Tue Mar 05, 2013 at 03:48 PM PST
Insisting transgender students be put at risk
by rserven
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/05/1191739/-Insisting-transgender-students-be-put-at-risk (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/05/1191739/-Insisting-transgender-students-be-put-at-risk)
Good stories. Bad stories. Stories which are a little bit of both.
And then there are stories which are just plain ugly. Often they include nasty commentary by someone from Fox News.
Like Bill O'Reilly.
Recently the Massachusetts Department of Education issued a directive targeting the treatment of transgender students by schools, teachers, school staff, and administrators.
The eleven-page document is entitled Guidance for Massachusetts Public Schools -- Creating a Safe and Supportive School Environment
[...]
Representative Colleen Garry (D-Dracut) and other legislators have met with Educational Commissioner Mitchell Chester seeking to define a student's identity based on anatomical sex rather than gender identity...in contradiction to the law as enacted.
An anatomical male in a locker room could make girls feel uncomfortable and vice versa.
--Garry
Garry has gone so far as to introduce a bill to change the law...that is, to rescind the enactment of equal educational rights for gender-variant students.
Insisting transgender kids be put at risk - Part 2
Wed Mar 06, 2013 at 04:00 PM PST
by rserven
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/06/1192115/-Insisting-transgender-kids-be-put-at-risk-Part-2 (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/06/1192115/-Insisting-transgender-kids-be-put-at-risk-Part-2)
Last evening I published Insisting transgender students be put at risk . At the time, I promised to follow that up with two more stories this evening. The first of those stories concerns an attempt in California aimed at preventing that risk as well as angry people who wish to thwart that effort. The second story concerns a situation in Colorado in which a transgender child actually was made a target by a change of policy in her school district.
In both California and Colorado there are actually legal protections from discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of gender identity. Wouldn't it be cool if people understood that a school is part of the very heart of the definition of "public accommodations."
California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has introduced AB-1266, a bill that would give young people the right to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities consistent of the gender with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the sex listed in in the pupil's records.
The religiously conservative Capitol Resource Institute has promised to fight the legislation. They are fantasizing that they are fighting on behalf of students who might "object to sharing bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms with students of the opposite sex."
I wish people would stop and think before they start freaking out about bathrooms. I really don't understand the logic process that goes through their heads.
1. Every person I've told (that didn't have prior experience with trans people) has immediately assumed that I was gay. So if I'm a MtF and gay by definition because I am trans, then wouldn't you rather I use the women's restroom?
2. When it comes to bathrooms, they automatically assume it has something to do with wanting to see the opposite sex naked. Refer to item 1. If I'm attracted to the same sex, why would that suddenly change when I entered the opposite sex's bathroom?
3. What the heck does sexual orientation have to do with gender? If they really want to put people in bathrooms based on sexual orientation, they should be profiling everybody. Who knows how many gay women are lurking about the women's bathroom checking out the other women. They won't be tempted if they're in the men's room. Hey I know. How bout we just get rid of gender classifications on restrooms and make them all unisex?
O'Reilly is such a dick...