What's interesting about the debate is this obvious fear for children, and the idea that they will be in danger if the opposite sex is allowed into the bathroom (particularly for little girls, of course). While the wise course of action seems to be to stay out of the fray, whenever children are involved in a topic, I have a really hard time keeping my mouth shut. Besides, I think I can show you something that will make just about anybody see this issue a bit more clearly. Take a few moments to read and/or watch this.
It's the story of a child named Ryland, who was born a girl but, as soon as she could talk, insisted she was a boy. After you read the story and watch the video, I want you to imagine that Ryland is your child. Imagine what it would be like for a child like Ryland to go to school and to be forced to use the girl's bathroom, because that is the sex listed on their birth certificate, when every fiber of that child's being knows that isn't who they are.
This is not just a trend. Ryland, and many children like Ryland, begin life this way, without knowing anything about the term "transgender." It is not a case of "being a tomboy," nor is it something that is "just a phase they'll grow out of." Attempts to force a child like this to be the "right" gender is to do serious psychological damage, because that is messing with who they are as a person.
This is also not new. Quite likely, there have been transgender people almost since there have been people; either their culture embraced it, or they hid it very well, because they understood that their culture would not accept them as they truly were.
That is one of the real issues here: accepting people as they are. As human beings, we want to categorize and label everything; it's natural, and it helps us...most of the time. When it comes to people, though, it generally isn't helpful, because people are lazy, and we tend to overgeneralize and over-exaggerate. Furthermore, people really fear what they aren't familiar with (which is another useful survival instinct, in most cases).
Unfortunately, for most of history, transgender people have been well-hidden, so your average Joe/Jill wasn't familiar with any. Of course, when they did hear about a transgender person, they didn't fit the standard categories most people apply to people, so they were scary. They were also almost always adults, because transgender children, much like women, are oppressed culturally, so their differences were not noted until they were adults, and able to express themselves "freely." This is why, in most of these debates, people who are flipped out about transgender people in the bathrooms are assuming they are adults, and they are assuming they are "perverts." Let me ask you: Does Ryland seem like a pervert to you? Do you think that Ryland will be a pervert when she grows up? Transgender people are all around us, and they always have been. When necessary, they've used the bathroom of the sex they identify with, because that is how they appear to the rest of us. In fact, if they used the bathroom that matched with their genitals, that's what would cause an uproar.
I am a woman, and I am the mother of a 13 year old girl and a 10 year old boy; of all the things I fear for myself and my children, a transgender person being in a public bathroom with me, or them, isn't even in the top 1,000 list. Statistically speaking, of the roughly 293,000 sexual assaults that happen each year, four out of five are committed by someone known to the victim, and 47% of rapists are friends or acquaintances. There are actually zero incidents of sexual assault by a transgender people. Zero. All these bathroom bills are doing is creating fear where none should exist, and oppressing another portion of people.
If you're going to get angry about something, be angry that victims of sexual assault are usually blamed for it, and usually feel that it is their fault, because that's what their culture teaches them. Be angry about the fact that perpetrators of sexual assault are rarely punished. Be angry that we live in a world that continues to oppress people, because it's easier to be afraid than it is to take the time to understand one another.
“Until we are all free, we are none of us free. ”
― Emma Lazarus
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