Inhumane In Texas

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,

Gender is defined as the state of being male or female. In most instances, this state is determined based on the biology of an individual’s genitalia. Those born

Every person in the United states is entitle to their rights based on the amendments. Transgender students are protected by Title IX and cannot be neglected in schools by anyone or they will stop receiving federal money. “The Justice and Education Departments issued guidance that, under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, schools receiving federal money may not discriminate based on a student’s transgender status and that the departments would treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for purposes of enforcing Title IX.” (According to New York Times). This should be applied to every single school not only schools that get federal money because every transgender student should be protected by a law just as every other cisgender student. Every single citizen in the United states is protected by their civil rights which is “the rights of citizens to political and social freedom and

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,

The School Board will be in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681 et seq., if they do not allow a male that is diagnosed with gender dysphoria and identifies as a female, access to the female restroom. Though the Supreme Court has not ruled on this topic, a Fourth Circuit ruling, the Department of Education and Department of Justice Dear Colleague Letter, and case law regarding transgender students can help enlighten the school board on this topic. An introductory understanding of Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 will assist in this matter. Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 and its regulations prohibit sex discrimination in schools, educational programs and activities that are recipients of Federal funds. Within Title IX it specifically prohibits the discrimination of student’s based on gender identity, including the discrimination of transgender students. Title IX provides: “[n]o person… shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance” 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a).

Texas recently brought a case forward blocking President Obama’s transgender bathroom policy. “The Texas case was brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, who led a group of plaintiffs that included 12 other states and two school districts. The plaintiffs argued that the Obama administration guidance came with the implicit threat that federal education funds could be withheld if school districts refused to allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their chosen gender identity. The guidance also had implications for federal student privacy laws, threatening education officials with sanctions if they fail to address students by their preferred gender pronouns. In a statement, Paxton praised the ruling as correcting "illegal federal overreach" by the Obama administration” (Korte, 2016). The Texas judge ruled that Obama’s bathroom policy could be

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

Here in Canada, this issue has been brought forward in both communities and provincial level of concerns. To take a look closer to home, the city of Toronto had witnessed the complexity of this issue in the past years. A Toronto transgender teen who identifies as a male, was banned from using his high school boys restroom, and was forced to leave school grounds and search for a public bathroom at a gas station. Concerns were mentioned for the safety of Spencer, and also how he felt uncomfortable being forced to use the women’s restroom; however, several parents and students agreed with how the school was taking action to this problem. After a petition was enacted by fellow supportive students, Spencer was allowed to freely use the restrooms at his high school.

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.

Republican Senator Lois Kolkhorst is the author of the controversial Senate Bill 3 that was made to require people in certain settings to use the bathroom that matches the gender on their birth certificate. Public schools would be the primary target for this bill, but it would also do away with certain parts of city laws that protect the gender identity of transgender people. Ultimately, the bill’s author is seeking to use the bill as a form of protection and privacy for children. While the opposing side of the Senate, which consists of only Democrats, claims the bill will do more harm to transgender children and their friends.

They deserve to feel safe in school, be protected from physical harm, and use the bathroom of their choice. The progress to giving them the liberties they yearn for, however, is slowed by the naive human beings that compose our society. Our country is filled with people that view themselves as kind, forgiving and welcoming, but they do not fight for what is right. Because our population is trapped in a utopian version of humanity, we cannot promote righteousness. Nevertheless, transgender students need us see the legitimate nature of civilization. In order for our world to match our currently inaccurate picture of life, we need to step out of our distorted reality. Since transgender students constantly face discrimination and violence, it is urgent that we create laws that specifically outline the freedoms belonging to transgender students, instead of mimicking the vague list of rights already part of federal law. With definitive legislation, we can effectively implement change. By making laws regarding the rights of transgender students, and then rigorously administering those rulings, we can change the way our society treats transgender students, and dramatically increase their quality of

Mr. Steve Schmadeke’s startling piece, “Transgender student who sued Palatine school district over locker room access loses round in court,” highlights Illinois’s Cook County Judge Thomas Allen’s unwillingness to review a transgender student Nova Maday’s request for equal access to the girl’s locker room at Palatine High school. Judge Allen, instead, cited that “state law does not call for ‘full and equal access’ to school facilities due to 2010 state legislators removing it in the state’s Human Rights Act” (Schmadeke).

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