Colorado school officials decline mediation in transgender restroom dispute

[davidn3600]

Source: Reuters/Yahoo

DENVER (Reuters) - School officials who banned a 6-year-old transgender girl in Colorado from using the girls' lavatory have declined to take part in mediation of the civil rights complaint brought by her parents, the two sides said on Friday.

First-grader Coy Mathis, who was born male but identifies as female, had been using the girls' restroom at Eagleside Elementary School near Colorado Springs until late last year, when the principal informed her parents she would no longer be permitted access to the girls' facilities.

Instead, she was restricted to using either the boys' restrooms or gender-neutral facilities reserved for employees or those in the school's health room, her parents said.

The parents and lawyers representing the family urged the principal to reconsider, contending that singling out their daughter as the only girl in the school barred from using the girls' bathrooms was stigmatizing and psychologically damaging.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/colorado-school-officials-decline-mediation-transgender-restroom-dispute-021302991.html

[wordpix]

1. "stigmatizing and psychologically damaging"

Not to mention, the poor girl could be the subject of harassment and intimidation by some boys in the rest room who don't understand transgenderism.

[pnwmom]

2. The restrooms they're suggesting she use are for one person at a time.

When my daughter was in the early grades she tried to hold it in all day instead of using the large bathrooms. She would have preferred using one of the single ones in the nurses' office.

Maybe they should just open those bathrooms to other kids who want to use them -- then she won't feel singled out.

[longship]

3. Um! That still singles out the young lady. nt

[pnwmom]

4. Not if they let other kids use the bathrooms, too. Most wouldn't,

but a few of the shyer kids might. My daughter would have preferred that; she avoided the large bathrooms and came home ready to burst!

[longship]

6. Is your daughter a transsexual?

I ask as a hypothetical. That makes a difference in this case.

The young lady deserves to be treated like every other girl in that school. The extent to which she isn't is the extent to which she will be seen by the students as an other and ripe for bullying.

The school administration is making a big mistake here. If I were the girl's parent I would pull her out of the school if they didn't immediately change their ruling.

I would then even pull up the family and relocate, if necessary, to put my daughter into a safe and understanding educational environment. There are schools who know how to deal with these issues. Apparently this school is not one of them.

No compromise on this. She's a girl.

[pnwmom]

7. No, but the point is that if the single unit bathrooms were freely available,

then anyone could use one without feeling singled out.

I can never remember paying the slightest attention to when other kids were using the bathroom, except for the kids in the bathroom at the same moment I was. No one noticed my daughter was holding it in all day. No one would have noticed either if she'd gone to a bathroom in the office. It's not unusual for kids to go into the office or the area near the library where we had the other single bathroom.

[TalkingDog]

10. Read the story: They aren't "freely available"

"a gender-neutral employee restroom or the bathroom in the school's health clinic"

I don't know about you, but having to go to the nurses office to "pee pee" or to use the adult facilities does single her out.

They are "employee restrooms" for a reason. Only adults use them. Otherwise they would be labeled "bathrooms"

And maybe you wouldn't notice, but trust me, somebody will. And if they are able, they will leverage it into a kiddie "talking point" aka teasing.

[wpelb]

14. Read the article

If I were the girl's parent I would pull her out of the school if they didn't immediately change their ruling.

The parents did:

The girl's parents, Kathryn and Jeremy Mathis, then took their daughter out of Eagleside to home-school her . . .

[longship]

15. Thanks, low bandwidth here.

I am in the midst of the national forest here. No cable TV; no broadband of any kind; only a bandwidth limited iPhone.

Sorry that I cannot afford to click through to every link. I wish I could.

I much appreciate the correction.

[Posteritatis]

5. Or they could just rescind the ban. (nt)

[Ken Burch]

8. What is WRONG with this school? We're talking about six-year-olds here.

Nobody that age is going to be a peeping tom, and nobody at that age is associating the bathrooms with anything sexual.

What the hell are they afraid of?

[geek tragedy]

9. Probably a lawsuit from transphobic or otherwise uninformed parents. nt

[wpelb]

16. Really?

Nobody that age is going to be a peeping tom, and nobody at that age is associating the bathrooms with anything sexual.

If you believe that, you're a fool. Some five- and six-year-old boys are interested in the differences between themselves and girls. Kids become aware of sexual issues at an early age.

In any case, the kid will not stay six years old forever. The school district appears to be concerned about what bathrooms the child will want to use as he (or she, if you prefer) gets older, and how eight-, nine-, or ten-year-old girls will respond to being partly undressed while in the presence of a person who may self-identify as a girl but has a penis nonetheless.

[Andy Stanton]

11. But what if another little boy

Wants to use the girls bathroom and he doesn't identify himself as transgendered? Perhaps he just feels more comfortable using the girls bathroom. Should the school have the right to treat him differently?

[wpelb]

17. Or obligation to do so?

N/t.

[sgsmith]

12. Another side effect of these bathroom restrictions is to make it harder

to use a bathroom at all.

Employer or school decides that a transgender worker or student can't use the restroom of their presenting gender. Great idea - we'll designate or build a "single use" or "family" restroom that this person will have to use. Only thing is, we can't say it's for their solo use, so anybody can use the single use restroom.

The next thing that happens is someone decides to use the restroom because it's private. Voila - the person who's supposed to be using the single use restroom has NO FUCKING PLACE TO GO!

[azurnoir]

13. wtf she's a girl let her use the girls bathroom

not to mention she's 6 the school should be sued and sued big

[primavera]

18. Maybe the solution is for us all to stop worrying so much about which sign hangs on the door

It's aways struck me as anachronistic and faintly neurotic to have separate bathrooms for men and women. It's a toilet, for god's sake. Who cares who's peeing into it?