Posted on
Advocate.com April 06, 2012 07:35:00 PM ET
Pittsburgh Finds Univ. of Pitt's Trans Bathroom Policy "Concerning"
By Neal Broverman
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2012/04/06/Pittsburgh_Finds_Univ_of_Pitts_Trans_Bathroom_Policy_Concerning/Pittsburgh city officials aren't pleased with the University of Pittsburgh's new articulated policy on the use of bathrooms by transgender students and staff, which states they must use the bathroom for the gender on their birth certificate.
Charles Morrison, director of the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, called the university's transgender policy "very concerning." University spokesman Robert Hill says the policy isn't a change, just an articulation of a long-standing practice regarding restrooms.
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University Of Pittsburgh Imposes Anti-Trans Bathroom Policy
By Zack Ford on Apr 6, 2012 at 3:05 pm
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/04/06/459541/university-of-pittsburgh-imposes-anti-trans-bathroom-policy/Higher education has increasingly become an environment where resources like gender-neutral housing, campus maps of gender-neutral bathrooms, and "safe space" training programs allow young people to explore their gender and sexuality in safe and healthy ways. The University of Pittsburgh, however, took a defiant step in the opposite direction, dictating last month that transgender students could only use bathrooms and lockerrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate, as explained recently by university spokesperson Robert Hill:
HILL: As this [policy] applies to use of facilities, a female who identifies as a male, or a male who identifies as a female, may use restrooms or locker rooms of his or her declared gender identity after he or she has obtained a birth certificate designating the declared gender. This practice applies to student athletes as well.
The only way that most states — including Pennsylvania — allow for birth certificate changes is if individuals undergo sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), a costly life-changing procedure that many trans people never intend to pursue. Some states do not offer new or amended birth certificates under any circumstance. And as Pitt junior Alice Haas has pointed out in her outspoken opposition to the policy, SRS amounts to "forced castration" because it results in sterility. For the university to impose such expectations to safely use campus facilities is flagrantly offensive.
