By now, everyone's heard of it. Obama's recent directive explaining the application of Title IX to transgender students has created a hurricane of media attention. The letter, dated May 13, had been discussed by just about everyone in the course of less than a week. The maelstrom of news coverage isn't wholly unprecedented; there's a long history of publicizing trans-related stories for shock value.
What I'm saying is: I get it. You're sick of hearing about it.
But you need to stay tuned in, and in particular, to consider the lives of transgender students. I've heard people refer to the issue as one revolving around "bathroom privileges." That misses the heart of the problem entirely. We're not accustomed to thinking much about the bathroom until we need to use it, but it's a fundamental human experience. We all have to pee. If someone told you or your kid that you had to start using the opposite bathroom, you'd feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, and singled out.
Maybe that's why, after North Carolina governor Pat McCrory signed into law anti-LGBT legislation that included regressive bathroom policies, the trans suicide hotline experienced a huge upswing in calls. The trans community already experiences one of the highest rates of mortality and suicide of any demographic, and although many who think being transgender is a mental disorder dismiss those statistics, this illustrates that there's a direct relationship between mental health issues and social rejection- which is not exactly surprising. Research on everything from cyberbullying to race relations has already demonstrated this in spades.
No matter what you think about the existence of trans people, the fact of the matter is, trans students are legally required to be at school, and public schools routinely put them into dangerous situations. A student who identifies as a girl, is treated as a girl, and looks to the general population like a girl is going to have a terrible time in a men's bathroom. That would be true even if the student had been legally female since birth, but for a trans student, the stakes are even higher.
Hate crimes against the LGBT community have always existed, but as the trans community has gained visibility, the murder of trans people, and particularly trans women of color, has been on the rise. In an article about her experience with dating, Raquel Willis recounts how she has been told she is lucky that she is not assaulted when she tells people she is trans.
Despite the media glamorization of Caitlyn Jenner, this is still the reality for many trans people: constant fear, from the dating world to the bathroom, in a society that counts violence against them as routine at best and deserved at worst.
The most common counter is that it's not really about trans people, it's about protecting women from men who will abuse the system in order to gain access to them in vulnerable spaces. This plays into a truly dangerous narrative of sexual assault, where strange men are the predators and unsuspecting women are the prey. But that's a fiction. An overwhelming number of assaults are not committed by strangers, and they generally happen in or near the victim's home. Additionally, the particularly strong concern that many have shared about the possibility of pedophiles victimizing young girls suggests that there's no issue with pedophiles being in the bathroom with young boys. If the problem of pedophiles in bathrooms didn't matter until trans rights were at stake, then perhaps it isn't really about pedophiles at all.
Perhaps the most un-American claim is that gender minorities are a small portion of the population and therefore this shouldn't matter. One of the principles this country was founded on is that the will of the majority should not overrule the rights of the minority. That's why freedom of religion was so important for the first Americans. They knew what persecution was like, and the memory of that oppression led our founders to create a country on the belief that just because something is the prevailing manner of thought doesn't mean those in the minority shouldn't have inalienable rights. And that's also what Title IX has always been about: protecting the vulnerable.
Meanwhile, many have threatened physical harm to any trans people they see in bathrooms. When the Seguin Gazette shared an article on the issue in a Facebook post, for instance, multiple community members responded that they would deal with trans people by force. In statements often rife with Biblical imagery, state leaders have also promised to bring a fight to the government.
"[Obama] says he's going to withhold funding if schools do not allow the policy. In Texas, he can keep his thirty pieces of silver," Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said to the media, which, I suppose, would make the president Judas, the Lone Star State Jesus, and where trans people pee the crucifixion of Christ.
Governor Abbott and other state leaders are prepared to lose vital school funding in order to resist these Title IX protections. That's in a state whose education system is already beleaguered with funding problems. That means potentially cutting free lunch programs, teacher's salaries, or extracurriculars, all in order to defy the directive, an effort that will almost certainly increase the incidence of mental health issues in Texas' trans children; and, if our community members are to be believed, it will increase violence against them as well. This is an issue that begs for your eyes, your voice, and your compassion.
Keep watching.
