“A person’s sex (male or female) is an immutable biological reality. In the vast majority of people (including those who later identify as ‘transgender’), it is unambiguously identifiable at birth. There is no rational or compassionate reason to affirm a distorted psychological self-concept that one’s ‘gender identity’ is different from one’s biological sex.
“Neither lawmakers nor counselors, pastors, teachers, nor medical professionals should participate in or reinforce the transgender movement’s lies about sexuality – nor should they be required by the government to support such distortion.”
Those are the executive summary’s closing words of the Family Research Council (FRC) report Understanding and Responding to the Transgender Movement.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is an ally in this endeavor. The ADF emailed school districts nationwide to push a model policy denying equal access for transgender students in December 2014. That policy, if implemented, would prohibit transgender students from using school facilities that correspond with their gender identity. In October 2015, the ADF promulgated their “Student Physical Privacy Policy,” which ostensively advocated the same kind of policy for school facilities. Then in multiple states and local jurisdictions, the ADF packaged a version of the model policy as model legislation which they call the “Student Physical Privacy Act.”
And in North Carolina, we have HB 2, where transgender people are legally relegated to the bathrooms of their birth certificates.
On one level, this is about segregation. In schools with these ADF model policies, the option for transgender students is to use restrooms, such as a single stall nurse’s office restroom, where they’re segregated from others of their gender, or not use any restroom at all. And as for locker rooms … well, if there is no private locker room, there is really nowhere where a transgender student can change or shower. The Student Physical Privacy Policy (model policy) states in part:
1. Notwithstanding any other Board Policy, every public school restroom, locker room, and shower room accessible by multiple persons at the same time shall be designated for use by male persons only or female persons only.
2. In all public schools in this District, restrooms, locker rooms, and showers that are designated for one sex shall be used only by members of that sex; and, no person shall enter a restroom, locker room, or shower that is designated for one sex unless he or she is a member of that sex.
The model policy’s definition of sex reads: “‘Sex’ means an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth. An individual’s original birth certificate may be relied upon as definitive evidence of the individual’s sex.”
HB 2 did this to every government building in North Carolina.
This goes beyond transgender segregation. The anti-transgender antagonists in this circle perceive the transgender body as an existential threat, and the erasure of transgender people is the only solution. Transgender people must be cured, converted, closeted or killed for gender identity – just as lesbians, gays and bisexuals must be for their sexual orientation. Or, maybe just commit suicide instead. Whatever else, LGBT people must never be accommodated.
In FRC Senior Vice-President Rob Schwarzwalder’s op-ed Bruce Jenner: Christianity and Transgenderism Debate, he wrote of Caitlyn Jenner’s transition stating “… we should also remember that Mr. Jenner does not need celebratory photo-shoots. He needs compassion and counsel, as do all who wrestle with confusion over their sexual identity – compassion and counsel that lead them to embrace being the men or women God made them to be.”
This is what the FRC’s, ADF’s, ally organizations, ally politicians and socially conservative Christian message is to trans people: “compassionate” segregation to contain you, with no further help for you but “compassionate” cures, conversion, the closet or death. And, that’s because they believe the transgender movement lies about gender identities.
Are you concerned yet?
The latest crop of laws reversing perceived transgender rights is the latest wave in what will be a much larger backlash toward progressives who are actually authoritarians forcing their brand of dictatorship upon both the straight and members of the conservative lesbian community. The primary responsibility of an elected government is to insure, piece, harmony, and safety for all in the state for which they were elected to lead.
The author has made a half-hearted attempt at appeal to hysteria by implying that there will be transgender blood in the streets simply because the states in question have weighed on the side of caution.
If the population of these states really are in conflict with these new laws they can vote the leadership out, after all we live in a representative republic and surly new leaders will be installed to correct the problem. Nobody’s Constitutional rights were violated in NC, and I challenge anybody to cite a US Supreme Court or NC State Supreme Court decision that goes contrary to the decision made by the NC state leadership. The People of North Carolina have spoken, so have others.
Perhaps it is time for the transgender community to re-learn what my generation knew, which was in the marketplace of ideas force is not an option for getting one’s way.
Liz
A law rushed through by a gerrymandered legislature without public consultation hardly reflects the popular will, does it?
http://www.advocate.com/news/2007/07/04/lesbian-ejected-restroom-being-too-butch
The question is – how much must butches suffer so you can indulge in your Hatred of Trans people?
Your political system is different from ours, with that out of the way I will address the next item you brought.
I do not hate TGs before transitioning in the 80s I was one before the word existed. I don’t support any kind of authoritarianism, which seems to be the core of the modern progressive movement. People have a right to govern themselves. If a community decides it wasn’t want cell towers in their community, they can vote them out. I have no problem with the rights of a community to govern themselves. I live near a community you may not know of called Hillcrest that is where this news magazine originates from.
The community businesses here (largely gay owned) have been using the courts to drive homeless people off the streets, people who have no means of defending their rights (under California law). I don’t see much being done to defend their rights, there are many LBGT homeless who live in the streets of Hillcrest being percicuted by their supposed allies. I am not seeing any opposition to that community self governing.
Zoe;
As I remember right you are not living in the US.
I am just wondering what dog do you have in this fight?
Don’t you have civil rights issues that are closer to home that need attention?
Liz
The model policy’s definition of sex reads: “‘Sex’ means an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth. An individual’s original birth certificate may be relied upon as definitive evidence of the individual’s sex.”
TWIT’S FYI:
SEX is between your LEGS, and GENDER is between your EARS
Do a lot of research as your not even in the ballpark. Check Intersex also.
They have what is an acceptable policy, it does make allowances for those who physically transition. Any Post-Op TS who has her / his documentation in order would be unencumbered by this law. I would also suggest that anybody who is in transition and has appropriate letters from a therapist would also have no problems.
Single occupancy restrooms may be the only reasonable answer after all.
Oh and yes In 2002 I chased a pervert out of the women’s restroom at a mission Valley theater. This person was NOT transgender, didn’t even dress the part, he had no business in the women’s restroom.
As I said before every state has the right to make its own laws.
That is what the 9th and 10th amendments to the US Constitution are all about.
Liz