Policing The Potty, The Dark Veil Of Protection

Transgendered people in America have made many great strides since the 1990s. They have encountered violence, lack of health care, and the loss of homes, jobs, family and friends. There have been many phases of the struggle of being transgendered in America over the years. The current phase we must be in now is equal rights. There are many variations of discrimination against the transgendered community. In our society we simply do not like what we do not understand. It is easier to discriminate than to try and understand. We are all created different and we should appreciate our differences. The change must come by addressing the views of the public. There is much justification in the unequal rights of transgendered peoples. The Human

Most don’t explicitly look into the complexity of a transgender person’s life and all the questions or problems one might face: Do I use the men’s or the women’s bathroom? Is it appropriate to use this locker room? Those are only two of the many questions a transgender person might run into on a daily basis because of how others would see the situation, how the people who may have a sneaking suspicion that the woman they saw go into the ladies’ bathroom isn’t actually female by their definition, or how it could also seem strange to see that same person go into the mens’ bathroom. These all lead to dysphoria in any person’s situation in public places due to the fact that many choose to taunt or mock the person; however, with the help of Title IX these questions could start to vanish from the thoughts of many transgender students which Blad exemplifies with a quote in her article:

Recently, the issue of allowing transgender people access to public facilities according to the gender they identify with has caused much debate throughout the United States. The bathroom bill seeks to control access to public facilities of transgender individuals, based on the gender they were assigned at birth. In 2015, bills were passed stating entering a bathroom not assigned to a person at birth was a crime. Surrounded by misconception, the bill does “not legalize harassment, stalking, violence, or sexual assault.” Since the bill arose, there have not been a rise in violence or other incidents in the states protecting the transgender rights (Transgender Equality). The bill simply states if one is living as a woman, to use the women’s restroom,

Transgender rights and policies have always been an ongoing debate. In the article, “Bathroom Battlegrounds and Penis Panics,” Schilt and Westbrook (2015) argued that in order to push gender equality forward, we must consider the rights of transgender people by allowing them to have access to bathrooms that support their gender identity rather than their biological sex. In doing so, authors believed that it would make progress in alleviating discrimination against transgender people. However, in this conscious effort to fight for transgender rights and their access to sex-segregated spaces,

In the last several years the United States of America has shown progression towards equality for LGBT. With whole states being the frontrunners of support for LGBT rights it has become apparent that change is happening. In 2012 gay marriage was legalized in all fifty states, allowing many couples the ability to wed. Close friends of my mom were able to wed because of the law. Not only has there been steps taken for sexuallitys but, also for those who are transgender. In the last couple years the Transgender Community has seen discussion after discussion about the use of bathrooms. It has shown that there’s many who support trans bathroom rights and that the country is willing to move forward. Also on the chopping block of the transgender

These kind of people want to and will try to make someone’s life as hard as possible simply because they see this subject differently. The simple, daily task of using the bathroom is a breeze for any typical person. Unfortunately, this task comes across as a intimidating adversary to a trans person simply because one can be conflicted with which restroom to use. For many trans people, entering a gender-specific bathroom can be a source of stress and anxiety, because using the restroom can mean very real health and safety concerns. Harassment of trans people in and around gender-specific bathrooms can range from denial of use to police intervention to verbal threats and physical assault.

When approaching public restrooms, most look at the gender on the door that associates with their own gender. However, some stare at those labels wondering which one they belong in. These types of people are often referred to as transgenders. Transgenders are people who identify themselves with the opposite gender of their biological sex. Therefore, for this category of people, entering a restroom is not so easy. They often wonder whether they should go into the bathroom of their biological sex or of their gender identity. The debate has spread throughout America today. Transgender bathrooms have been discussed in politics, education, and even criminal cases. Both sides of the debate offer valid evidence to support their claims. The only compensation

Throughout many Native American societies there have been a variety of sex/gender systems. As Europeans came over to the Americas, Native people lost their gender systems and were forced to conform to the binary system. Violence was sometimes carried out on these people such as being put to death by dogs. Europeans were shocked to find Native men “perform the work of women, dress like women and have sexual relations with men” ( ). These native men were not understood and were labeled berdache which meant male prostitute ( ). Even early anthropologist were not able to grasp the concept of not having a binary system and ultimately associated these men with homosexuality, transvestism, and hermorphaism ( ). The term two-spirit was adopted in 1990 to get rid of the term berdache. Two-spirit was adopted to get rid of the binary negativity associated with berdache and embrace the spiritual diversity of the Native people. Two-spirit people have both a masculine and feminine spirit. An example of this is the third gender of the Navajo called the nadleeh. The nadleeh acts as a another gender in the Navajo’s gender system. The nadleeh could be a male gender who takes on women's roles such as language and work or a masculine female-bodied ( ). Sexual relations with nadleeh were not stigmatized as though they may share the same biological sex, they were a different

Gender equality is a pressing issue in the United States. The definition of gender, and the rights that accompany them, is constantly being updated and adjusted. The LBGT community is fighting for equality after being repressed for many years. Because of this sudden movement, social issues are sparking outrage and debate on whether a certain law or right for LBGT people is to be initiated. In many instances, these issues dominate the media, and cause for chaos on both sides of the spectrum. The bathroom controversy exemplifies this. The LBGT community argues that anyone should be able to use whichever bathroom that matches with their identified gender. Members of the LBGT community should not be able to use whatever bathroom they please.

In the United States Transgender women (individuals who are sex-assigned male at birth but identify as female) experience high rates of severe depression due to pervasive discrimination that they face in society. According to Hoffman (2014), when compared to the general population, Transgender individuals experience much higher rates of depression with estimates as high as 62% (as cited in Clements-Noel, Marx, Guzman, and Katz, 2001). Due to these high rates of depression, Transgender women are at increased risk for overall negative health outcomes, which severely limits them from living happy, healthy, and productive lives. According to studies by Nemoto, Operario, Keatley, Nguyen, and Sugano, (2005) there is a growing understanding of the

Coming out as a transgender, identifying with a gender expression that differs from the assigned sex, has proven to be quite difficult through the ages. While the acceptance of transgender people has grown significantly higher throughout the years, people’s stance on them are still quite divided, and the uphill battle for transgender rights has proven this. Just giving transgenders the right to simply go to the bathroom they identify with has shown to be controversial according to the TIME cover Battle of the Bathroom. The TIME magazine makes sure to note the problem defiantly “far more than public facilities” (Scherer par. 9). Transgender rights are a problem that Jamison Green, president for World Professional Association for Transgender Health, thoroughly addresses in a report written by Alan Greenblatt for CQ Researcher. Jamison Green’s specific purpose in that report is to justify why transgender people deserve basic human rights like everybody else, as shown in society, through his use of facts, qualifiers, figurative language, counterarguments, and appeals to logic and values.

In past generations, it has been clear to society that males and females use segregated bathrooms. It is also known that the rate of transgender people has been growing over the past years. Transgender people constantly face troubles when using a bathroom in public. Nevertheless, as society has become more aware of the transgender population and the issues that they face, many schools have had to decide how they will respond about the issue of school bathrooms when students identify themselves as transgender. A school should be able to provide separate facilities based on sex, but must allow transgender students access to the facility which matches their gender identity.

“Everybody thinks that equality comes from identifying people, and that's not where equality comes from. Equality comes from treating everybody the same regardless of who they are,” -Matthew Bomer. Equality has always been a subject that has no rest, always brought up because of injustices american citizens face in their lives. One of the biggest topics that americans question is whether or not the transgender community should be equal to the cisgender community. The answer to this complex question lies in the quote made by Bomer, that we all should be equal to each other, and race, wealth, or sex shouldn’t divide us. So in order to make the transgender community equal to the cisgender community, there should be laws protecting

The social issue that I chose which affects society today is transgender inequality. These issues are more recently gaining attention and becoming a prevalent topic of inequality within our country. A transgender person is someone whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth. As more and more transgender people share their stories in the media, the social problems that arise from these stories are discrimination within their everyday lives. They suffer from scrutiny and judgment from their peers, and thus many hide their gender identity from family and society. This social injustice can be as simple as a glance or staring, or offensive comments and questions to violent hate crimes. Transgender people are prone to violence and harassment, and often not feeling safe in any aspect of society. They are fired from jobs, denied medical insurance, and being murdered left and right solely for being transgender. “A staggering 41% of respondents reported attempting suicide compared to 1.6% of the general population, with rates rising for those who lost a job due to bias (55%), were harassed/bullied in school (51%), had low household income, or were the victim of physical assault (61%) or sexual assault (64%)” (National Center for Transgender Equality). The structure of this paper will consist of adding all the research that was gathered over the semester, news articles and peer

Society has defined and applied gender roles through; gender socialization. In this process, all agents of society shape the outcome and performance of each gender. Lately, there has been much commotion surrounding bathroom policy for Transgender people. To begin this analysis, I have asked myself one essential question; “For those opposed to Transgender people using the bathroom they identify with, what is their main concern that drives them to be against them doing so.” After identifying this leading question, my next step was to research why Transgender people would want to use the bathroom in accordance with their identifiable gender. Even though that may seem like an obvious question, people who are for, and against this topic have contradictory answers. Those who are for, allowing transgendered people to use the bathroom that they find are appropriate to their identity, express that we can not discriminate against people who are expressing who they are. Amongst these people are also the ones that believe that cisgendered people have no right to determine policies placed against transgendered people. I use this as the basis to my research since I am a cisgendered male, who believes in one of these views. For reference, “transgender,” is defined as, “nothing or relating to a person whose gender identity does not correspond to that person’s biological sex assigned at birth.”[]