Bathrooms, Bathrooms, Bathrooms…

I am tired of the all the hate. If you replace trans students with another protected class you can see the hate that is directed toward the trans community. Instead of fearing trans students in the locker substitute black, or Latino, or Muslim and you can see how bigoted their statements are; instead of “I feel uncomfortable to be in a locker room with a trans student” to “I feel uncomfortable to be in a locker room with a black student” or “I feel uncomfortable to be in a locker room with a Latino student.” None of those would be okay to discriminate against, then why is it okay to discriminate against trans people.

Transgender student's use of locker room causes stir at San Diego high school
Los Angeles Times
By Gary Warth
February 11, 2016

A teenager who was born female and uses the boys' locker room at Rancho Bernardo High School in San Diego has triggered a dispute over a state law that seeks to accommodate transgender students.

A Poway Unified School District board meeting was packed Tuesday night with people raising questions about student rights.

Parent Holly Franz said she learned when the semester resumed three weeks ago that a genetically
female student who identifies as male was changing in the locker room.

Franz said she understood that the district must follow the law, but would like the school to make accommodations for others who may feel awkward because of the situation. She also urged that all students be notified if there is a transgender student using facilities where others change clothes.
Siobhan Garry, 17, a senior at Westview High School in San Diego who started the Change.org petition, had no problem with the idea of creating private changing areas for all students.

"Every student finds changing in the locker room fairly uncomfortable to a certain degree," said Siobhan, a transgender student who identifies as nonbinary, or not exclusively male or female.

And that is the thing, most people don’t like changing in public and creating private spaces for everyone to change is the answer. Look a hospital wards they have curtains around every bed for privacy, schools and gyms can do the same thing. When I went to college at Rochester Institute of Technology in 1974 the showers all had separate stalls because they knew at that time the dorms really accommodate both sexes especially on weekends the dorms were coed.

The LA Times had an editorial about this topic last December,

Editorial Time for transgender rights opponents to give up the fight
Ever since California's law to protect the rights of transgender students went into effect two years ago, opponents have tried to whip up fear and confusion about what they see as the scary new bathroom rules, under which they say that any child of any gender may wander into any old restroom whenever they want. Voters, however, aren't buying it. For the second time, backers of a ballot initiative to overturn the law have failed to gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. It's time they gave up the fight.
[…]
Opponents have argued that the law overrides the wishes of non-transgender students who do not want to use the bathroom or get undressed around members of the opposite sex. They have warned that the law means girls will be exposed to male genitalia against their will, and they say that if men are allowed to intrude into private spaces reserved for women, it opens the way to co-ed restrooms and safety risks. The opponents' proposed initiative — the Personal Privacy Protection Act — would have required people to “use facilities in accordance with their biological sex” in government buildings. Yet even this year, when the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot is the lowest it's been in 40 years, the coalition couldn't muster enough support and missed the deadline for the November 2016 election.

The message, we hope, is that Californians have rejected fear in favor of tolerance for people whose sexuality falls outside traditionally accepted norms. And why shouldn't they? The law covering transgender students has been in place for two years (and L.A. schools have had similar policies for even longer), and there have been few complaints, concerns or reports of misconduct or abuse.

But in South Carolina they haven’t realized that they are wrong.

Transgender male student suspended for using boy's bathroom at Socastee High School
WMBF
By Amy Lipman
February 4, 2016

HORRY COUNTY, SC (WMBF) - A transgender male student said he was suspended from Socastee High School after using the boy’s bathroom.
The student, who wishes to remain anonymous, has known he's identified as a boy and not as a girl most of his life.

When he started transitioning in middle school, female students complained about a boy being in the girl’s bathroom.

The student and his family met with school administrators at Forestbrook Middle School and all decided he should use the boy's bathroom because that would be the most comfortable option for everyone.

For three years, he used the boy's bathroom at Socastee High School. One day in the fall semester, he said a male teacher was walking out of the boy's bathroom when he was headed in.

You got that? He has been using the boy’s room for three years with no problem and it wasn’t until an adult created a problem that he was barred from using the boy’s bathroom.

"He must've looked at his records and saw the sex on his records because that's the only way he could've known,” the student’s mother said.

The next day, the student said administrators called him into the office and told him he could either use the girl's bathroom or go to the nurse’s office.
[…]
Two weeks ago, he left an assembly to use the bathroom and passed teachers along the way. Although a teacher asked him to use the closest bathroom, he said it was dirty and went to the next one. He said the teacher followed him. He used the boy's bathroom. The next day he was suspended from school for a day.

"They did not give me a copy of the write up,” his mother said. “They did not talk to me."

The student is now enrolled in an online school. While he can study and go to the bathroom freely at home, his mom said he's missing out on everything else school offers.

It is only when adults get involved that there are problems with bathrooms