A Rebuttal

Earlier today, I read part of an opinion piece by a young lady (Lightcap, 2018) that was part of a lawsuit challenging the rights of transgender students to use the dressing room that aligns with their gender. This was a policy that her local school district had put into place. What struck me was the fundamental mistake that she (and others that object to transgender people in gendered spaces) mad was that she looked at the person in the dressing room and saw nothing but that person’s genitalia. Now, I have to admit to a certain amount of bias here, I am transgender after all, and to a certain degree, I can even understand her discomfort. The thing is though, that person as a transgender individual, knows to the core of their being that they are a male or female confined to the wrong body.

The American Psychological Association (APA) describes being transgender as “persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth” (American Psychological Association, 2018, pp. 1, para 1). That means that the person in her dressing room, regardless of physical makeup, was female. There are numerous professional medical associations that agree that transgender individuals are indeed the gender they (we) claim they are.

The basis of her argument was that having transgender individuals in her dressing room violated her right to privacy. So, let’s look at the concept of privacy as it applies to dressing rooms. You are in a room with a number of other individuals in various states of dress and undress., showering and taking care of various personal needs. How does the concept of privacy even apply to this situation? Is she concerned that the transgender individual may be attracted to her? That is possible; it can also be true of any number of homosexual individuals in the room with her. So, sexual attraction is also not a valid argument.

So, where does that leave us? In any kind of dressing room, there can not be any real expectation of privacy, and as I stated before, the person in the room is in a very real sense, as female as she is, so it’s not a boy in the room, it’s a girl with a penis in the room. And since there are girls (or boys) that like other girls (or boys), even the idea of sexual attraction is not a valid argument. So what about the person being lude or sexually aggressive? Well, that is an entirely different situation, and quite honestly it would be just as wrong if the person that was behaving in that manner was female-bodied.

Now let me tell you about my insecurities. I really want to go back to the gym, I also would love to join a dance group and learn to really dance. I don’t because of fearing just those kinds of reactions. Now, for those that don’t know, I play on a women’s rugby team, and I’m not self-conscious in the least around my teammates or our opponents, but the fear of going into a dressing room and getting that kind of a reaction keeps me from doing either. Put yourself in the shoes of that poor, insecure, teenaged transgender girl that had another girl run screaming from the room because she was in it.

Hugs and Kisses

Vicki

References

American Psychological Association. (2018, November 30). Transgender People, Gender Identity and Gender Expression. Retrieved from American Psychological Association: https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender.aspx

Lightcap, A. (2018, November 29). My high school's transgender bathroom policies violate the privacy of the rest of us. Retrieved from USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/11/29/transgender-bathroom-debate-privacy-school-lawsuit-column/2123946002/