With the diversification of American society, different groups - religious, social, sexual, cultural - are beginning to require and demand different accommodations from public schools and governmental bodies. Recently the Grand Rapids Public Schools had its first request for the use of a different bathroom from a transgendered student, Kitty, who felt unsafe using the facilities provided for girls and boys:
“I’m worried that I’m going to go in [in the men’s bathroom] some day and I’m going to get beat up and they’re not going to have any proof of it,” Kitty stated in a recent interview with News 8.
Michigan does not have any laws requiring schools to provide transgender students requests for separate bathroom or locker room accommodation. Other states, most notably Colorado, have also seen problems like these filter through the legal system. The Grand Rapids Public Schools decided to deal with Kitty’s request by creating a unisex bathroom available for her use, an easy to implement solution. Other public schools have allowed transgendered students to use the bathroom or locker room of their selection, regardless of their physical sex. Some parents and students are uncomfortable with that solution, however, feeling it violates privacy having a person with male genitals in the girls’ bathroom (or vice versa) and that the rights of the few have been given preference over those of the many. This is a hard situation to explain to children who come to grips with their own identities over time and who develop awareness of the world outside themselves slowly. Bullying and social shunning aren't new phenomena in schools (or societies), and while no one wants to see a child suffer, people's ideas about what are proper responses to dealing with difference or identity expression vary. Many of the comments on the TV 8 article express anger over how these problems should be (and are) solved.
A child’s experience in the school can have profound impact over him during the course of his lifetime. Bullying has been a hot topic in schools and in the media lately, but it's not entirely clear whether bullying is on the rise, or whether an obsession with bullying is on the rise. It's also likely that as we encourage people to express what is different about themselves, more conflicts will arise about the appropriateness of various forms of self expression and, again, the rights of the many versus the rights of the few. It would be a step forward if we as a community in Grand Rapids could attempt to get to know each other and our individual and communal problems before we consult a lawyer or file a lawsuit.
good Lord, this BS is just going too far.
ReplyDeleteNo, no it is not. Please educate yourself on gender identity and understand that it is a very real thing before dismissing it as BS.
DeleteOh please. Don't even try to justify this kind of shit. These people are deranged.
DeleteRegardless of how you feel about gender identity, this is a child who feels in danger at school. A unisex bathroom is a good compromise between shrugging this off and building a series of bathrooms for differently identifying individuals.
DeleteThere have been lawsuits over a lot of things others would find ridiculous - religious expression (or lack thereof), food allergies and proscriptions, imaginary gun waving, Heather Has Two Daddies in classroom libraries. With the lack of a commonly held culture, the public schools are becoming a bit of a battleground that parents and teachers will have to be careful to navigate.
ReplyDelete