Bathroom Laws In Texas Schools

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:

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,

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

One of the most controversial decisions of the 21st century, North Carolina’s so-called ‘bathroom bill,’ or the more formal House Bill 2 prevents transgender people from using the bathroom of the gender with which they identify; which on the surface sounds like a reasonable thing to do - after all, as Senate President Phil Berger commented, no one wants to “...allow men to walk into locker rooms at YMCAs across our country and undress in front of young girls,” but the fact is that this new law targets and discriminates against a minority, hurts the already unstable economy, and creates more drama and hype around a situation that was, up to this point, considered normal. To put it bluntly, this intolerant law has no place in a country that prides itself on acceptance - which means one of the biggest reasons this law is unjust is because

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.

When Gavin Grimm started his sophomore year at Gloucester High School in the 2013-2014 school year, he and his mother informed the school administrators that the student legally changed his name to Gavin, identifies as a male and is to be referred to by male pronouns. When Gavin was at school he used the men’s restrooms and this continued for seven weeks until parents of the students that attend Gloucester High School and residents of Gloucester County started making complaints about it. As a result to the complains, the Gloucester County School Board was going to put more privacy measures into the restrooms but after more complaints and with a vote of 6-1, adopted a policy that states transgender students be allowed to only use unisex, single -stall restrooms or restrooms that correspond their gender assigned at birth. The American Civil Liberties Union warned them about making this a policy and have stated, “For a transgender boy, living a boy in all respects- including bathroom use- is a critical of treatment for