Rare as it may be, we do talk about the rights that should be extended towards the Transgenders and we want to take action in that department just as well. In the spirit of the same struggle to protect the rights of the minorities, the state of California is fighting to get a bill approved which grants the transgender children and adults access to toilets in public places just as are available to the men and women.
The movement towards the protection of the trans people is just as good as any because in the midst of the laws for legalizing gay marriages and giving them the same rights as different-sex couples, the rights of the trans people have been shoved to the sidelines. Do we want to see that change? Reason says yes.
The need for the movement becomes obvious even more so when we start to grasp the seriousness of the challenges that the trans people are exposed to when they feel the need to visit the restroom. A number of the transgender students have been found complaining about the challenges that they face particularly that of being told to find a unisex bathroom to use like in the nurse’s office or the staff’s restroom. The problem is that with the addition of that extra challenge, these students find themselves getting to class late and ultimately facing the consequences for that.
Moving forward, at least one fourth of the transgender adults have been found complaining about being denied access to restrooms in public specifically when the facility in question is gender appropriate. These people have to face problems like harassment and even sometimes physical assault when they make attempts at accessing any such facilities.
In theory, these people are allowed under the law to use the bathrooms of the gender that they would like to make themselves out to be. Practical experience betrays a very wide gap in between the law and the practice and how harsh this gap is, we have seen just now. Believe it or not, there are actually many who are in favor of limiting the trans people from accessing the toilets of either men or of women. Their argument is that with unbiased access granted to these people, the risk of sexual predators targeting the girls and the women are likely to rise.
Answering that argument would not be very difficult to anyone. We could worry about our women and girls being sexually targeted within bathrooms and locker rooms, but all of these people live in the same world, and the risk of a woman being attacked outside of the bathroom would also exist. So is it justified to try and sooth our fears at the expense of the convenience of the people who are already given negligible rights in the society? We can imagine our own child in a situation where his/she is tortured like this for the reason of an identity which is utterly beyond the child’s control.
So just like we have rights to privacy, and we protect that right by denying the trans people access into areas which are very personal to us; reasonably, these people crave for the same privacy. They might also want to be able to take a breath in a space where they are not the subject of constant scrutiny and where they could also feel safe.
It would be hard for us to put our prejudices and personal safety aside to think about another person for a change and maybe even walk a mile in that person’s shoes. The problems that the transgenders face with things the way they do at present are very real and just because they are not complaining does not mean that they are comfortable with us treating them sourly. It would be very noble of us to give them a restroom of their own; without all prejudice. Where there are two, there should be three.
List of References
Crary, D. (2016, May 10). The debate over transgender bathroom access spreads nationwide. Retrieved from Bigstory: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/76a9fed251e843f7b320cc45f5b594a1/debate-over-transgender-bathroom-access-spreads-nationwide
Steinmetz, K. (2015, July 2008). Everything You Need to Know About the Debate Over Transgender People and Bathrooms. Retrieved from Time: http://time.com/3974186/transgender-bathroom-debate/
Thorbecke, C. (2016, May 10). 'Bathroom Bill' Debate Could Be 'Historic Moment' in Transgender Rights. Retrieved from abc news: http://abcnews.go.com/US/bathroom-bill-debate-historic-moment-transgender-rights/story?id=39007129
