I am not sure how I feel (or how I should feel) about this.

[Statistical]

In the middle of last school year, Lila Perry came out as transgender. Before that, she had been living as a gay male.

But that’s not who she really was. No longer was she going to pretend, Lila said.

So this year, she told teachers and administrators at Hillsboro High School, where she is a senior, that she would no longer be content to use a unisex faculty bathroom. She wanted to be treated like other female students, including access to bathrooms and locker rooms for girls.

Her decision spread quickly through the small Jefferson County school district and, on Monday morning, students at Hillsboro High School walked out in protest. During the walkout, Lila was locked in the principal’s office. She said she and administrators worried about her safety.

...

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/hillsboro-high-students-walk-out-over-transgender-dispute/article_be488fab-d239-5944-9733-32f569dcdc32.html

I try to think of myself as progressive (at least on social issues). Where is the line between the rights of the individual and the rights of everyone else? Is it bigoted for the parents of the (anatomical) girls in the school to not want a transgender student in the same bathroom? I get the idea of gender identity being different than anatomical gender. I guess I am confused as to how this will all play out in the practical sense.

[CBGLuthier]

1. When you consider that girl's restrooms have stalls for their privacy, what is the concern?

Should someone who identifies as female have to spend time in a room with a urinal?
Does anyone really think that some guy would declare himself to be female for the purpose of looking at girls naked?

This isn't some bad 80's movie it is reality.

[TexasProgresive]

2. A friend of mine attended summer classes in France in 1969.

At university all the restroom facilities were unisex. I don't remember how he described the rooms but he said it just wasn't a problem for men or women.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. It really shouldn't be a problem as long

Last edited Fri Sep 4, 2015, 10:10 AM - Edit history (1)

as there is a partition between the toilets and the shower stalls. Why should anyone care about another adult a stall over from them? Where it gets complicated is where children are involved. We like to keep facilities separate for them because they are physically and emotionally immature.

Unisex is fine for college campuses, but not ideal for grade school. This particular kid was already identifying as a male, so the other students will think of her as male, at least for a long time. She should keep using the faculty restroom, I think, for as long as she's going to that school. It seems to be more than the school can handle for her to do anything else.

[noamnety]

4. At the school where I work

We relabeled the bathrooms to masculine and feminine instead of male and female, and there's a checkbox below each - for example, MASCULINE, and below it Male, Female, Human - and the Human box has a big filled in check mark.

Each bathroom - and locker room - has individual stalls, so everyone can have privacy whether they are using the toilet, or changing. I think the presumption is that transitioning students will want to change in the stalls, but even if they don't, other students could change there if they aren't comfortable out in the open.

[Statistical]

5. Those are all good points. Thanks.

Made me think about it from a different perspective.

[JustAnotherGen]

6. Good question

I have no answers - I'm just a quiet supporter of this group.

Someone else mentioned the French model - I've been there much more recently

To me - that's a workable solution. Let's go unisex with stalls that go to the floor. We have a transgender man at my office and if he still feels more comfortable in the ladies room I'm fine with that. It doesn't bother me that he's in the ladies room - but I have had to speak to someone's Director about their female employee's reaction.

[nightscanner59]

7. My shameless radical fairie inside comes out to wave

Chuckle sometimes, sometimes get a bit nauseated with the extremes of gender identity profiling that have gripped, stifled, bugaboo-ed so many... so much... for so long. One of a thousand societally-enforced "norms" I've frankly always thought of as being half-witted sources of more problems than solutions.
My answer to the "is it bigoted" question is yes. It still springs from some undying fear of youth defiance towards gender norms and panders to the superstitious ilk the likes of those lamenting Kim Davis's imprisonment as "religious persecution" when they fail magnanimously to see they are the ones attempting to keep the opposing persecution alive.
Such springs from the same societal norms that have some "men" denying that their systems have anything but testosterone to such extremes it makes ugly mockery of itself.
Frankly, I feel exposure to some nudist culture has a remarkably maturing effect on many youth. I believe our sex-related crime rate in this country would drop exponentially if this was the "norm".

[LostOne4Ever]

8. In my opinion, any time you have to ask is it bigoted...the answer is almost always yes

[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]But lets look at your remarks closer:[/font]

[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left:1em; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius:0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Where is the line between the rights of the individual and the rights of everyone else?

[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]What rights of "everyone else" are being violated?

I am going to guess you mean right to privacy. Tell me, what right to privacy is being lost to this trans girl that has not already been lost to all the cis-girls?

Maybe you mean to be free of being looked at suggestively? Why do you assume this girl will do that? As a cis-male she would be considered homosexual. But ignoring that, what about lesbian girls? Are we going deny them the right to the locker room of their gender because they are gay? No we are not. That would not be right and neither would this.

The right not to have to undress in front of the boys? Well, segregation is not really a right, and it doesn't matter in this case as the person in question is ALSO A GIRL.

So tell me, what right do they have that they are losing?

The main problem with this story is that our society keeps on insisting on this ridiculous notion of gendered bathrooms and locker rooms. Not only are communal restrooms/locker rooms/showering areas cause these situations, but they are also traumatizing to cis-people.

Just thinking back to gym class in high school leaves me shuddering at the extreme shame and embarrassment it caused...and I am asexual. I refused to get naked in front of everyone and showered wearing a towel, and I wasn't the only one who did that.

What they need to do is have co-ed bathrooms and locker rooms with private changing stalls, private showering stalls, and private toilet stalls. Not only would this fix this problem, but also stop putting children through the hell that is the locker room. That would protect all the kids without singling out or excluding anyone.[/font]

[Fearless]

9. Separate but equal is inherently unequal.

She should be allowed to fully associate with the gender she associates with. Everyone uses the same bathroom in my home. I wouldn't make a woman go down the hall because she could be in "danger" in my bathroom. I'd remove anyone from my home that tried to tell someone they couldn't be treated equally. The same should be true of the school.

In short, people need to grow up. We have people dying of hunger in this world and this is what people get riled up about??

Where you poop isn't that big of a deal.