexually abuse them.
What next ? NRA ads advising women and students to carry a Glock to the bathroom to protect themselves from such sexual abuse ?
Most Americans support Trump on this issue. Not because they are against LGBT. But they are concerned about the safety of the others -- especially women and children -- who are in danger from those who can use these rights to sexually abuse them.
What next ? NRA ads advising women and students to carry a Glock to the bathroom to protect themselves from such sexual abuse ?
51
You're a little mixed up. The people arguing for the right to use the bathroom matching their gender don't tend to be the same people arguing for the so called right to carry guns.
9
You can't "use a right" to sexually abuse someone. Any male, any where, can rape a woman. If they do, they are committing a crime. Period. In the all too common case of acquaintance rape, they have taken advantage of someone's trust. That can happen anywhere, and does. A restroom is probably statistically among the safest of places in terms of incidences of rape.
5
Tell me again why this is a safety issue, Bhaskar? Unless you mean the safety of transgender individuals, in which case I wholeheartedly agree.
Your pretend concern about bathroom safety is belied by your utter dismissal of the actual safety issues faced by transgender men and women.
Your pretend concern about bathroom safety is belied by your utter dismissal of the actual safety issues faced by transgender men and women.
16
What's wrong with a single use bathroom?
68
Nothing if you can arrange it.
It's isn't as simple as you imply it is.
Take plumbing for example.
You have to stack the pipes.
This means you can't put this bathroom anywhere you want to.
There are also problems with circulation
If you only have space for two doors how can you provide access to a bathroom that has to be used by many people.
So in theory you are right but in reality your comment is irrelevant.
It's isn't as simple as you imply it is.
Take plumbing for example.
You have to stack the pipes.
This means you can't put this bathroom anywhere you want to.
There are also problems with circulation
If you only have space for two doors how can you provide access to a bathroom that has to be used by many people.
So in theory you are right but in reality your comment is irrelevant.
3
What is was wrong with a colored person's bathroom? They should be greatful they had a bathroom right? That is the analogy you are using here. It was discrimination then and it is a discrimination now in the context of transgender bathroom.
>>>Gender is biological. Identity is an imaginary construct of what gender you imagine. Imagination doesn't change reality. You can pretend to be a girl all you want but you still will always be the sex you are born with. No matter how much you pretend otherwise
You are forgetting you are thinking with your mind and not the body. If you are thinking you are a girl with boy's body parts the you are a girl. This person must be already having a challenge with this disparity. Empathize with this person. By forcing the bathroom issue on them you are making their life worse.
You are forgetting you are thinking with your mind and not the body. If you are thinking you are a girl with boy's body parts the you are a girl. This person must be already having a challenge with this disparity. Empathize with this person. By forcing the bathroom issue on them you are making their life worse.
I am all for Mr. Gavin. I heard an interview with him and his attorney on NPR this afternoon. I wish him all the luck in the world in the Supreme Court. I truly believe he should live his life according to what feels best to him. And should be able to do so without harassment. I hope the SC decides in favor so that other transgender children may pursue the life that best suits them as well. But I am sorry that the use of a bathroom has brought this issue to the national forefront. I wish it could have been something else. Thank you.
57
I saw an interesting post that said the water fountain bit back in the day was not really about water fountains and this is not really about bathrooms. Surely we can find humane ways to behave to minorities when they say there are hurtful issues. Why not believe people - it doesnt hurt you if you live in the majority to just accommodate every once in a while without acting like a martyr - come on people.
7
We can't just all live our lives the way it feels good to us. I wish I were a cat with a fluffy tail, but I am not going to insist on public litter boxes.
2
To "The cat in the hat", G and K. Do you think that you know the biological sex of everyone you come in contact with? If you do, wow you are greatly mistaken. I have colleagues, friends, children of friends and neighbors who are transgender. Now it may be that because I live in Manhattan - a hotbed of liberalism - that more transgender folks have gravitated here. But, that does not account for my 30's something friend in the mid-west, or my friend with a transgender child who lives in New England. And that is just little ole' me. Equating those who are transgender to those who are left-handed is both insulting and uneducated. Worrying about a transgender roommate in college is a waste of one's time. Better to worry about passing Organic Chemistry. And finally, calling a transgender "mentally confused" is downright offensive and extremely uneducated. I do not have a medical degree, I am a lawyer. But, unless any of the "haters" have medical degrees or are practitioners in the mental health field... well, then I think that their assessments of the transgender experience is, quite simply, bunk.
36
Gender is biological. Identity is an imaginary construct of what gender you imagine. Imagination doesn't change reality. You can pretend to be a girl all you want but you still will always be the sex you are born with. No matter how much you pretend otherwise
61
You are a lawyer and your opinion is correct despite having no medical credentials. Anyone who even entertains the notion that someone who is female biologically and has never had sex knows at the age of 12 that she was really meant to be a boy might be equivalent to someone who weighs 98 pounds and thinks she is fat is evil, mean spirited and his opinion is bunk.
Kettle meet pot. No one commenting knows the truth of the situation.
Kettle meet pot. No one commenting knows the truth of the situation.
5
How does this account for the many transgender people who have transitioned medically, with surgery and hormone injections? I am not "pretending" about my genitals, my full beard, my muscular physique, and my deep voice. Nor am I "pretending" I wasn't born with two x chromosomes. I may have been born female, but I am biologically (and emotionally, and socially) male. Is it just my imagination, or would you freak out if you saw me in the ladies' room?
62
Thank you, Gavin for fighting for your rights. You make all citizens a little more courageous and a little more free.
And thank you Mom - who opened her heart, put aside her hesitations and stood by her son.
And thank you Mom - who opened her heart, put aside her hesitations and stood by her son.
76
The issue is perception: as societal norms change and evolve,attitudes and social mores stagnate. In the case of transgenders, individual perception is the basis coupled with societal dictums. Individuals are expected to be malleable and conform to societal norms. Science and biology dictate our identity, if born a male you are male; female, female. But with advancement both in science and psychology, individual perception of self is beginning to take notice. Patience, tolerance and acceptance is the best remedy rather than Supreme Court Opinion. The Trump Administration has made the issue of state rights, believing the Obama administration has over-reached! The case is a matter of social identity masking biological identity. What others may see is strictly the physical form, the individual in question feels not what others see!
4
Gavin Grimes is fine the way he is. He's comfortable with who he is. What's the problem? Apparently it makes some people uncomfortable to share a bathroom with him. Why? Here's what needs to change: people's attitudes. The discomfort they feel is merely a product of their own bias and ignoraance. To be more specific, I am a straight woman who is happy to share any public bathroom with a transgender woman.
114
But it's not just a bathroom.
It's also locker rooms where girls and women change clothes.
Every been to a locker room at the Y?
We women all change in front of each other. The last thing I want to see or want my daughter to see is a penis. The last thing I want my daughter to feel in a locker room is fear or self-consciousness.
Why are the fears of women always ignored?
It's also locker rooms where girls and women change clothes.
Every been to a locker room at the Y?
We women all change in front of each other. The last thing I want to see or want my daughter to see is a penis. The last thing I want my daughter to feel in a locker room is fear or self-consciousness.
Why are the fears of women always ignored?
99
I am really glad I don't live in such fear of "seeing a penis."
20
Are you qualified to speak for teenage girls who are already confused about puberty and sexuality? Your lack of empathy and insistence on traumatizing them is simply cruel.
10
Please Democrats, please drop this issue. Focus on what matters to everyone, labor rights, healthcare, education, etc. This is an electoral loser, plain and simple. Don't sacrifice your chances of winning for this.
111
You are wrong.
11
Basic civil rights do actually matter to everyone.
15
This issue could have been the last straw for the struggling Midwest working class voters that put Trump over the top. While they are struggling with issues like paying the mortgage or the rent, the Democrats were obsessed with an issue that affects at most, 0.3% of the population. Yes, they need to move on.
56
You still have the wrong people in the wrong bathrooms. A trans who looks and acts like a woman has to go in the men's room and visa a versa. Seems like this will make more problems than solve them.
14
so have single person bathrooms or a designated unisex bathroom that all genders can use
You have made the point I wish others would understand.
Underthe new rule, someone who was born male but who identifies as female would be forced to use the men's room. Does anyone see a problem with this? Other than, of course, the poor woman who is now subjected to harassment from men in the men's room.
Under the new rule, someone born female who now identifies as MALE and looks like a man would be forced to use the women's restroom. Does anyone truly not see a problem with this?
Are the tax cuts going to pay for bathroom police to check us all out, because I don't carry my birth certificate around. And if someone tries to check me out, you'll find him or her in the hospital. I will also defend the privacy and the rights of anyone who is harassed because of sexual orientation or gender.
Underthe new rule, someone who was born male but who identifies as female would be forced to use the men's room. Does anyone see a problem with this? Other than, of course, the poor woman who is now subjected to harassment from men in the men's room.
Under the new rule, someone born female who now identifies as MALE and looks like a man would be forced to use the women's restroom. Does anyone truly not see a problem with this?
Are the tax cuts going to pay for bathroom police to check us all out, because I don't carry my birth certificate around. And if someone tries to check me out, you'll find him or her in the hospital. I will also defend the privacy and the rights of anyone who is harassed because of sexual orientation or gender.
4
Right here is the problem. >>> "Some are restricted to the bathroom of their gender identity at birth." Your "gender identity" is not known at birth. What is know is you SEX since that can be seen by what is between your legs while your "gender" is what is between your ears!!
The Law that BHO tried to use to do an end run around the 1st 16 words of the 1st Amendment uses the word SEX, not the word GENDER.
Even if the Congress rewrote the law using the word "gender", it would be unconstitutional sine it would be forcing people of faith to share bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms with people of the opposite SEX in violation of their religious beliefs.
The ONLY solution is single occupancy bathrooms and locker rooms and changing rooms. This IS something the government could mandate and best of all it would result in a building boom in the remodeling business and put a lot of people to work at good paying jobs.
The Law that BHO tried to use to do an end run around the 1st 16 words of the 1st Amendment uses the word SEX, not the word GENDER.
Even if the Congress rewrote the law using the word "gender", it would be unconstitutional sine it would be forcing people of faith to share bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms with people of the opposite SEX in violation of their religious beliefs.
The ONLY solution is single occupancy bathrooms and locker rooms and changing rooms. This IS something the government could mandate and best of all it would result in a building boom in the remodeling business and put a lot of people to work at good paying jobs.
21
It seems like "people of faith " are awfully concerned with where they go to the bathroom.
12
So sharing a bathroom with people of the opposite sex is against your RELIGIOUS beliefs??? Pray tell, what religion is that??
9
There has been huge resistance to funding wheel chair accessible stalls.
6
Thank you Mr. Grimm for your courage and resolve.
Hatred stems from ignorance, and a basic misunderstanding and unsubstantiated intolerance about anyone who does not resemble you, your gender, and gender conforming values identically.
You are part of a revolution that is swiftly making a difference. Bravo.
Hatred stems from ignorance, and a basic misunderstanding and unsubstantiated intolerance about anyone who does not resemble you, your gender, and gender conforming values identically.
You are part of a revolution that is swiftly making a difference. Bravo.
24
So well put Annamarie. Mr. Grimm and other young trans folk are making a huge difference. They should inspire us all to care more about all humanity!
2
This, in the immortal phrasing of our president, is "Sad." But not "sad" in the context he would intend.
5
I always had a feeling public bathrooms were going to be a problem.
4
I think the idea of a person with male genitalia using any female facilities or a person with female genitalia using any male facilities to be way beyond absurd and ridiculous. There are so many people so willing to twist the constitution and rights of our Great Nation to comply with so much foolishness and that is exactly what is tearing our Solid Country apart. We need to get focused and work on the ideas and requirements that will bring our People together and stop dividing them at every turn of events. United we stand divided we fall. There comes a time where liberalism gets to the point of insanity and we must learn where to draw the line for sanity.
45
This is still a thing ?
5
Yes, sex is very much 'still a thing.'
2
Kids going to the bathroom really belongs on the national stage. I'd really hate to be the follow act, though.
4
Thank you for your courage Gavin Grimm! As the father of a transgender daughter, my household, family, and friends are cheering you on. Gavin - you provide hope and inspiration to so many.
32
Go Gavin! You're on the right side of history!
19
Wake up liberals. This is not a battle worth fighting. It's called prioritization. Bear in mind the following:
1. We're not building a whole new set of bathrooms for less than 1% of the population.
2. Healthcare affects everyone. The environment affects everyone. Financial regulation affects everyone. Trade affects everyone. This does not affect everyone and many people find it very confusing.
3. Where these students use the bathroom is not akin to the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 60's.
I know some people want to be in permanent social justice mode. But this is a trap set by the right and a waste of valuable time and resources when we need to focus on winning the most. Don't get fooled.
1. We're not building a whole new set of bathrooms for less than 1% of the population.
2. Healthcare affects everyone. The environment affects everyone. Financial regulation affects everyone. Trade affects everyone. This does not affect everyone and many people find it very confusing.
3. Where these students use the bathroom is not akin to the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 60's.
I know some people want to be in permanent social justice mode. But this is a trap set by the right and a waste of valuable time and resources when we need to focus on winning the most. Don't get fooled.
121
I keep trying to figure out when "social justice" became an epithet.
14
You are gravely mistaken. This is most definitely a battle worth fighting. And it does indeed affect everyone.
Since when is standing up for marginalized minorities not important?
Since when is standing up for marginalized minorities not important?
11
Thank you!!! When the first amendment to the Constitution is under threat, this just can't be on the radar.
2
So proud of Gavin and the ACLU! Both are on the right side of history. And a shout-out to Gavin's mother, whose love for her child brought her to greater empathy and understanding.
19
Why are the Republicans so concerned with someone else's private parts? Transgenders don't go into bathrooms flaunting their genitals. They go behind closed doors, relieve themselves and move on to the activities of daily living. Why are the Republicans so hung up on sex? Are they stuck in a Puritan blockade? It seems that whenever the subject of sex comes into mainstream the Republicans get their knickers in a twist. Get over it and get on to doing something important in this world, like being kind to your neighbors.
72
I am a Democrat and I am very concerned.
You have no idea why I am if you believe only a Republican or a conservative would have this concern
You should respect my right to my opinion even if you do not understand them.
You have no idea why I am if you believe only a Republican or a conservative would have this concern
You should respect my right to my opinion even if you do not understand them.
31
What is your actual concern that you would like me to respect?
1
Ahem, it was Democrats who pressed this issue and cherish it above all common sense. The Republicans I know think it a bit odd, but hardly a central issue in a world of genuine economic and equity concerns.
13
Just because you think it does not make it so.
I feel therefore I am?
Why should a transgender person's feelings be of higher value than someone who is not.
I know your answer. "It's a right." But a right based upon a feeling.
Scratch the surface, put the skin under a microscope and you are what you were born. Gender wise. Sex wise and any and all wises. Biologically speaking.
I feel therefore I am?
Why should a transgender person's feelings be of higher value than someone who is not.
I know your answer. "It's a right." But a right based upon a feeling.
Scratch the surface, put the skin under a microscope and you are what you were born. Gender wise. Sex wise and any and all wises. Biologically speaking.
44
It is not a "feeling." It is biology. Just because you are ignorant of the science and medical reasons one may be transgender does not negate those reasons or those medical, scientific facts. Frankly, the test of us should not be subjected to the fears, prejudices and ignorance of people like you.
14
Sorry, no biological evidence for this condition AT ALL.
13
No biological evidence yet. But psychiatrists and geneticists agree that there is likely to be a biological root for gender dysphoria. All of the empirical evidence points that way. Meanwhile, feel free to demonize anybody in your sights as either dishonest or abnormal, or both. A day without demeaning people is like a day without sunshine, and we wouldn't want you not to get enough sun.
2
It's something even an ELEPHANT can't hold!
While living in New York In 1997 my husband and I went to the matinee performance of "ANNIE". At intermission I headed for the 'Ladies Room'. I couldn't believe the line that had already formed and I joined the line, awaiting my time to have 'my turn'. I was pretty far back in the line and I saw there was no line in front of the men's room, nor had I seen any man enter the room. Four of us decided "when you gotta go, you gotta go" and we went into the men's room - it was empty. We did our 'thing' and from the inside of my stall I could hear that now several men were "doing their thing". As we ladies left our stalls, one man turned and said: "Congratulations! You know how to solve a BAD problem in most theaters." Of course, by then there were other ladies in the room, awaiting their turns of 'relief'.
Simple case of no matter what your gender, when the time comes for 'relief' (a natural function of ones body), who cares what toilet is used?
While living in New York In 1997 my husband and I went to the matinee performance of "ANNIE". At intermission I headed for the 'Ladies Room'. I couldn't believe the line that had already formed and I joined the line, awaiting my time to have 'my turn'. I was pretty far back in the line and I saw there was no line in front of the men's room, nor had I seen any man enter the room. Four of us decided "when you gotta go, you gotta go" and we went into the men's room - it was empty. We did our 'thing' and from the inside of my stall I could hear that now several men were "doing their thing". As we ladies left our stalls, one man turned and said: "Congratulations! You know how to solve a BAD problem in most theaters." Of course, by then there were other ladies in the room, awaiting their turns of 'relief'.
Simple case of no matter what your gender, when the time comes for 'relief' (a natural function of ones body), who cares what toilet is used?
38
You contradict yourself.
You stated you saw no man enter the room and it was empty.
Why did you mention this.
Maybe because you did not want to be in a bathroom with men.
You stated you saw no man enter the room and it was empty.
Why did you mention this.
Maybe because you did not want to be in a bathroom with men.
16
When the ladies room has a long line and the bathroom labeled MEN is available, consider this: MEN is just an abbreviation of WOMEN.
Take the 'men' and 'women' and 'boys' and 'girls' signs off all the restrooms then and all problems solved.
1
Gavin, you brave soul, I hope you know how many people are holding you in their hearts. Stay strong young man. The future is waiting for you.
26
17-year-old Gavin Grimm already knows infinitely more about civil rights than that 70-year-old Confederate soldier posing as the nation's Attorney General.
We shall overcome this Trumpian whitemare.
We shall overcome this Trumpian whitemare.
173
I'm a middle-aged middle-class Caucasian man without serious financial problems. But to paraphrase the great Gandhi I'm also a transgendered child looking for a safe place to pee, an undocumented Latino immigrant whose only crime was a traffic ticket, an unarmed black man trying not to get shot by an overanxious police officer, a Muslim in the Middle East attempting to escape the blood-lust of crazed jihadists and a pregnant woman in need of terminating her pregnancy. I don't have to fear the bigotry of our kitty-grabber-in-chief but I'm afraid for my fellow human beings. They can't afford to be silent and so neither can I.
239
My family thanks you Stu for fighting for all of us!
5
Beautiful! Thank you.
1
Above all else, you're a world-class Virtue Signaler.
Let people choose to go into whatever bathroom corresponds to their gender identity.
Bathrooms have private stalls where people can do their business and no one knows what their anatomy is.
Have locker rooms for girls only, for boys only and a unisex facility that all could use.
Why is it such a horrendous crime to ask trans people to only use the unisex locker room.
Bathrooms have private stalls where people can do their business and no one knows what their anatomy is.
Have locker rooms for girls only, for boys only and a unisex facility that all could use.
Why is it such a horrendous crime to ask trans people to only use the unisex locker room.
39
The first sentence in your comment is contradictory with the last.
Trans kids are boys and girls too. It is sex discrimination to prevent trans people from using the regular facilities that everyone else is allowed to use.
Trans kids are boys and girls too. It is sex discrimination to prevent trans people from using the regular facilities that everyone else is allowed to use.
2
it is NOT contradictory.
There is a difference between use of a pure bathroom with privacy stalls from use of a locker room where people can wander around half dressed.
There is a difference between use of a pure bathroom with privacy stalls from use of a locker room where people can wander around half dressed.
6
Title IX does NOT mention gender identity.
It would be consistent with Title IX to say that people with the male member use the male facilities and people without use the female facilities.
I have suggested a compromise that would allow people to use the pure [non locker room] bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity but require trans to use a FULLY equipped unisex locker room.
No compromise is perfect.
But I think my suggestion is the best we can do.
It would be consistent with Title IX to say that people with the male member use the male facilities and people without use the female facilities.
I have suggested a compromise that would allow people to use the pure [non locker room] bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity but require trans to use a FULLY equipped unisex locker room.
No compromise is perfect.
But I think my suggestion is the best we can do.
12
Go Gavin Go! It's unbelievable that so early in his term Trump has decided to take rights away from transgender citizens -- how UNAmerican to TAKE rights from individuals in this country.
Let's hope the Supreme Court does the right thing here. Thank you, Gavin, for standing up for yourself. You've got my vote!
Let's hope the Supreme Court does the right thing here. Thank you, Gavin, for standing up for yourself. You've got my vote!
102
Hold up Chrislav, children don't have a lot of rights until they reach the age of majority, so nobody's taking any rights away from them and that's the biggest issue surrounding the bathroom debate. What you're talking about is giving special rights to transgenders a group which encompasses 1.4 million people. Not going to happen.
3
Trump is not only taking rights from transgender citizens. He’s targeting the youngest and most vulnerable transgender citizens, children and teenagers!
"Let's hope the Supreme Court does the right thing here."
And quickly, BEFORE Gorsuch takes Garland's fenced seat!
And quickly, BEFORE Gorsuch takes Garland's fenced seat!
This is what makes America great! Brave citizens that assert their civil liberties and refuse the status quo.
107
What makes America great is single payer and single stall for everyone.
1
not so great when Americans refuse Americans their civil liberties...
Very brave kid. Hang in there Gavin.
197
Right on young brother Gavin. Your cause is just, and long overdue.
8
This reminds me a little of a story I read about college roommates where the one brought her toddler to college. The other wanted to be nice but having the baby there made her college experience totally different from what she was expecting. It would also be really hard to be the roommate of a transgender student. You could say that the roommate would be learning empathy but a lot of roommates and their families would be resistant to being the roommate even if they thought they were "liberal" or "progressive".
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And so they could request a transfer. Many have been granted for lesser reasons.
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A roommate situation has absolutely nothing to do with a public toilet situation.
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Who knows? It might be the transgender student who will find it hard. Or neither of them will. Or they might fall in love. Or be best friends. Or distant acquaintances. Or compete over a lover. Or Or dislike each other intensely.. Or share an interest in physics. Or maybe what they love most is teasing uptight commenters with big hearts, knowing that they will eventually come around.
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