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This week, the Obama administration directed school administrations across the United States to provide suitable facilities (including washrooms and locker rooms) to transgender students, regardless of the gender the student was assigned at birth. The National Association of Secondary School Principals was pleased with the executive order, because, according to its president Michael Allison

The principal’s most important role is to create a climate and culture in which each student feels valued. There are countless reasons we could declare it impractical to address the needs of transgender students. None of those obstacles excuse us from doing the right thing.

Predictably, this has led to outrage amongst conservatives, most notably the Lt.-Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick. His response to the federal decree was, “This will be the beginning of the end of the public school system as we know it.” In his rebuttal to the decree, Patrick acknowledged that Texas would be willing to forgo $10B in federal education funding to fight the executive order.

Why?

Because he doesn’t understand the complexity of the issue, and because people often fear what they don’t understand.

The argument I’ve heard most often is that “if people can use whatever washroom they want, then we’ll have adult men in a public washroom with little girls”, or something to that effect. The notion of neutral washrooms is not new by any stretch (newsflash: you’ve been using one your whole life in any private residence you’ve ever been in), but now that we’re talking about this issue as legislative policy, it seems that large groups of people have some pretty hard opinions about the notion of sharing a washroom with a transgender person.

I have zero personal experience with transgender issues. I am a straight cis woman, and with that comes a certainty in my identity. However, I teach (at least) two transgender students – one in grade 10 and one in grade 12. As far as I know, neither of them has had any hormone treatment (and certainly no surgical treatment), but they were both born biologically female and now identify as male. If I hadn’t read the documentation we have for one of my kids, I wouldn’t have known at all. You know why?

He’s just Oliver*.

Oliver is quiet and very smart. He’s always willing to participate, but he’s got some issues that stem from the complexities of his transition. There are days when he comes in to my classroom and asks if he can go speak to a counselor because of difficulties that he’s having. Other days, he’s very upbeat and enjoys everything that we’re doing.  Do I treat him differently because of it? No, but I am aware that the normal teenage boy things that plague the rest of my male students are either amplified or non-existent for Oliver, because he’s still biologically female. I know what name he was given at birth, but from day 1 in my class, he’s just been Oliver.

I have to admit that I do wonder which washroom he chooses to use, not out of morbid curiosity but out of concern for his well-being. I suppose it doesn’t matter, because at my school we have a gender-neutral washroom for students (and a separate one for staff). Is that why Oliver’s bathroom breaks are a bit longer than most students’? Possibly, but it’s certainly not an issue. What matters is that he’s in an environment where he’s free to express himself in whatever way he sees fit, and there are supports in place for him to feel safe and secure. Whether he uses the gender neutral washroom or not is more or less irrelevant – what matters is that it’s there, so that if he (or any other student) wants or needs to use it, they can.

Oliver (and every other transgender person in the world) deserves to be treated as a human being, regardless of what their physical body expresses. The genitals of a person in the bathroom stall beside you shouldn’t even register as something to be concerned about. Rather than worrying about whether the rights of cisgender people are being suppressed through legislation that allows people to use the washroom they choose, maybe we need to wonder why we’re so afraid of someone who legitimately does not feel like they belong in the body they have. Just like sexuality isn’t a choice, neither is gender identity. People don’t automatically choose the path of most resistance just because they’re “going through a phase”.

Transgender people didn’t start magically existing when Caitlyn Jenner announced the completion of her transition from Bruce. They’ve existed for millenia, we’ve just been too focused on the binary to notice. In the same way we can’t help what race we’re born into, I don’t think we have any say in how we express gender either.

It just happens.

 

*name changed