The Gay Is Good Campaign

The movement of the gay and lesbian population in the United States is one that has been in progress since the early 1900s, and is still facing overwhelming controversy and backlash today. The push for gay liberation in a country founded on Christian morals and beliefs has subsequently led to struggles over equality of marriage, adoption, jobs, and healthcare. One side of the controversy argues that every individual deserves the same rights, while the opposing mindset argues that being homosexual puts you into a group of people that is different, and will therefore be treated as such.

It’s not hard to say that America has come so far into society and our freedom. How can our country forget when slavery ended in 1865 and gave women more rights in 1920. However, over time America has ignored the basic rights of transgender people. Transgender people are not any different from African Americans, or women. Why should they be treated any different, they're humans just like everybody else. They deserve the same basic treatment as a human rather than being treated like they're not from this planet. There are transgender people today who are getting harassed and tormented for just going into the bathroom for what they identify as. They should be able to go into a bathroom for which gender they identify as. Rather than making special bathrooms for transgender people that make them stand out and feel like they’re labeling themselves for using.

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,

Kansas passed a bill on Wednesday, March 16, 2016 that denies transgender students from using the restroom, as well as other facilities retaining to gender “when they are in various states of undress” (Committee on Federal and State Affairs, page 1; sec. 2; subparagraph b; lines 8-12), based on their preferred gender and forces them to use the restroom based on their birth sex. This bill was passed by the Committee on Federal and State Affairs in order to protect the privacy of students and to prevent “potential embarrassment, shame and psychological injury to students” (Committee on Federal and State Affairs, page 1; sec. 2; subparagraph f; lines 27-29). This bill also allows for students to sue a transgender student for two-thousand five hundred dollars if they are found in the “wrong” restroom. Forcing the transgender students in Kansas to use the restroom based on biology is wrong because forcing someone to disregard a personal preference to accommodate another is inhumane and has potentially deadly effects.

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

In 2015 The North Carolina House passed a bill now referred to as the “Bathroom Bill”, legally known as North Carolina HB2. The direct implications from North Carolina HB2 is that people regardless of current or identifying genders, must use the public bathroom that correlates to the gender on their birth certificate. (“HOUSE BILL DRH40005-TC-1B”) HB2 has been pushed by its supporting lawmakers as a protection on the usage of public bathrooms. Lawmakers claim that the bill is made to protect cisgender individuals, those born to their gender, from transgender individuals, from harassment in the bathroom setting. Yet, there have been zero recorded cases of a transgender individual

In her article North Carolina students sue U.S. over stance on bathroom access, author Colleen Jenkins talks about the issue going in North Carolina regarding the law in which banned transgender’s using the the restroom of the gender with which they identify with. In her article, Jenkins discusses the fact that students in North Carolina have asked the U.S. court to block two federal agencies from withholding education funding while the dispute over the bathroom access for transgenders goes on. In addition, the group called “North Carolinians for privacy” discussed the fact that U.S Department of Justice and U.S Department of Education had dishonorably held arrangements of government laws banning segregation in the education settings on the

The changing norms of the generation has brought upon commotion between various states because of the presidents judgement. The transgender bathroom policy allows transgender students to use the bathroom they identify as and not by the sex on their birth certificate (Fox News, 2016). The transgender bathroom policy has both successes and failure to ensure safety for transgender students resulting to its change being for not only trans-gender. Gender neutral bathrooms allows safety for those who are not only transgender, but also a part of the LGBTQ community, etc. but it causes a conflict with gender segregation. Adding additional bathrooms to suite other gender preferences costs more money and not everyone is going to accept what they walk into the bathroom and see. The gender neutral bathroom policy should be taken off of hold and be put into action because everything is constantly changing and those who do not identify as the sex they were assigned at birth are at risk for harm.

The North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signs the House Bill 2, the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, which undo all previous non-discrimination legislation, to ban transgendered individuals from using restrooms which matches their sexual identification. The law asserts that they should instead use the restrooms which matches the gender listed on their birth certificates. Enraged civil liberties groups around the country has decry the move as backwards and one which may put the well-being of transgenders at risk. Transgendered individuals have historically been a small vulnerable subset of the population, they have often been meted with violence and hostility. They are seen as a perversion and a dearth of moral values and evidence of societal degradation. But like any other vulnerable groups in society, they should be protected, not vilified as perverts and deviants.

The governments of states which oppose bills similar to the North Carolina Bathroom Bill are more concerned with justice being provided to those who identify as transgender. By restricting freedom to use a public restroom, a government is placing enormous constraints on the freedoms of those individuals. Many have claimed this to be a violation of civil rights in accordance with Title IX , as well as the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act. Transgender is a current gender identity and these acts forbid discrimination and abuse on the basis of gender. The HB2 bill is in direct violation of these preordained acts. The ultimate goal is full protection for the LGBTQIA community and this “Bathroom Bill” definitely stands in the way of complete

According to Bockting, a Transgender means having a gender identity that differs from the sex assigned at birth. Then continues by stating, gender identity is the basic conviction of being man, woman, or other. He lastly defines sexual orientation as to one’s sexual attraction, behavior, and emotional attachments to men, women, or both. All of these are his psychological definitions, which he mainly uses when discussing the challenges Transgender people face.

On April 25th, 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina there was a very controversial bill passed. This bill was named the HB-2 bill (House Bill 2). The bill states “AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR SINGLE SEX MULTIPLE OCCUPANCY BATHROOM AND CHANGING FACILITIES IN SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC AGENCIES AND TO CREATE STATEWIDE CONSISTENCY IN REGULATION OF EMPLOYMENT OR PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS”. The HB-2 bill states that people will use the bathroom that corresponds to the sex indicated on their birth certificate unless they surgically change their body parts to become the opposite sex. If they do have a sex-change operation, they may change the sex on their birth certificate. Stories about the dangerous behaviors of transgenders are plentiful. For example, on March 4th,

TIME magazine in April 5, 2016, in North Carolina, the law passed recently became the first state law in the country limiting transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates, also excluding LGBT people from anti-discrimination protections, plus blocking municipalities from passing their own anti-discrimination rules. (Dalesio, 2016)

However, President Donald Trump is moving to reverse Obama-era guidelines on transgender students' right to use the bathroom of their choice in public schools to no rights at all (Kennedy). Certain schools give transgenders the right to choose the bathroom that they're comfortable in, while in other schools, it is necessary to be on a sex-reassignment plan and to have your sex legally renamed in order to use the bathroom you wish. Yet, there are problems which occur in this, “Schools can only require an assertion of gender transition. Requiring a diagnosis or treatment before a student is considered transgender may be unfair to lower-income students without access to such options, advocacy groups say” (Blad). One thing that many don't consider is the setting of income in which these students have. Another issue is that President Trump’s opinions on transgender students has lost federal protections that allowed them to use school bathrooms which match their gender. “In several cases, schools have opted to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity, but complaints from parents or others in the community have prompted schools to reverse their policies” (Kennedy). Even though some parents may be worried of danger involving creeps and predators, it is important to take into consideration the safety

“Gender Fluid is a gender identity best described as a dynamic mix of boy and girl. A person who is Gender Fluid may always feel like a mix of the two traditional genders, but may feel more boy some days and more girl other days. Being Gender Fluid has nothing to do with which set of genitalia one has, nor their sexual orientation.” (Urban Dictionary)