The Policy Sucks

For trans people life is hard in so many ways.

Woman alleges transgender man treated insensitively at Doorstep clothing bank
Nonprofit says it has exceptions to policy for transgender people
The Topeka Capital-Journal
By Megan Hart
Posted: August 16, 2015

As the general public becomes more aware of gender identity issues, questions about how to work with transgender people sensitively are coming up in new places, such as nonprofits.

Kimberly Usher, who gets clothing from Doorstep, contacted The Topeka Capital-Journal after she said a transgender man in front of her at the clothing bank was told he would have to take women’s clothing. The man took the clothes and ran out, she said.

“I think that’s really wrong, because it’s donated stuff,” she said. “As a Christian myself, it was sickening.”

Well I think it was wrong to deny him the clothes! He wasn’t even trying them on in the changing room, what is wrong with buying clothes for the opposite gender? If she wasn’t transgender she could have been buying clothes for a friend.

But even more confusing was that the store has a policy for trans shoppers,

Doorstep has a policy that clients take clothes for the appropriate size and gender, Cain said, because of concerns about running out of needed items, particularly when it comes to people who prefer oversized clothing.
[…]
The policy has an exception, however, if a client tells a volunteer that he or she is transgender, Cain said.

Some of their frequent clients are transgender, and volunteers take them to the clothing room of the gender they identify with, she said.

“Had this lady even pulled our volunteer coordinator aside and said ‘I’m transgender, I dress as a male,’ we make exceptions for that,” she said.

Yes but… for many trans people there is a lot of stress in buying clothes and to having to out yourself to buy clothes isn’t right either.